There is so much nonsense on the web — and so much news about nonsensical, irrational people — it’s refreshing to find occasional pockets of knowledge and wisdom. I should try to pay more attention to these, and less attention to the entirely predictable torrent of nonsense from the conspiracy theorists and politics in general.
Here’s a site I stumbled upon years ago, and discussed in this post but haven’t kept up with. It’s called Veritasium, which has a Facebook page, a YouTube channel (with 14.1M subscribers!), and its own site Veritasium: An element of truth, run by one Derek Muller Derek Muller, who apparently makes a living making videos on science and engineering topics for these sites. (Presumably through the ads embedded in the videos.) Here’s a sample YouTube video, about entropy.
My problem with watches such videos — this one is 27 minutes long — is that they take too much time. I can absorb more information by reading. Also, to link them to this blog, there’s no transcript I can copy and paste from; I’d have to listen, pause, type, pause, type, and so on. I should try to find a way to watch/listen to these in the background while doing something else (data entry for sfadb, perhaps), so I can link/promote the especially interesting ones.
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Similarly Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Yuval Noah Harari, who both have Facebook channels, and of course other locations around the web.
Tyson is visible through his “Star Talk” channel on Facebook (and no doubt other places around the web), in which he chats with comedian Chuck Nice, who plays the straight guy, asking the kind of obvious questions that an ordinary members of the public might ask. Here’s an example about those who think the Moon landing was faked.
Facebook Reel: There are people who are sure we did not land on the moon
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Harari’s on Facebook is here, which routinely posts videos of interviews and talks before crowds. Here’s my favorite recently, from this past March.
YouTube: Are You a Liberal?
For most of history, most people objected.
