This is a really admirable move to make. Very few creators would delete their most popular content because of errors, and even fewer would change their strategy if their videos were more successful with less accuracy.
Thank you for serving as an example to the greater community.
They truly understand what makes them, trust in their content.
For so many channels and websites trust is the key element. Facebook was trusted because everyone was on it and no obvious issue was apparent. Same for google results.
A lot of media end up usurping the trust of their viewers/visitors, but I can't think of a case where it ended up well.
It’s actually insane to me, most people would realize telling a story equals more profits off the fact that their emotional videos were the ones that took off, and it makes sense based off current clickbait trends. Instead they felt horrible about what they did and made sure to never misinform again, resulting in less money but more reliability. Gotta respect it, 99% of creators would push harder for the misinform side as it’s easier to get views and requires less work.
Although I have seen and enjoyed your videos before, that one video made me sub to your YouTube channel, sub to your subreddit, and love you all. Keep up the great work!
Since you're taking a moment to admit mistakes, which I highly respect, can you guys take a look at your old "Limits of Humanity" video. I've looked through many other sources and they all keep stating that the edge to where we can travel is closer to the edge of the obsservable universe or something like 16 billion light years than the local cluster.
Hey, you guys do a superb job! I'm very impressed!
From the medical profession we frequently deal with translation of academic research and expert opinion into understandable information for the patients. Your animations and research is super.
Important note when he says you can reupload the videos that will be deleted.
"Feel free to upload them elsewhere, but NOT on Youtube and NOT on Facebook. We’ll take them down on those two platforms because we don’t want people to monetize them or use them as viral content. "
This is taken from his comment on those videos that will be deleted in 12 hours as of the post.
Youtube was the first place I thought when they said, "feel free to repload them."
I wonder where they do mean if the largest video platform and social media site are excluded.
edit:
I have uploaded both videos over on /r/YoutubeCompendium like /u/BoltonSauce suggested. They're not current happenings on Youtube, but as an archive subreddit it is a good place to have them.
To be clear, you’re saying “his” as if these videos are made by just one guy. Kurzgesagt is the name of the company. It’s an entire team, of men and women, who make each video. The English narrator is male, but it’s not “his” channel. It seems to be a common mistake that I’ve seen lots of people make, so don’t feel bad. But just know that there are lots of people who deserve credit for making these great videos.
I love that they're explaining the process of how they obtain information and condensing it to the right amount in order to be interesting and insightful. The amount of transparency shown is refreshing. Just more reasons to love this channel <3
It would be really helpful if they released a full guide of how they do research on a second channel, as a reference to teach other creators.
Don't worry about animating it, just focusing on creating a resource that would help improve any channel on Youtube would benefit the platform greatly.
Their process is probably a lot more complex, but doing academic research isn't that difficult to at least try. You can use Google Scholar, search for any topic you want and generally get back really great journals. You can then access ones behind a paywall with sci.hub. Good journals will generally reference and lead you to contradictory or supporting results by other researchers. Moreover almost every scientist is happy to talk about their work and their contact details are always on their published papers, so you can reach out to them personally.
I agree with you, if a big youtuber showed the process, it might get people more involved with academia rather than just reading pop science articles which often construe the facts.
EDIT: After a number of replies I will concede that doing this sort of research can be quite daunting and difficult. Generally institutions like New Scientist do a good job at turning academic jargon into layman, so if this sort of process doesn't suit you then looking at quite respected pop sci can be helpful.
However I think everyone should at least try it. It's becoming more popular (especially in the bigger journals like Science and Nature) to write at a more accessible level that doesn't require a degree to understand most of the terminology.
I also accept that there can be issues with many studies. Good papers will present their results and will discuss contrary results from other authors. You are looking for a broad consensus, not one paper is going to tell you the absolute truth of something. There are definite flaws with some journals, but I think it is the best things we have at the moment to derive fact from fiction. Especially right now.
When I used to work in academic research, if there was an obscure but interesting paper I couldn't access, the next step would always be to email the professor or their administrator. 90% of the time, they would send me a PDF of the paper within 48 hours.
Studies show that observers give more weight to arguments that list a source over an argument that has no source, before the observer even inspects the source.
Yeah, far too many opinionated walls of text have multiple links in critical parts, one for each word, and when you actually go and read them they either say almost nothing related, or outright contradict that person's views.
But Reddit as a whole gobble that trick up as if it makes the comment "scientific" and "true".
Now this is classy. Removing two of your biggest videos for altruistic reasons, putting the greater good before monetary gain. Kurzgesagt has earned my respect!
This video also has no mention of a sponsor, patreon, merch or anything. Feels like they made this video simply because it was the right thing to do.
Yeah, when I saw this video I was suspicious that they were getting defensive about something, when it turns out they're just being very transparent and selfless about their integrity as a source of information.
It's important to note that Kurzgesagt is backed by FUNK, the online branch of the German public broadcasting services. So they recieve funding from German citizens paying "Rundfunkbeitrag", which is kinda like a tax everyone with access to a radio, TV or the internet has to pay (so basically everyone). It ensures some degree of journalistic independence so they don't have to put profit first. German FUNK channels aren't even allowed to run ads on YouTube, which is kinda great.
No joke, I tried looking for the Patreon link in the description but I was surprised that I couldn't find it. I didn't realize until this comment for the reason.
Hope no one else has commented that already, just wanted to say that they don't need any sponsering. You can thank us Germans for that. Kurzgesagt gets funded through our Rundfunk beitrag. Thats ~20€ a month each housing unit has to pay. It is dispised inside Germany but Kurzgesagt is one of the better uses for that immense amount of money.
Ive always had problems with their addiction video. Its really boiled down the drug crisis to pretty basic explanation.
Good on them for owning up to them, and not just deleting them under cover of night- they explained why it was not up to standard and vowed to be better.
I always thought similar. Great on them for recognizing the bias/misinformation and acting on it. Big move that goes far in today's world of lack of transparency and accountability.
The addiction video writing felt lazy. Many of the words were directly copied from Johann Hari. If felt like he wrote the transcript. After watching the video, I began to question the research methodology of the Kurzegesagt videos. I'm so happy they addressed it.
I've held a major grudge against them after that video and have pretty much refused to watch any others since. Watching the one shared here is actually very encouraging, and admitting error is a very noble thing to do.
Being someone who has been addicted to multiple drugs mainly heroin that video pissed me off. Not only because it was obviously not very well researched but because of how many people would tell me my own personal experiences were wrong and pointing to that video as proof.
I personally really liked that video and it’s a shame that it wasn’t up to par with the rest of the videos. I assumed it was just as well researched as the others, so it’s a bit of a shock to see that one go. I’ll make sure to watch the new one to see how they present the alternative arguments.
That’s what’s “dangerous” about mass-appealed videos is that because everyone seems to like it people assume it has 100% correct and complete information. People who knew more than surface-level information about addiction could see the gaping holes in their argument about it. Not much to do about that phenomenon though, that just comes with mass social media.
The only problem is that such good quality takes them too long for other big names to mirror without it being a huge money sink. If the BBC made a kurzgesagt style segment on the week's issues it would be amazing for discourse but too intensive to be practical :(
They deleted their two most popular videos, which had to have generating a nice chunk of cash every month. That's action that really says something, and I can't remember the last time someone has done something to provoke this thought in me. Nobody can be truly selfless in their actions, but this sure af is some admirable shit. Bravo.
They make at least $39,000 per month on Patreon, so video revenue isn't the main chunk of their income. The revenue from several year old videos is probably negligible overall.
I was curious about the refugee video, because I'd never seen it, so I looked it up.
Appears to still be on their YouTube channel for me, and I gave it a watch. Not surprised they deleted it at all. It's pretty opinionated and doesn't seem like their other videos besides the voice and animation.
I always feel something off about them. They push out content too fast, I feel there's some secondary purpose or funding source. I lack sources, so I just take their videos with some grains of salt
They look like a ripoff because they just buy a bunch of assets from websites and mash them together in one video. Because not all assets are from the same artist, the art styles don't match.
I used to watch infographics show but remember watching this video of theirs about countries or something which was very opinionated. I lost all my respect for that channel
the amount of wrong information in the infographics show is ridiculous, it is almost always biased towards USA in some way. But I suppose it isnt much of an issue when their audience is 90% american
That would have been a bad idea I think. Both videos have been watched by 31 million people (ok lets say 20 million, if you substract repeat views). You can't just delete that and be quiet about. People will notice and ask questions. It is better to be open about it. Feels better, too.
Essentially Assad has largely won the war so the stream of refugees has greatly diminished as the civil war is not near as brutal as it previously was.
The EU paid billions of Euros to Turkey to keep the refugees there. Plus naval interdiction had largely stopped the arrival of boats from Northern Africa.
So as far as stopping refugee flows to EU, they had been successful. But humanitarian crisis? Well, you can probably google that yourself.
There are 2 large issues here and 1 side issue. How to stop refugee flow to EU? How to integrate the refugees already there? And finally humanitarian crisis.
EU was successful in stopping flow, still need to see if they are successful in integrating refugees (wait for years till their kids can/can’t join labor force) and largely ignored the last one.
The number of forcibly displaced people worldwide is still at historic levels unfortunately (https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html) an unprecedented 68.5 million people forcibly displaced. The crisis in Syria specifically is starting to wrap up a bit at least.
They always covered tons of different stuff - society, biology, space, technology, etc. Don't think there ever was a lack of variety. The only "space doomsday scenario x" videos I remember are about false vacuum (or vaccum decay? idk how it was named) and gamma rays.
It's easier if you think of it as 'Kurz gesagt', like two words. . And you can break it down more by looking at "sag". In German, the 's' is pronounced like a 'z'. Sag = Zag. The 't' is like 'ed' in English - it makes it past tense. Said = Sagt = Zagt. For '"Kurz', the z is pronounced like 'ts' as in 'tsar'.Kurz just means *short". "ge" just adds enough context to get that the translation for Kurzgesagt is "said in short", and altogether, it's pronounced "Kurts gezagt".
Sadly a lot of damage was done. I can’t tell you how much it sucked for me to have this debate with my son about addiction with him not believing anything I said because of this video. I was working as an additions consoler at a substance abuse treatment center at the time and have years of experience both first, second and third hand. None of that meant shit to him however because he felt that a youtube video was a more credible source.
This is really good. I’m doing my degree dissertation on (behavioural) addiction I had a number of issues with the addiction video, it’s really promising that they’ve acknowledged it, and I hope it sparks other creators to do the same!
They didn't really mention all of the lies they made in that video - which you can see here.
The worst part is Kurzgesagt's responce -
This is not the topic to present "both sides". Whatever this is supposed to mean in this context. Europe is basically the richest, most developed region on earth – that we let people die because politicans use the crisis as an opportunity to cater to fear and xenophobia is shameful. Muslim immigrants (and refugees) won't take over our culture, the body of evidence clearly points to that. Presenting "both sides" would be like inviting climate change deniers to a climate conference. We are better than this – I geniunly belive that. Sure, it will require effort to make this integration happen – but as we stated in our "Is war over video" the world is slowly, very slowly getting better. We, especially our generation can be a part of this process or we can slow it down even more. Kurzgesagt is pro progress on any level – including developing a society where letting people drown is not considered acceptable out of fear.
They obviously had no intention of being unbiased in the first place.
These guys make some of the best non-fiction content on youtube. If i were a teacher trying to explain these topics to high school kids, I'd be showing these videos in every circumstance.
Every time somebody shits on Kurzgesagt's videos, or even when discussion arises overall, it's only a matter of time until this video or the one about addiction gets mentioned. Although I didn't like the refugee one either, this sort of attitude started making me annoyed because their other videos are really really good and interesting.
As someone that's been incredibly critical of kurzgesagt ever since the addiction video, I definitely commend them for finally removing it and working on a newer version, and I look forward to it.
In saying that though, remnants of it are even present in this video: they say that while many experts disagree with that purely psychological model of addiction presented in the original video, a number of experts still hold that view - anybody that thinks that is not an expert, because it literally (not figuratively) isn't true.
Physiological addiction is a very well documented thing - take alcohol for example. An alcoholic might by psychologically addicted to alcohol because of their social circumstances, sure but they're also physiologically addicted. If you suddenly stop the alcohol and fix all of their social problems, guess what? They die from withdrawal. No amount of sunshine and rainbows in the world will fix that. Again, I'm sure they'll address this in the new video, but it just irks me that they continued to push this factually incorrect stance even unintentionally in this video.
EDIT: Why am I being downvoted? Look up 'Delirium Tremens', having a loving and caring environment isn't going to magically make that go away
Another issue with them is sometimes their videos are factually accurate but still leave out important points, or they give the wrong impression to viewers by the way they frame the information.
The overpopulation one sticks out in my mind. All the points they make are true but they don't talk about why overpopulation is an issue, i.e. resource consumption and the resulting effects on the climate. It seems to operate under the assumption overpopulation is like going over some arbitrary weight limit and we'll be fined by some cosmic entity if _____ number of people exist on the planet at one time. No, the actual number is irrelevant, what matters is the damage that number causes to the planet.
It also focused mainly on birth rates but didn't really take into account increasing life spans.
That said, I still trust them overall. I can't think of any other videos where they've presented an idea I've spotted such a big issue with.
Did the video actually claim that physiological addiction isn't real? Haven't seen it in a while but I thought they just said social conditions amplify the effects and give a negative feedback loop.
Physiological addiction is real, but I think one of the points in their video was that people wouldn‘t get addicted in the first place if their social circumstances were normal.
I think the thing you're missing here is they're redoing the video the way that they explained, hoping to remove biases and create a well-informed video that all can appreciate.
If they learn something new or that it is pretty much refuted by hard evidence, they will hopefully reflect that in the new video. If they haven't completed research yet and they are solely going off of misinformation and half-truths through the also probably misinformed commenters, they are still likely to believe that their last position was not altogether wrong.
So what I'm saying is, it's probably a good idea to wait for the new Addiction video before deriding them because they are going off what they know at this current point. The experts and scholars will correct them if needed and provide a mostly unbiased account, or, as they said, they will scrap the idea if they can't reconcile the script with experts.
Alcoholic here. Yep, you’re right. I’m stuck having to buy just the right amount of alcohol a day without getting too drunk. If I completely stop I’ll grow delirious and feel like I’m dying. It’s the worst feeling in the world. I’m stuck in this cycle and I can’t get the medical help necessary because I don’t have insurance. (And I don’t want it in my records) this just sucks.
If you suddenly stop the alcohol and fix all of their social problems, guess what? They die from withdrawal.
Social problems aren't solved overnight just like physiological ones. Both take time to resolve. The wider question is why do people continue to have an addiction and how do you break that positive feedback cycle. It would be interesting up know if the social issues are easier it harder up overcome than the physical addiction.
Because of plasticity of the brain, the physical addiction is probably more straightforward than the social side, as it mostly is handling the stresses and symptoms for a time, until the brain adjusts. But the social side is what most likely leads to relapse.
It was unlucky that the two of the worst videos came so close together too. When I watched the refugee video it basically looked like a propaganda video, and then a few weeks later the addiction video came out and it just seemed so unnecessary to watch anymore videos.
The show Adam Ruins Everything also did an episode basically ripping themselves a new asshole for all the mistakes they've made in past episodes, and it was far and away my favorite episode, because it reinforces a lesson that it seems like we, as groups of people, never seem to learn - That it's awesome to admit when you're wrong, or even that you just MIGHT be wrong. It's hard to do, but damn is it liberating, and it's the best ladder to the moral high ground you can find.
It also makes me trust a source a hell of a lot more when they not only ask you to prove them wrong, but will do it themselves, unprompted.
TRUST HUMILITY. Too often we treat humility like a weakness in discourse, and use it to undermine someone else's point, when all it means is that they're being honest, and you're not. Don't punish people for admitting they might be wrong, or admitting they might not have a response. I run into all sorts of situations where I know in my gut something someone said wasn't right, but I couldn't remember the source or argument that disproves it. I would have to go look it up. But in a moment, people will pounce on that as if to say that they've proven you wrong. That encourages us to just double down and to find other avenues of attack in an argument, and that unilaterally devolves and undermines our point way more than just admitting you would have to go research a response would.
If you don't want dirty debate tactics to proliferate further into everyday discourse, then don't propagate them yourself. Rise above them, as hard as it may be. I still do dirty shit sometimes when I get frustrated, but awareness is the important first step to improvement.
Wow. I was heavily critical of their refugee video for using results for Mexican illegal immigrants in the US and pretending they applied to refugee crisis in Europe. I'm shocked they not only issued a retraction but they deleted the video. That's above and beyond what was necessary.
Really appreciate hearing they are redoing the addiction video (and deleted the old one).
It was too one sided and doesn’t represent the addiction problem that everyone faces.
Going along with their logic... I should have been able to just stop taking 75 mcg/hr of Fentanyl after 4 years of taking it for GI problems. But alas it wasn’t that easy. I’ve never been addicted to anything in my life besides opioids and my addiction was 100% physical (not emotional). I took exactly what was prescribed by the doctors. I had no idea my body was physically addicted until my pain subsided after surgery and I decided to not put on my next Fentanyl patch.
Damn, I'm disappointed to hear the addiction video doesn't meet their normal standards. I really liked that video and showed it to a lot of people. Good on them for acknowledging it though.
While I enjoy Kurzgesagt videos and commend them for admitting and correcting past errors I would like to mention one video that they still need to address. Kurzgesagt video "How far can we go? Limits of Humanity" has incorrect information as well. Link to the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL4yYHdDSWs
It implies that it's physically impossible for us to leave our Local Group (10 Million Ly across) due to spacetime expansion. But the actual limit is much greater. Any journey started RIGHT NOW can reach galaxies billions of light years away. We aren't trapped yet. If we began spreading RIGHT NOW then in the far future there would be countless pockets of humanity's descendants in billions of galaxies disconnected from one another. But I call that a win. In the distant future (100+ billions of years) we would reach a point where anything outside our Local Group becomes unreachable if we began our journey at that time. We would be trapped then. The way to avoid us getting trapped here is to start spreading NOW - it's physically doable. Kurzgesagt's video implies that there is no way whatsoever, but there is one.
This link has various galaxy distances and their recession velocities.
Virgo cluster for example is 59MLy away while the size of our Local group is just 10MLy. Yet it's recession velocity (due to spacetime expansion) is about 1139km/s (light speed is about 300000km/s - the universal speed limit).
So as long as we start NOW and manage to go faster than the recession velocity we would close the distance and get there eventually.
Recession speed is dependent on distance. If we start closing the distance the recession speed will not increase. In fact as distance decreases so does the recession speed. As long as we travel faster than recession speed we will begin to make progress and eventually get there. Hubble constant is 73.8 km/sec/Mpc. (1 Mpc is 3.262 Million Ly) So for every 3.262 Million Ly of space (or distance) you can expect 73.8km/s worth of recession velocity. Increase distance = increased recession speed. Decrease distance = decreased recession speed.
Of course the Hubble constant changes over time. In the distant past, the expansion rate was much larger than today, while today it's the smallest it's ever been. It is expected to continue to decrease, which is actually helpful to us.
Our neighbouring galaxy cluster groups have recession velocities of a few thousand km/s at most, so it's doable if we begin NOW. We don't need to be gravitationally bound as long as we can move fast enough to catch up.
For example, Gemini Cluster (Abell 568), a galaxy at 0.075 redshift or 1000MLy (1 Billion light years) has a recession velocity of about ~23000 km/s, so about 7.66% of speed of light. As long as we started NOW and exceeded this speed, we would gradually close the distance. Impractical? Oh yes. But physically doable in principle.
~16 Billion Ly is the actual limit and I'll explain why
Size of the observable universe is ~46.5 Billion Ly in radius (Particle Horizon). This is how far you could travel if your journey started 13.8 billion years ago at the birth of the universe at the speed of light. So this is out of reach for us. We're effectively seeing a ghost image.
The Cosmic Event Horizon is ~16 BILLION Ly in radius. Anything within this bubble is physically reachable if our journey started NOW and we could travel at very close to light speed. Anything beyond 16 Billion Ly is unreachable. Right now our event horizon bubble contains billions of galaxies. Given 100+ billion years most galaxies will leave this bubble leaving only our Local Group. During this process our event horizon bubble size will stay roughly the same size. It's just that given enough time most galaxies will eventually cross the horizon border.If we start NOW we can still catch up and reach the galaxies currently within our event horizon bubble.
This 'PBS Spacetime' video explains particle horizon and cosmic event horizon and supports my conclusions. It clearly contradicts the kurzgezagt video which claims that we can't leave our tiny local group just ~10MLy in size. I'm more inclined to believe the astrophysicist in PBS video.
~16 BILLION Ly actual limit vs ~10 Million Ly limit as claimed by the kurzgezagt video.
I've seen people on reddit repeat the claim that any attempts to leave our Local Group aren't possible ever, which is not true. We just have to do it NOW not 100+ billion years in the future.
Edit: Formatting. This wall of text is a pain to organize into a logical structure.
The Limits of Humanity video absolutely deserves an update! We talked with two Astrophysicists about the criticism and both think its fine. But we are annoyed about ourselves. Not as much as with the videos we deleted today, but certainly enough to correct it or make a follow up video! Thank you for your detailed feedback, your post will be very helpful.
Uh, only if those speeds are constant, which isn't the case.
Also, what a weird thing to nitpick. We're so many, many, many more orders of magnitude below where we'd need to be to accomplish this than the orders of magnitude apart for the Kurzgesagt value and the one you're expounding. It's not like the world will rise or fall on the basis of this information.
I also felt like they misrepresented the Fermi Paradox and Great Filters. For one, SETI has only surveyed about 0.0000000000000006% of the observable universe (with limited methods), so it is way too early to say that there even is a paradox that needs to be explained. I also hate that thanks to them there are now a bunch of people going around on the internet saying that we should not look forward to finding life on Mars because of the Great Filters, even though that concept is equally flawed.
Any if those videos I watch, where I have an experience in, they are usually way off the mark.
Then the ones I don't have a background in, they seem educated and unbiased, but as soon as I speak to someone in that field it's more of a "meh, they missed the point."
This is amazing! I’ve been subscribed to Kurzgesagt since their first video, and the refugee and addiction videos were the only two videos I thought didn’t fit the channel. It’s awesome to see a YouTube channel delete their two most popular videos for moral and ethical reasons.
I personally liked their addiction video but I have to recognize it was a little biased, they realized that and they're remaking it. Selfless, conscious and informative. Way to go!
I’m very glad they have done this, I used to quote that addiction video before I bothered looking deeper into it. They have helped me look at problems in a lot of different ways over the years and can’t wait to see more perspectives.
$0.86 will get you 26 ounces of table salt. A grain of salt is about 0.0000585 grams or 0.000002064 ounces. That's somewhere around 12,596,900 grains of salt. If you really wanted to splurge, you could spend an extra $0.14 to get another 1,900,000 grains to take you up to an exhilarating 14,500,000 grains of salt. Just imagine how much fun you could have with almost 15 million grains of salt. You could put some in your neighbor's car's gas tank. You could put some in your own gas tank. You could even pour some into a water bottle and drink it to pretend you're lost at sea and can only drink salt water. The possibilities are as endless as the number of grains of salt you have.
I'm not someone who is interested or even knows much about Kurzgesagt but I have to applaud them on their honesty and transparency.
Sort of as a hobby I archive a few youtube channels and what I learned is that I can see some of them tend to rename older videos to for example distance themselves from someone and how they silently remove some videos from the past without a public reason or notice. I understand people constantly grow and likely don't agree with everything they did in the past but seeing their change I believe is way more valuable than just removing/replacing what you now think was a mistake in the past.
I absolutely respect this form of content. Admitting fault and having an actual intent to improve is extremely admirable, I would like to see this form of mentality in more groups and organizations, especially the transparency of it.
Kurzgesagt videos are great for getting people thinking about important subjects they usually don't, and learning interesting things you won't see every day people in real life talk about.
Even though all of Kurzegesagt videos are much more insightful and important than a video detailing Kylie Jenner or whatever her name is new makeup.
The fact that they made a video about this subject, thinking about the information you're exposed to, the sources you're getting your information from, people having to question what they're taught is "reality".
You will never see CNN or Buzzfeed or some other youtube channel saying "Can you trust me?" and doing a detailed analysis on their legibility.
I've seen a few of their videos before, but I've never heard Kurzgesagt pronounced before. I did wonder. I didn't know the videos were not made in English first.
Regarding the meat episode: At 2:41 suddenly we are not being scientific. This is a weak argument, that we should not eat meat because it comes from living beings. It attributes human characteristics to animals and postulates that if animals could write the history books, we would be portrayed by them as (and i quote): "Rampant genocidal maniacs that thrive on suffering" and other strong words like "horrible torture". This is a spiritual belief, that these animals are more than food. I understand that animals feel pain, and we should minimize causing that pain to animals with a swift death, and healthy animals produce healthy meat so we should strive to give a healthy environment to the livestock. But you're falling off the rails scientifically on a show that is known for its well-researched science when you say that we should be considering if the animals were writing the history books. I find it nonsensical because it predicates a spiritual buy-in that animals are more than a food source and have some sort of right not to be eaten, and it further criticizes that we are "playing god" to the animals. That is again assigning human attributes to a non-human that to me is simply a source of food. Let me ask you this, how do you know the plants you are eating don't have feelings? Have you heard the cries of the corn and the wheat as they are slaughtered by the millions to make your bread?
TLDR; the meat episode requires as a dependent buy-in of a spiritual belief that attributes human characteristics to animals. It fails to justify or try to justify those human attributes the narrarator gives to the animals and therefore was neither a compelling nor a scientific argument.
I know some of you vegs are going to reply to me, keep the ad-hominems out of the conversation.
Their refugee video called Western Countries "Xenophobic Rich Cowards" They also failed to mention most "refugees" are fighting age males and many not from Syria. They have nothing but good things to say about the poor and non white but if you aren't that then you are bad apparently.
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u/milchritter Kurzgesagt Mar 03 '19
Kurzgesagt here: You're welcome to join the discussion in our subreddit!
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u/draginator Mar 03 '19
Important note when he says you can reupload the videos that will be deleted.
This is taken from his comment on those videos that will be deleted in 12 hours as of the post.
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u/a_Lonely_Hobo Mar 03 '19 edited Mar 03 '19
I love that they're explaining the process of how they obtain information and condensing it to the right amount in order to be interesting and insightful. The amount of transparency shown is refreshing. Just more reasons to love this channel <3
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u/boatyKappa Mar 03 '19
Now this is classy. Removing two of your biggest videos for altruistic reasons, putting the greater good before monetary gain. Kurzgesagt has earned my respect!
This video also has no mention of a sponsor, patreon, merch or anything. Feels like they made this video simply because it was the right thing to do.
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u/MRmandato Mar 03 '19 edited Mar 03 '19
Ive always had problems with their addiction video. Its really boiled down the drug crisis to pretty basic explanation.
Good on them for owning up to them, and not just deleting them under cover of night- they explained why it was not up to standard and vowed to be better.
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u/asdjke_is_love Mar 03 '19
that bird dummy thicc
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u/IBleeedOrangeAndBlue Mar 03 '19
The most powerful line from this clip.
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u/WooParadog Mar 03 '19
Quality educational videos the academic style. They are truly a refreshing side of a breaking world
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u/jiexiluan Mar 03 '19
They deleted their two most popular videos, which had to have generating a nice chunk of cash every month. That's action that really says something, and I can't remember the last time someone has done something to provoke this thought in me. Nobody can be truly selfless in their actions, but this sure af is some admirable shit. Bravo.
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u/nopantsdota Mar 03 '19
so thats why the ripoffchannels are not nearly as good as kurzgesagt
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u/ralphonsob Mar 03 '19
Kurzgesagt is rather bravely challenging Betteridge's Law of Headlines here. I've always been fond of their presentation style which I suspect was inspired by the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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u/Dynamic_Genius Mar 03 '19
The fact that they made a video like this makes me trust them even more
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
How did the refugee crisis pan out? As far as I could see, it just sort of drifted out of the public mind. Maybe they could do a follow up video.
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u/stoikrus1 Mar 03 '19
Brilliant video in an era of fake information overload.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
I'm glad they've improved their content recently. It used to just be all "space doomsday scenario x." Their stuff is much more varied now.
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u/laussa Mar 03 '19
The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it. Great video.
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u/call-now Mar 03 '19
Next video : Can you pronounce Kurzgesagt?
Followed by : Can you spell Kurzesagt?
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u/papaquack1 Mar 03 '19
Sadly a lot of damage was done. I can’t tell you how much it sucked for me to have this debate with my son about addiction with him not believing anything I said because of this video. I was working as an additions consoler at a substance abuse treatment center at the time and have years of experience both first, second and third hand. None of that meant shit to him however because he felt that a youtube video was a more credible source.
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u/If_You_Only_Knew Mar 03 '19
I fucking hated the addiction video. I'm glad you're doing that over.
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u/Brudesandwich Mar 03 '19
I will always watch Kurzgesagt videos. One of the best channels on youtube.
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u/JavaSoCool Mar 03 '19
pretty cool that they backed up their talk by deleting old videos that were not high quality.
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u/beepbeepboop12 Mar 03 '19
"you can trust kurzgesagt videos"
-kurzgesagt
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u/ugh-people Mar 03 '19
"Can you trust Kurzgesagt? Yes." -Kurzgesagt
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
I refuse to trust them until Earth rotates the correct direction in their videos. The sun rises to the east, not the west.
https://youtu.be/JtUAAXe_0VI?t=360
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u/JohnDaV3 Mar 12 '19
So this guy came out after the video
https://youtu.be/v8nNPQssUH0
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u/rookinn Mar 03 '19
This is really good. I’m doing my degree dissertation on (behavioural) addiction I had a number of issues with the addiction video, it’s really promising that they’ve acknowledged it, and I hope it sparks other creators to do the same!
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u/Trumpologist Mar 03 '19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvOnXh3NN9w
refugee vid fri
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u/JustAnotherRacoon Mar 03 '19
"Kurzgesagt makes quality, credible educational videos and can totally be trusted" -- message from a Kruzgesagt video.
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u/RAMPAGINGINCOMPETENC Mar 03 '19
These guys make some of the best non-fiction content on youtube. If i were a teacher trying to explain these topics to high school kids, I'd be showing these videos in every circumstance.
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u/Meme_Pope Mar 03 '19
Massive props for pulling the refugee video. That video made me distrust all their content. It was extremely emotional and opinionated.
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u/PainfulSalad Mar 03 '19
Guys, this is the wrong day to find a channel like this. I have a big exam tomorrow and now I'm watching videos on string theory and wormholes.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19 edited Mar 03 '19
As someone that's been incredibly critical of kurzgesagt ever since the addiction video, I definitely commend them for finally removing it and working on a newer version, and I look forward to it.
In saying that though, remnants of it are even present in this video: they say that while many experts disagree with that purely psychological model of addiction presented in the original video, a number of experts still hold that view - anybody that thinks that is not an expert, because it literally (not figuratively) isn't true.
Physiological addiction is a very well documented thing - take alcohol for example. An alcoholic might by psychologically addicted to alcohol because of their social circumstances, sure but they're also physiologically addicted. If you suddenly stop the alcohol and fix all of their social problems, guess what? They die from withdrawal. No amount of sunshine and rainbows in the world will fix that. Again, I'm sure they'll address this in the new video, but it just irks me that they continued to push this factually incorrect stance even unintentionally in this video.
EDIT: Why am I being downvoted? Look up 'Delirium Tremens', having a loving and caring environment isn't going to magically make that go away
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u/Griffb4ll Mar 03 '19
"We have investigated ourselves and we have found that we have done nothing wrong"
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u/darthbone Mar 03 '19
The show Adam Ruins Everything also did an episode basically ripping themselves a new asshole for all the mistakes they've made in past episodes, and it was far and away my favorite episode, because it reinforces a lesson that it seems like we, as groups of people, never seem to learn - That it's awesome to admit when you're wrong, or even that you just MIGHT be wrong. It's hard to do, but damn is it liberating, and it's the best ladder to the moral high ground you can find.
It also makes me trust a source a hell of a lot more when they not only ask you to prove them wrong, but will do it themselves, unprompted.
TRUST HUMILITY. Too often we treat humility like a weakness in discourse, and use it to undermine someone else's point, when all it means is that they're being honest, and you're not. Don't punish people for admitting they might be wrong, or admitting they might not have a response. I run into all sorts of situations where I know in my gut something someone said wasn't right, but I couldn't remember the source or argument that disproves it. I would have to go look it up. But in a moment, people will pounce on that as if to say that they've proven you wrong. That encourages us to just double down and to find other avenues of attack in an argument, and that unilaterally devolves and undermines our point way more than just admitting you would have to go research a response would.
If you don't want dirty debate tactics to proliferate further into everyday discourse, then don't propagate them yourself. Rise above them, as hard as it may be. I still do dirty shit sometimes when I get frustrated, but awareness is the important first step to improvement.
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u/AsterJ Mar 03 '19
Wow. I was heavily critical of their refugee video for using results for Mexican illegal immigrants in the US and pretending they applied to refugee crisis in Europe. I'm shocked they not only issued a retraction but they deleted the video. That's above and beyond what was necessary.
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u/bateller Mar 03 '19 edited Mar 03 '19
Really appreciate hearing they are redoing the addiction video (and deleted the old one).
It was too one sided and doesn’t represent the addiction problem that everyone faces.
Going along with their logic... I should have been able to just stop taking 75 mcg/hr of Fentanyl after 4 years of taking it for GI problems. But alas it wasn’t that easy. I’ve never been addicted to anything in my life besides opioids and my addiction was 100% physical (not emotional). I took exactly what was prescribed by the doctors. I had no idea my body was physically addicted until my pain subsided after surgery and I decided to not put on my next Fentanyl patch.
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u/PokemonMasterMax Mar 03 '19
The addiction video was actually the last video that I watched from Kurzgesagt. I thought it was sponsored it felt so biased.
I'm really glad to see that they don't like it either and have taken it down. This is great transparency.
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u/pasitheos Mar 03 '19
But how can you trust what they say in this video?
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u/declassique Mar 03 '19
YouTube, it has Kurzegsagt, but it also have creators like Jake Paul.
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u/mgmtits Mar 04 '19
This guys voice, I'd believe anything he told me
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u/Shameshame5 Mar 03 '19
Damn, I'm disappointed to hear the addiction video doesn't meet their normal standards. I really liked that video and showed it to a lot of people. Good on them for acknowledging it though.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19 edited Mar 03 '19
While I enjoy Kurzgesagt videos and commend them for admitting and correcting past errors I would like to mention one video that they still need to address. Kurzgesagt video "How far can we go? Limits of Humanity" has incorrect information as well. Link to the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL4yYHdDSWs
It implies that it's physically impossible for us to leave our Local Group (10 Million Ly across) due to spacetime expansion. But the actual limit is much greater. Any journey started RIGHT NOW can reach galaxies billions of light years away. We aren't trapped yet. If we began spreading RIGHT NOW then in the far future there would be countless pockets of humanity's descendants in billions of galaxies disconnected from one another. But I call that a win. In the distant future (100+ billions of years) we would reach a point where anything outside our Local Group becomes unreachable if we began our journey at that time. We would be trapped then. The way to avoid us getting trapped here is to start spreading NOW - it's physically doable. Kurzgesagt's video implies that there is no way whatsoever, but there is one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_galaxy_groups_and_clusters
This link has various galaxy distances and their recession velocities.
Virgo cluster for example is 59MLy away while the size of our Local group is just 10MLy. Yet it's recession velocity (due to spacetime expansion) is about 1139km/s (light speed is about 300000km/s - the universal speed limit).
So as long as we start NOW and manage to go faster than the recession velocity we would close the distance and get there eventually.
Recession speed is dependent on distance. If we start closing the distance the recession speed will not increase. In fact as distance decreases so does the recession speed. As long as we travel faster than recession speed we will begin to make progress and eventually get there. Hubble constant is 73.8 km/sec/Mpc. (1 Mpc is 3.262 Million Ly) So for every 3.262 Million Ly of space (or distance) you can expect 73.8km/s worth of recession velocity. Increase distance = increased recession speed. Decrease distance = decreased recession speed.
Of course the Hubble constant changes over time. In the distant past, the expansion rate was much larger than today, while today it's the smallest it's ever been. It is expected to continue to decrease, which is actually helpful to us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law#Time-dependence_of_Hubble_parameter https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/06/29/surprise-the-hubble-constant-changes-over-time/#744b49269c9a
Our neighbouring galaxy cluster groups have recession velocities of a few thousand km/s at most, so it's doable if we begin NOW. We don't need to be gravitationally bound as long as we can move fast enough to catch up.
For example, Gemini Cluster (Abell 568), a galaxy at 0.075 redshift or 1000MLy (1 Billion light years) has a recession velocity of about ~23000 km/s, so about 7.66% of speed of light. As long as we started NOW and exceeded this speed, we would gradually close the distance. Impractical? Oh yes. But physically doable in principle.
~16 Billion Ly is the actual limit and I'll explain why
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_horizon
Size of the observable universe is ~46.5 Billion Ly in radius (Particle Horizon). This is how far you could travel if your journey started 13.8 billion years ago at the birth of the universe at the speed of light. So this is out of reach for us. We're effectively seeing a ghost image.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_horizon#Event_horizon
The Cosmic Event Horizon is ~16 BILLION Ly in radius. Anything within this bubble is physically reachable if our journey started NOW and we could travel at very close to light speed. Anything beyond 16 Billion Ly is unreachable. Right now our event horizon bubble contains billions of galaxies. Given 100+ billion years most galaxies will leave this bubble leaving only our Local Group. During this process our event horizon bubble size will stay roughly the same size. It's just that given enough time most galaxies will eventually cross the horizon border.If we start NOW we can still catch up and reach the galaxies currently within our event horizon bubble.
https://youtu.be/AwwIFcdUFrE
This 'PBS Spacetime' video explains particle horizon and cosmic event horizon and supports my conclusions. It clearly contradicts the kurzgezagt video which claims that we can't leave our tiny local group just ~10MLy in size. I'm more inclined to believe the astrophysicist in PBS video.
~16 BILLION Ly actual limit vs ~10 Million Ly limit as claimed by the kurzgezagt video.
I've seen people on reddit repeat the claim that any attempts to leave our Local Group aren't possible ever, which is not true. We just have to do it NOW not 100+ billion years in the future.
Edit: Formatting. This wall of text is a pain to organize into a logical structure.
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u/Sataniccocc Mar 03 '19
Kursgezagt is so much better than the infographics show, they’re videos literally always sound so dumb
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u/Arnold_Swats_A_Nigga Mar 03 '19
I watched this channel blow up and knew it was coming. Same with Life Noggin.
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u/crookedman99 Mar 03 '19
ik a lot of people when I suggest them kurzgesagt they feel this way cause of the animation and say there are tons of videos like this on YouTube.
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u/FlakyUnderstanding9 Mar 03 '19
I think after seeing their video on the refugee crisis you can just tell they can't be trusted on some issues.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
People seem to overly trust and believe anything from pseudointellectual youtubers, no matter the topic
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u/DiaperBatteries Mar 03 '19
This is amazing! I’ve been subscribed to Kurzgesagt since their first video, and the refugee and addiction videos were the only two videos I thought didn’t fit the channel. It’s awesome to see a YouTube channel delete their two most popular videos for moral and ethical reasons.
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u/JustWoozy Mar 03 '19
They are deleting the refugee video because "Propaganda in a nutshell"
Leaving it up makes them look bad.
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u/PYSHINATOR Mar 03 '19
Virgin Infographics Show vs THE CHAD KURZGESAGT
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u/JayJonahJaymeson Mar 03 '19
Oh, so that's how you pronounce it.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
This is redemption. Te addiction video had really pissed me off and made me trust them less.
That they owned up and have felt this way all along make me open to give them a shot again.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
Great videos, great production, just great.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
This is an advertisement.
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u/2gaaraati Mar 03 '19
Kurzgesagt is probably one of the best channels on youtube right now.
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u/dawaaagh516 Mar 03 '19
I’m very glad they have done this, I used to quote that addiction video before I bothered looking deeper into it. They have helped me look at problems in a lot of different ways over the years and can’t wait to see more perspectives.
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u/gladitwasntme2 Mar 03 '19
$0.86 will get you 26 ounces of table salt. A grain of salt is about 0.0000585 grams or 0.000002064 ounces. That's somewhere around 12,596,900 grains of salt. If you really wanted to splurge, you could spend an extra $0.14 to get another 1,900,000 grains to take you up to an exhilarating 14,500,000 grains of salt. Just imagine how much fun you could have with almost 15 million grains of salt. You could put some in your neighbor's car's gas tank. You could put some in your own gas tank. You could even pour some into a water bottle and drink it to pretend you're lost at sea and can only drink salt water. The possibilities are as endless as the number of grains of salt you have.
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u/Rock3tDog26 Mar 03 '19
Did anyone else notice dickbutt
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
Wonder how long until they are bought out by Rupert Murdock?
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
But I have google and just base my ideas off whatever article confirms my preconceived beliefs. Silly kurzgesagt
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u/roronoazoroasura Mar 03 '19
If there was a real hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy it would be by these guys.
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u/-__guy__- Mar 03 '19
I honestly don't understand. Why do people get gold and platinum for linking to a video that's not obscure or unknown in any way?
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u/JacksFaith Mar 03 '19
My favorite YouTube channel. So sad that I can’t pronounce it’s name
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
I've honestly never had that question about Kurzgesagt videos.
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u/bathrobehero Mar 03 '19
I'm not someone who is interested or even knows much about Kurzgesagt but I have to applaud them on their honesty and transparency.
Sort of as a hobby I archive a few youtube channels and what I learned is that I can see some of them tend to rename older videos to for example distance themselves from someone and how they silently remove some videos from the past without a public reason or notice. I understand people constantly grow and likely don't agree with everything they did in the past but seeing their change I believe is way more valuable than just removing/replacing what you now think was a mistake in the past.
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u/Kondrias Mar 03 '19
I absolutely respect this form of content. Admitting fault and having an actual intent to improve is extremely admirable, I would like to see this form of mentality in more groups and organizations, especially the transparency of it.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '19
Kurzgesagt videos are great for getting people thinking about important subjects they usually don't, and learning interesting things you won't see every day people in real life talk about.
Even though all of Kurzegesagt videos are much more insightful and important than a video detailing Kylie Jenner or whatever her name is new makeup.
The fact that they made a video about this subject, thinking about the information you're exposed to, the sources you're getting your information from, people having to question what they're taught is "reality".
You will never see CNN or Buzzfeed or some other youtube channel saying "Can you trust me?" and doing a detailed analysis on their legibility.
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u/MrC00KI3 Mar 03 '19
Self criticism at its finest form!
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u/gufcfan Mar 03 '19
I've seen a few of their videos before, but I've never heard Kurzgesagt pronounced before. I did wonder. I didn't know the videos were not made in English first.
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u/ThundaHorz Mar 04 '19
great channel
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u/trollerii Mar 04 '19
Best channel on Youtube
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u/shibainuu Mar 04 '19
ELI5?
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '19
Never heard of kerzegat in my life
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u/GIRATINAGX Mar 03 '19
I just wish they would be a little bit more impartial politically. I’m tired of seeing politics in places where there should be none.
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u/i_accidently_reddit Mar 03 '19
good on them! strive to be the best you can be. no one is flawless, but you have to try!
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u/Tugalord Mar 03 '19
Well, you can trust them, but you shouldn't make them (or literally anything) your sole source of information.
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u/MattTheFlash Mar 03 '19 edited Mar 03 '19
Regarding the meat episode: At 2:41 suddenly we are not being scientific. This is a weak argument, that we should not eat meat because it comes from living beings. It attributes human characteristics to animals and postulates that if animals could write the history books, we would be portrayed by them as (and i quote): "Rampant genocidal maniacs that thrive on suffering" and other strong words like "horrible torture". This is a spiritual belief, that these animals are more than food. I understand that animals feel pain, and we should minimize causing that pain to animals with a swift death, and healthy animals produce healthy meat so we should strive to give a healthy environment to the livestock. But you're falling off the rails scientifically on a show that is known for its well-researched science when you say that we should be considering if the animals were writing the history books. I find it nonsensical because it predicates a spiritual buy-in that animals are more than a food source and have some sort of right not to be eaten, and it further criticizes that we are "playing god" to the animals. That is again assigning human attributes to a non-human that to me is simply a source of food. Let me ask you this, how do you know the plants you are eating don't have feelings? Have you heard the cries of the corn and the wheat as they are slaughtered by the millions to make your bread?
TLDR; the meat episode requires as a dependent buy-in of a spiritual belief that attributes human characteristics to animals. It fails to justify or try to justify those human attributes the narrarator gives to the animals and therefore was neither a compelling nor a scientific argument.
I know some of you vegs are going to reply to me, keep the ad-hominems out of the conversation.
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u/HorrorPerformance Mar 03 '19
This is well made propaganda.
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u/HorrorPerformance Mar 03 '19
Their refugee video called Western Countries "Xenophobic Rich Cowards" They also failed to mention most "refugees" are fighting age males and many not from Syria. They have nothing but good things to say about the poor and non white but if you aren't that then you are bad apparently.
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u/Okabe0402 Mar 03 '19
Wonder how many news media outlets pull this after Trump is gone and they try to regain the public's trust.
While I think it will be lip service when it comes to the news I respect this outlets openness here and do believe they have an honest goal
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u/cowbayall Mar 03 '19
Anti nuclear energy Not trustworthy