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so you want to become smart in most of
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the world you're told that it takes 12
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years of school plus 4 years of college
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plus 6 years of graduate school to
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become smart but what you actually
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become is homeless that's not even a
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joke but on the bright side when you
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make a Reddit post about how you can't
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get a job you can do it in perfect
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English if you haven't guessed by the
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title becoming smart is actually very
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easy even if you think your genetics
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make you dumb if you compare yourself to
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every other animal you're actually
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pretty over powered when people like you
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and me say we want to get smarter it
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means a bunch of things we want to learn
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useful skills ideally skills that make
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money we want to be good at solving
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problems hopefully for money we want to
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get better geds and learn difficult
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subjects to make more money and also to
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flex on people and lastly we want to
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sound smart in conversation just enough
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so people respect you but not too much
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to the point where people think you're a
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nerd the problem is most advice on the
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Internet is so vague and philosophical
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that even if it works the only people
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who could actually follow it are Oprah
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and Socrates and if you instead look for
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specific advice that you can actually
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try right now this is what you get eat
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blueberries cuz they brain food drink
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black coffee exercise sleep more take IQ
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tests listen to classical music these
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things sound good but at some point you
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have to you know actually learn stuff
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besides even in the past there have been
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some Geniuses who have spent the whole
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day sitting at a desk desk getting 2 to
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4 hours of sleep a day so what can you
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actually do to get smarter that's not
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just the same six brain hacks from a
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Facebook post copied and pasted from a
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Wiki how article inspired by a quote
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spray painted on a New York Subway wall
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the main thing you need to do is read
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what kind of reading it depends fiction
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is good for learning to read faster and
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it gives you a better vocabulary also if
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you read a lot of dialogue it makes you
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feel like you have friends but most
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people go straight for non-fiction which
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indeed is the key to being able to
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casually drop interesting knowledge in
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conversations for example just by
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reading this book you can come off to
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anyone in conversation as someone who
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knows history the key is to not be
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obnoxious about it crazy how we evolved
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from chimpanzees right well actually
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evolution is nonlinear and several human
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like species inhabited Earth
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simultaneously none of which could even
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be remotely considered as chimpanzees
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while this is considered polite by the
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standards of a YouTube comment section
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in real life saying well actually before
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proving someone wrong will make you
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instantly unlikable change the well to
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an easy and now we're talking let's redo
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that conversation crazy how we evolved
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from chimpanzees right it is crazy right
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you know I was reading the other day and
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apparently humans and
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chimpanzees I always thought we evolved
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from them but I guess we just evolved
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side by side you can be smart while also
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being humble and also sounding like you
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touch grass the key is to teach people
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what you know without making them sound
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dumb this way people will actually learn
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from you which will make them see you as
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smart and respectable now how do you
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find these books it's actually really
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easy you don't have to read the same
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five books everyone tells you to read
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just think of a topic you want to learn
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about like cleaning now Google books
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about cleaning here's one that looks
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good usually these books cost money but
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if your finger slips you might
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accidentally end up on this website and
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you might accidentally search for the
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title of the book and by chance click on
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the first link and oh no accidentally
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downloaded a file and opened it with the
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appropriate ebook viewer well now that
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you have the book you'll also find that
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not only can you pick out interesting
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tidbits to use in conversations but you
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can also learn many useful skills there
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are 10 things you should know before you
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learn a skill one unless you practice
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the skill your brain will think it's
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useless and forget it two you only have
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have to know 20% of the knowledge to
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master 80% of the skill so I guess we
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could just move on this is called the
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learning curve it's a graph of how good
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you get at a skill over time as you can
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see just by practicing a little bit you
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can make a lot of progress in the
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beginning but you have to practice no
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one ever learned how to tie a tie by
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watching how to tie a tie you only learn
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how to tie a tie by watching how to tie
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a tie while tying a tie the same applies
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to reading books only make you smarter
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if you give your brain a reason to
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remember the stuff in the book so once
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you read the chapter on cleaning a
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bedroom go ahead and clean a bedroom
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doesn't even have to be your bedroom
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just clean one and now you'll never
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forget it but let's just imagine that's
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something that you can't practice right
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now like imagine you're reading a book
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about cars and then you see this diagram
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of how to jump start a dead car with a
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good car ideally you'll read about it
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and then go practice it but not everyone
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has two cars lying around to practice on
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but you can still practice it by just
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imagining imagine the moment where
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you'll need to know how to jump start a
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car put yourself in the situation find a
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video and pretend that's your car by
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imagining the whole process from start
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to finish you just convinced your brain
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that you used all that information and
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now you'll remember it meanwhile the
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person who just looked at the diagram
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and tried to memorize it still won't
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know what to do if they ever had to jump
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start a car this is how you get smart
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use everything you learn and if you can
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imagine yourself in the moment where
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it'll be useful this is basically how
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the entire school system works you learn
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a piece of information and because it'll
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be like 15 years before you actually use
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it your teacher creates an imaginary
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situation where that information is
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useful that is a test an exam that has
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questions on that exact piece of
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information and if you get it wrong you
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fail or in South Korea you get prison
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time just kidding that's only if you
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cheat this is usually in enough to make
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your brain at least attempt to remember
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the information the only problem is once
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the test is over your brain says it's
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not useful anymore and you forget it
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some people think repetition or space
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repetition or studying in intervals or
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mind mapping will help them get better
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grades and learn faster but in reality
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doing practice questions will give you
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the most results because they simulate
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the actual situation in which you'll
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need to use what you learned if you
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don't have any practice questions make
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your own and convince yourself that the
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stakes are high like pretend that you're
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hanging off a cliff by one arm and
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someone's there to pull you up but only
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if you can name all the parts of a human
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cell learning information and making it
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seem useful to your brain is all you
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need to get smart and this is why
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textbooks are the S tier format for
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becoming smart as fast as possible
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there's no fluff no handholding no
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distractions just pure information and a
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bunch of practice questions and if you
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can't solve them you have to flip all
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the way to page XXX VV I II in the
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appendix to get help textbooks aren't
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for the Casual learner because it's not
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as fun as watching a YouTube video on
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the topic and forgetting it all an hour
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later but if you're ever up to the
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challenge there is a website you might
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accidentally end up on where you could
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accidentally download free textbooks on
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any subject you want but before you do
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that I'm collecting donations in the
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form of subscribes to fund the next
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video
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[Music]