You forgot Technology Connections
Bro I love learning about latent heat of vaporization
Sam O’Nella, the most chaotic of the four no doubt
I’d add 3blue1brown (3b1b) to that mix! Also xkcd’s What If, Minute Physics, and maybe VSauce
Kurzgesagt is cancer
Why?
Lots of missinformation
Do you have resource to support these claims? Like another video or detailed post? I’m willing to learn more about this and I’ve already added a few videos to watch criticizing kurzgesagt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCuy1DaQzWI&t=3 Kurzgesagt and the climate greenwashing
Thanks :)
Two from a Polish channel (but in English): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCuy1DaQzWI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGfBV4I8DQI
Thanks, that’s really informative
I don’t watch them since I can’t stand the obvious simplistically vomited neolib garbage but you can check out where they get their money.
Ahoy.
People in this thread who dislike CGP Grey because of one bad traffic video.
Doesn’t he also have a video that’s throating the idea of the British monarchy cuz the tourism?
I mean as far as Americans go he’s about as good as you’re gonna get
I miss Mike Rugnetta’s PBS Idea Channel so much, and it absolutely would have belonged on this list, imo.
I want to add NighthawkInLight and Thought Emporium.
There’s a pretty good astronomy channel called SEA
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.
You can tell the Gates-bucks have really leaned them in a neo-liberal slant. It kind of sucks.
It’s not simply the Gates money, but the pivot to pursuing grants by chasing clicks to the exclusion of all else.
They’ve been Mr Beast-ified.
So happy capitalism allows me to experience network decay on the internet.
Oops. Everything is The Learning Channel.
Kurzgesagt when its summarizing research papers is alright, but as soon as anything touches on a social or political issue it’s all “vote with your wallet 🙂”
It has been neoliberal biased for ages. For example this is a 2021 article calling out their neoliberal bias. https://aninjusticemag.com/the-inescapable-neoliberal-bias-behind-kurzgesagt-in-a-nutshell-215eb1e9b70f?gi=9574bf28f4a0
But it has undoubtedly gotten a lot worse recently. That south korea video was abymaly blind and baked in unrealistic capitalist assumptions.
They’re doing the thing where they upload a video and then change the thumbnail and title of the video every few days which I’ve only seen done by all the low effort click bait channels. It’s what finally got me to install the dearrow extension which swaps titles and videos of YouTube videos to be more informative and less click bait.
I believe this is a YouTube feature that effectively runs A/B tests on your behalf. You give it multiple titles and thumbnails and it’ll gauge engagement with each and then use the one that was most popular. I hate it.
Every other week I learn something about YouTube that makes me sad
Damn YouTube is such a shitty platform
A lot of channels do this, you might’ve just not noticed.
Their early videos were very well researched and put together. At a certain point, they became a lot of “What is the purpose of dust? I guess we’ll never know. Isn’t the universe a mysterious place?”
Yeah they’re kinda bullshit.
SpaceTime and 3Blue1Brown are good science educators for the college level.
Veritasium is good for the middle/high school level.
Kurzgesagt is probably useful for an infant. Or like a smart dog. Maybe an Australian shepherd.
Garbage channel.
What exactly is bullshit?
If this is meant to be a tongue in cheek comment on their video titles, then you deserve a dramatic slow clap.
Their videos about the climate catastrophe are paid by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
A lot more than those. It’s usually the ones that say Big Pharma saved the world and will do it again or that things are great actually
Ah, yes. Their “We found space whales on Nimbus!” video (about speculative Zoology of alien worlds), which was later titled “What actual aliens might look like” was something I could excuse. I don’t consider claiming the impossible click-bait, but seeing the controversy, it was best they changed it.
However, what I really hated was their ad for a “strange matter” vile/necklace (i forgor), not because they lied about it containing reality destroying elements, but because they did the “buy now because they’ll never come back” trick. I consider manipulative sales tactics to be a greater sin than clickbait.
They seem to be trying to copy xkcd’s video format with the fantasy tier what if questions answered seriously. Seems out of place to me, not sure what Gates Foundation gets out of fluff pieces like figuring out what banana rain would do to the planet while getting the terminal velocity of a banana wrong right off the bat too. What a shit video.
I stopped watching them several years ago. I can’t say it was a specific video or event, but I just started zoning out when trying to watch them. I don’t do that much, I generally only watch, play, listen to and do things I can focus on. I’ve tried to watch some videos since then but I just lose interest after a minute or two. It’s like they refined their style so much that it all became too “samey” and it feels like they’re so scared of offending anyone that they end up saying nothing.
A lot of their political and historical videos are propaganda
Such as?
Not going to give them views, but find any modern history video especially if it’s from a designated enemy nation by the US State Dept
Oh you were talking about oversimplified… I thought you meant kurzegesagt and was very confused. They don’t do any history, well with a focus on it at least.
the one that talks shit on so-called third parties is basically all conjecture and poorly interpreted academics.
Dang, I’m surprised to see how many folks are down on Kurtzgesakt in the comments here! Bummer!
They might not be perfect, ya’ll, but at least they encourage open thought and critical thinking! Better than a lot of other media can say these days! 🙂
But they don’t encourage open thought and critical thinking. They basically tell you what to think.
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.
It’s honestly the fate of most edutainment videos.
Eventually they run out of cool stuff to educate people on, so they pivot to hypotheticals.
How in the actual hell is technology connections not on that list and also why have I not seen it in any of the comments yet
Through the magic of buying two of them, you have someone who agrees that it should be on the list.
here to rep “through the magic of having a broken one…!”
Through the magic of latent heat we have 4 likes for every unit of person
“Through the magic of heat pumps…”
This list is basically the tippy toppy fresh snow that’s fallen on the iceberg.
Technology connection comes a little lower.
Sam O’Nella was awesome, but his current release schedule leaves much to be desired.
Top tier YouTube channel!!
+Practical Engineering
+Real Engineering +Technology Connections +EngineerGuy +Explosions&Fire +NurdRage +NileRed (more entertainment than education nowadays but his old videos are pretty information dense) +Chris Boden +MinutePhysics/MinuteEarth/MinuteFood +LegalEagle +Engineering Explained +Wendover Productions / Half as Interesting
I got tons more but my legs are starting to fall asleep.
+3blue1brown, if you need more pain.
What is pain with nice-looking graphics tho
+ElectroBoom, if you want to see grown adult play with electricity
He still crackles me up
+Chill Dude Explains needs a shoutout in general here. Fits in neatly between CGP Grey and Sam O’Nella I feel.
+ComboClass +FloatHeadPhysics +Stand-up Maths +Tor’s Cabinet of Curiosities +Oceanliner Designs +Plainly Difficult +ColdFusion +BobbyBroccoli +Unsolicited Advice +Horses +Hochelaga +Inspiraggio +Art Deco +Kyle Hill
I could add more but I use ReVanced and I misplaced my subscriptions page
+styropyro +benn jordan +chubbyemu +hemereview +creganford +esoterica +religion for breakfast +dark science +philosophy tube +wisecrack +gutsick gibbon +metta beshay +Hamilton Morris +PBS eons +sage the bad naturalist +Steve mould +talon fitness +the poopie show +thought emporium +useful charts +weird explorer +writing with andrew
+AlphaPhoenix +Applied Science +Breaking Taps +ProjectsInFlight +suckerpinch
You mean Photonic Induction
Technology connections is so good. I watched a video and wanted to share it but peoples response was always “I’m not fucking watching an hour video on how a dishwasher works” I say but thats the shorten version
If you want to learn a bit about machining while also dealing with maximum dad humor: This Old Tony
He spends WAY too long on parting sections of his stock. /s
Wendover has gotten strange. Their Maldives video was just the same 10 minutes regurgitated over 30.
The ones I know are good, I’ll be back to check the rest…
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I learnered about some interesting looking channels from this thread so I’ll pay it forward and share some that I like.
2 and 20
Angela Collier
Bobby Broccoli
Climate Town
Computerphile
Defunctland
fern
Folding Ideas
JimmyTheGiant
KnowledgeHusk
Lextorias
Not Just Bikes
Odd Compass
Ordinary Things
PBS Space Time
slow start
Suibhne
Thought Slime
Tom Nicholas
3Blue1Brown?
Yeah that’s a great one! I intentionally didn’t mention channels that I saw others had already listed.
Angela Collier…I also have my fair share of physics classes under my belt due to my engineering degree and she makes me think of things in a way that none of my professors did.
She’s brilliant.
The “magnetic forces do no work” thing is maddening.
The guy who is ‘the guy’ for that level of physics textbooks just happens to be determined to prove a non-quantum mechanics based explanation of magnetism so the book is written from that perspective without actually saying it. Of course.
Unlearning economics is pretty good too
You should probably note what they focus on so people know.
Kurgesatz was really good before they started the black mirror season, where every video is about how humanity can get killed by various things.
Never heard of the other ones but I’ll give it a try.
And there’s a PBS video for anything you can think about, sometimes they just don’t surface properly with search.
They’re honest, direct, open, and willing to learn, I love kurzgesagt. The world sucks, but we shouldn’t shy away from understanding why it sucks and how we can improve it
I am big fan of their prepandemic work. But if you can get past their click bait videos, I think they still do good content.
Science pieces spreading awareness about something are their best videos.
This recent video on fentanyl was very good.
The south korea one, the vaping and weed ones. Very good at condensing complicated topic while still retaining pertinent information that’s new and not patronizing.
It was very pro heroin
For real though! What a weird watch 😂
In a way it was a breath of fresh a air to hear the high honestly described in a way that makes it understandable why people would want to do it again, but also how it will never, ever be as good as the first time, and will ruin your life.
Only if you didn’t pay attention.
I just showed their Fentanyl video to my 13yo daughter over the weekend and it was incredibly effective as a parenting tool. We paused many times and discussed. But their presentation didn’t leave all that much for me to say.
Shout out to PBS Space Time
For physics enthusiasts, I’d also suggest “floatheadphysics” for his depictions and sometimes cathartic presentation style. I love how he broke down special relativity in an easily understood way.
Then I’ve also really been enjoying “For The Love of Physics” for his style of showing some of the math. His style is more of a classroom presentation, but in a way that reminds me of my most effective professors that made their lessons as easy to consume as mac and cheese.
I’m inclined to hit some online courses someday, too, but, for now, these have been great for conceptual stuff and my curiosity vs. time balance.
I love watching Spacetime, but also feel like dum-dum-brain after watch. Me no think good enough to watch this show.
I feel like the more you watch the more watchable it is cause you get more and more context
They’re definitely building on each other, but they’re definitely ELIApplyingForMyDocotrate degree.
Yeah I think it’s a quality channel but apparently there are just SO many people out there smarter than me that they are fine catering only to them. It sucks being left behind by a publicly funded channel :(
I’m actually thankful. It’s good to know a little about the bleeding edge of science, and there presumably are people who really do understand it. The fact that I don’t, means that there are smart, passionate people out there doing the work. Not every show needs to cater to the lowest common denominator.
PBS Eons is also pretty good, if you’re into paleontology.
That shit’s my jam.
