rough draft half script

http://tinyurl.com/6pk29p

here's last semester's video. critiques?

here's the new script. critiques?

Every once in a while an idea happens upon me. This idea gives me the giggles and I think to myself, “Self, I think I’d like to tell this to the internets” and thus spawned my most recent project, A Brief History of Philosophy.

Before I get started a quick word to the nitwits out there who digitally induce a geek-gasm every time they find someone on the internet they disagree with . . . go away. I’m quite aware that this video is already in the style of Zero Punctuation. These videos are homage to Yahtzee for pioneering a provocative and effective, if at sometimes disagreeable, way to make sure the aforementioned nitwits know who they are. Thank you. Now, on to Philosophy.

Philosophy starts out like this: In the beginning there was Plato. And according to a great deal of philosophers I could stop right there. Now, I know what some of you are thinking “Plato lived in the late 4th Century B.C. Weren’t there philosophers in . . . oh . . . say . . . China, Babylon, Persia, Canaan, and Egypt 1,000 years before Plato, thriving, doing math, philosophy and making fireworks?” First I’ll give you my answer . . . “yes”. Now I’ll give you philosophy’s answer, [Slide of character being shot in the head].

This is the west! and in the west talk like the west [slide of cowboy character. voice bubble “y’all”] we dress like the west [slide of in royal garb http://tinyurl.com/6d73f9], and darn it all we think like the west [slide of Plato character thinking]. So if you want to study chinese philosophy you can apply the University of Utah WE won’t give a damn. Now, back to the west [slide character stroking a map of the U.S.] thaaaat’s better.

Where was i? [slide of character scratching head and reading list] ah yes Plato. It is no secret that that giant among the Greeks set the stage for nearly all of the philosophical work that was to follow.

(Here I would like to explain Plato’s philosophy in brief but I have concerns about time with my 3-5 minute limit. I also don’t want this to be a video ABOUT Plato)

It’s only fair to say that Plato was part of a tripartite Greek philosophy machine [slide identical Plato characters labeled Socrates and Aristotle. consider cyborg looking characters]. There were even greek philosophers before them! [slide timeline with a mass of more identical plato characters labeled presocratics] but Plato made sure that we wouldn’t find out much about them [slide Plato with a Hitler mustache or swastika putting books labeled “presocratics” in bonfire/oven. need to be sensitive without compromising the point].

Then Plato experienced something that all great philosophers except Socrates fear, The Dead [every time “The Dead” is mentioned show black slide w/ skull and cross bones]. And after Plato caught a rather paralyzing case of The Dead, a host suitably obscure Greek and Roman wannabes tried to answer all of Plato’s questions, or assumed he was right in his answers. philosophy has only recently ridded itself of that stigma.

So for nearly 2000 years Philosophy didn’t move a whole lot [Slide of character sitting and drooling] then [comatose character turns his head] came the Moderns.

Moderns can be divi’d up into two categories, the European Rationalists and the British Empiricists. The rationalists looked like this http://tinyurl.com/cqsltz and this http://tinyurl.com/co8ved and [slide of character disgusted caption reading “make it stop”] they almost deserved it. Descartes was the first of these guys. He had a bunch of famous one liners [slide descartes character speech bubble “i think therefore i am” ever heard of if?] and is largely responsible for the pain that you get in your eyebrows when someone who is smart enough for their own good but not anybody else’s says to you, “how do you know that?”. You see, Descartes made it his priority to to show/prove that God exists [slide that says where are you going with this]. his strategy was assume that his body didn’t exist and that he was actually just a brain in a vat being stimulated [slide of character stroking brain over candle lit dinner] to merely believe that he was real. Why did he assume this? well that’s what happens when you keep asking yourself “how do you know that.” anyway he tried from here to prove that God exists and well . . . we’re all still pretty confused about that.