Maybe not that interesting for everyone here, but I found no better community for this.
And of course, the video was preempted by an AI slop ad of a talking monkey wearing a neck brace.
Use Firefox + uBlock Origin on desktop and on mobile. Only watch YouTube via Firefox. Never see these bullshit ads again.
Currently adblocking is winning the war of the technical evolution of control vs. resistance.
Shoutout to Revanced patcher if you’d like an app equivalent with the same level of customization
And VacuumTube for an app like experience on HTPC’s, linux based set top boxes, as well as MacOS and windows or linux based tablets.
Edit: added hyperlink to projects github page.
Their quality going down is probably what’s killing their channel. Every video is a merch ad, and the occasional shilling for the fossil fuel industry probably doesn’t help any.
These things are to be expected when you get bought by private equity, but let’s not be dishonest and say it’s all AI slop that’s killing them.
When did they shill for fossil fuel? Not saying it didn’t happen, just wondering
They accepted, and continue to accept a great amount of money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That foundation owns over $11 billion in investments in the fossil fuel industry, including coal-burning utility companies.
In return, there were quite a few videos that Kurzgesagt admits were funded directly by the Foundation, that exaggerate the positive influence corporations owned by the foundation have had. Videos which the CEO of Kurzgesagt has admitted they probably would not have made if the Foundation had not paid for them.
That’s really embarrassing that we as a community have chosen, of all possible creators, to deride Kurzgesagt for taking money from The Gates Foundation. It’s 0.05% of their holdings. ZERO POINT ZERO FIVE. Which, by the way, is down from 6% in the past after public concern — yes, a whopping 6%. Scourge of the earth, locked out of heaven: The Gates Foundation. Those computer nerds strike again. And we choose to punish a great content contributor for that. Shameful display of purity politics.
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The problem is when the contributors influence what the videos say, in contradiction to data.
Kurzgesagt’s video on +2° / +3° / +4° over the global mean isn’t going to be so bad video was conspicuous to me, and is in fact, based on fossil-fuel industry rhetoric, rather than climatology estimations (which tell us over +1.5° is going to fuck us, and is).
That’s a pretty dishonest take from that video honestly.
Feel free to explain it in better terms. TBH, I watched the first half and quit in disgust.
“I’m going to watch half the movie then complain about it not making sense and having a bad ending”
They accepted, and continue to accept a great amount of money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
It’s interesting how any false narrative starts with a granule of truth.
Kurzgesagt was indeed provided $570,000 in 2015. That money was paid out across the following four years.
They have not continued to accept any amount of money from the Gates foundation.
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Sorry, I didn’t think the word ‘continued’ would have needed underlining for anyone that could read what I wrote.
Using a piece of factual information to prop up false information within the same sentence is how false narratives take hold.
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These things are to be expected when you get bought by private equity,
Excuse me, what?
They are owned by private equity? It’s pretty common these days for the more popular YT channels. Veritasium, Astrum, Fireship, fern., and Hoog are some other examples. Basically, if it’s a popular YT channel, it’s either owned by PE, in negotiations to be acquired by PE, or pursued by a PE firm in the hopes that they can acquire it. Private equity is accelerating their acquisitions, actually, and they want to control everything that captures the attention of viewers.
Here’s a video that talks about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ-rRXWhElI
No wonder veritasium has felt “off” for me for a good while as well. A few years ago I deliberately stopped watching that channel, seems there was a deeper reason behind my superficial reasons and gut feelings
The content is higher-quality, more like a TV production. But it’s still pretty solid. Good analogies and intuitive explanations.
Do you have actual evidence for Kurzgesagt being among PE-owned channels, or are you just extrapolating? Because the video you linked doesn’t mention them, and a quick search didn’t turn up anything about that.
if most of your money comes from billionaires and you admit to making propaganda videos for them, you’re owned by private equity. it doesn’t matter how much you or they argue about how that isn’t technically true because it’s not officially on paper.
Like it or not, words have meaning, and black and white thinking is comfortable, but doesn’t help anyone. There is still a massive difference between the gates foundation having a 0.5% stake in Kurzgesagt and them being “owned” by PE, and pretending otherwise just means you’re not actually interested in any kind of productive discussion.
There’s an incredible amount of money in those offers. Years ago Linus Tech Tips got an offer of 100m, so I get why people take the money.
I mean, I would probably sell the channel myself. That’s a lifechanging amount of money. I would buy some land deep in the backcountry, build a little walled village, and invite my family and friends to come live there. Grow our own food, set up some solar panels and wind turbines, buy up plenty of guns and ammo, and see if we couldn’t hunker down and live out the ever more likely downfall of the American economy in relative peace.
So basically you would turn yourself in a mini-me version of Zuckenberg, Musk and Bezos. Given this consideration I would reassess my life priorities if I were you
the priority would be the lives of my friends and family. that is a priority that will not change as long as I draw breath, no matter what anyone thinks.
Well, if the societal structure falls there won’t be anything left to provide for your friends and family and you’ll be left to eat each other in your compound as will the billionaires using their fortunes to build survival bunkers. If that’s the way you wanna go, with the leg of your mother as dinner, be my guest. If you, on the other hand, want to have a positive impact on the whole process helping stop this social decline there are much better ways to use your hypothetical money. It’s up to you to decide, greed over cooperation or the other way around?
This whole video felt like an advertisement to me. I’d already seen it twice, was it necessary to crosspost it again? You could at least have waited a couple of weeks before reposting the same content.
Kurzgezagt is a slop channel too you know.
Tell me you live in an internet echo chamber without directly saying it…
If echo chamber means I can criticize your gurus, then so be it
Eww Bad Empanada? That guy is unreasonably gross.
Reasons ? Oh wait you hate him. Me too but that doesn’t mean his points are invalid.
I mean, you’re petroleum industry apologists, so for a change I’m not that broken up.
🚨 🚨 PURITY TEST INCOMING! 🚨 🚨
I feel like propping up the industry primarily responsible for one of the largest (if not the largest) crises in human history is an appropriate place to draw a line.
