Truly delightful
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They're pretty okay for shallow understanding on a subject, but Wendover (not on the list), Economics Explained (not on the list), and CGP gray all get stuff pretty wrong once you get past shallow depth. I know because I'm a huge transit/urbanism nerd. If these channels haven't wronged you in some minor way, they just haven't talked about something you're a subject matter expert in yet. The point here isn't that they're bad, just understand that these are shallow explainers, the next step in from like a news article, Wikipedia, or a blog, and take them with a grain of salt.
My personal list is Kurzgesagt, XKCD explained, and The Action Lab.
Wendover is pretty bad and finding out they take essentially bribes in the form of free stays and travel from an amusement park to say only nice things a little them after the park had an accident that killed a kid makes it so it's pretty obvious it's not about being good content for us but for the people making it. Likely tax write-offs and funny accounting all over their channels.
They state that they aren't for education but entertainment and thus don't have a to cite sources either.
Yeah they aren't a trustworthy source is my point. -
I'd like to submit
SmarterEveryDay (Highly suggest this video of the James Webb Telescope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu97IiO_yDI )
Honorable mention (because 'retired') Tom Scott
And because it's a good channel Dad How Do I?
I liked smarter every day but recently I have been kinda put off because of his fairly frequent military propaganda for USA's military.
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Dr. Roy Casagranda gives amazing lectures on history in general, especially political history and the history of the middle east.
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They're pretty okay for shallow understanding on a subject, but Wendover (not on the list), Economics Explained (not on the list), and CGP gray all get stuff pretty wrong once you get past shallow depth. I know because I'm a huge transit/urbanism nerd. If these channels haven't wronged you in some minor way, they just haven't talked about something you're a subject matter expert in yet. The point here isn't that they're bad, just understand that these are shallow explainers, the next step in from like a news article, Wikipedia, or a blog, and take them with a grain of salt.
My personal list is Kurzgesagt, XKCD explained, and The Action Lab.
There's not really a way around this, and I think one of the explainer channels actually went into depth about it.
They gave an example of how everyone learns that the earth is a sphere, but once you 'dig deeper' you find it's not actually a sphere because it's elongated at the equator (making it a spheroid.) You can then 'dig even deeper' and find that the earth isn't really a spheroid, it has mountains and all kinds of other inconsistencies that don't matter to most people but can make a difference to an expert.
The real takeaway is that we should not consider ourselves experts, or even significantly more knowledgeable about a subject because we saw a video on one of these channels. They're for entertainment first.
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Seriously, Im really worried about the generations that are learning economics from CGP Grey who is not only not an expert but is frequently wrong.
Wouldn't be any different from previous generations thinking they know something without having experience to back it up.
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I don’t think it’s on purpose. He got his before the vasy majority knew what a shithead Musk is.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]So the only thing determining whether tesla is good or bad in your eyes is the ceo?
They never provided competitive value to customers, even when Musk was taking the left for a ride.
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It's a mix of interesting and meh to me, but if Stand-up Maths got your interest, you might want to take a look at Numberphile as well.
I actually converted from Numberphile to Stand-Up Maths as it's a bit lighter on the maths whilst still being Quite Interesting (tm). Both good channels though!
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vsauce. no, you haven't watched all of his videos. also i think his previously exclusive series is available now.
I love the content he covers, but his presentation style makes it impossible for me to watch. It's just too overly dramatic, and hyperactive for my tastes.
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I liked smarter every day but recently I have been kinda put off because of his fairly frequent military propaganda for USA's military.
Been a while I didn't watch one of his videos, but I remember some US military stuff on there and I thought it was an interesting view from someone I think is smart but clearly doesn't share my political leanings.
Trying to not be in an echo chamber and all.
Important to note that I don't live in the US.
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I actually converted from Numberphile to Stand-Up Maths as it's a bit lighter on the maths whilst still being Quite Interesting (tm). Both good channels though!
Nice! Now that you said that, I actually ran into Stand-Up Maths after a few Numberphile videos, as well, so I totally get it.
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There's not really a way around this, and I think one of the explainer channels actually went into depth about it.
They gave an example of how everyone learns that the earth is a sphere, but once you 'dig deeper' you find it's not actually a sphere because it's elongated at the equator (making it a spheroid.) You can then 'dig even deeper' and find that the earth isn't really a spheroid, it has mountains and all kinds of other inconsistencies that don't matter to most people but can make a difference to an expert.
The real takeaway is that we should not consider ourselves experts, or even significantly more knowledgeable about a subject because we saw a video on one of these channels. They're for entertainment first.
no Wendover the first time I noticed he used the wrong care when talking about EVs, Volt instead of Bolt, and constantly could not get Kansas Town tames correctly. There are more but this is the only one that stuck in my head because it was my wakeup call.
When he got called out for it he said "Its fine and it does not make any difrence to the video, except it was the wrong car
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I stopped watching kurzgesagt after their copium video on global warming where we all hold hands and sing and magically reverse it.
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Like all pop-science I think they're really educational on topics I know nothing about. On topics I do know well, I think: well that's wrong and that's wrong.
PBS spacetime is a good one
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Is it just me or has Kurtzgesakt gotten really weird over the last couple years? Like, their videos seem like they want to be clickbait, but they’re really bad at it.
It's not as good as it used to be, but I still find it comfortable to watch. I like the black hole and space stuff, like what terraforming a planet would look like, but yeah they definitely have some fluff videos. Unfortunately clickbait titles like THE WORLD MAY DIE is just YouTube 101, seems baked into every channel now. Very hard to find a channel that feels organic.
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Anyone here like Folding Ideas? He's done some good stuff about flat earthers, crypto bros, and such.
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I love the content he covers, but his presentation style makes it impossible for me to watch. It's just too overly dramatic, and hyperactive for my tastes.
what? that sounds nothing like how I'd describe his work. is this about his shorts or regular videos?
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2019 Kurzgesagt: "I guess we will fact check, if that's important to you."
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Ever since Tom Nicholas' video criticising Veritasium's channel, and then how Veritasium handled the criticism after in the comment section... I haven't really watched any of Veritasium's video anymore.
I've seen him double down on being very wrong more than once. I find it hard to take him seriously knowing how very wrong he can be without wavering conviction.
If he's wrong when talking about the topics I do know about, what should I assume about his knowledge of topics I'm less familiar on?
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Shout out to PBS Space Time
That shit's my jam.
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what? that sounds nothing like how I'd describe his work. is this about his shorts or regular videos?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I just went back and watched a few to make sure I was remembering correctly. And yep, he's way too hyperactive, over animated, and dramatic for me. I mean, I don't hate his work, but it drives me a little crazy too watch it.
I'm talking about his full videos. I actively refuse to watch anything YouTube shows as a "short".
As a quick example, just watch the way his head and facial expressions zip around at the beginning of this video when he's in front of the white background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHL9GP_B30E
