I just need to shout at a void, because this is a topic that’s rarely discussed out of left-wing spaces. I know you guys will understand.

I hate those “edutainment” channels that always end up being a tech guy (not necessarily tech bro, but close) with the added smugness of engineer/programmer syndrome (a condition in which the person thinks they know more just because they know a bit about exact sciences, very common with R*dditors). Cases in point: Veritasium, VSauce, Tom Scott. I don’t know many others off the top of my head, but it’s always someone passing science content without the step-by-step rigour, wrapped in an enthralling narrative with an engaging presenter, which leaves the impression of being correct.

The biggest reason I hate them is because I KNOW, factually, that some of the things they say are WRONG — but they don’t know it’s wrong because they didn’t research it properly, so they’re confidently incorrect, or they simply didn’t care, because they’ve already decided they’re right, because they’re “rational.”

It’s even worse when the subject is social, political, historical or cultural: they use hypotheticals to make an argument against X thing, whilst defending Y thing, but in no way they use actual history in their arguments, and do not notice that their Y thing has worse flaws. Like CGP Grey talking about politics, completely ignoring the economic and class system. It’s some type of post-political/apolitical mental masturbation bullshit of trying to “be above these mundane affairs because I can REASON IT OUT with LOGIC on the internet.”

I know that because I’m not North American, so, sometimes, these YouTubers will say some shite like “oh this [public service] doesn’t exist” or “this thing would never be implemented because it’s mathematically, physically, scientifically impossible” — meanwhile, I live in a place that has these “impossible” things, enjoying these “non-existent” services.

I think it’s also first-world person syndrome: because they don’t see these things implemented in their countries, they think no other country has, or, if it does, it’s not a good sign because a “third-world country” can never be an example of a good thing — “I mean if they were good, they would be in the Global North countries already!”

Maybe it’s the dialectical materialist in me. I can’t unsee the absolute lack of consideration for information that these channels perpetuate. The absolute lack of self awareness when they call out “propaganda” about any other country that isn’t a default anglo derivative, whilst, simultaneously, defending their basic bitch worldview without any analysis, mostly under the assumption of “mine is a more sensible and reasonable position, no, I will not elaborate, no, I refuse to accept the consequences of these positions, the problem is politicians, whatever, and we reason it with science, because one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other, and if you disagree, you’re biased, I’m not, because I’m reasonable. So what if all my ideas perpetuate neoliberalism? No, it has nothing to do with class, we can sort this out with a debate.”

(I’ve been vague on purpose because I don’t want to go into details, but, you know, most of these topics are: healthcare, how different countries organize their democratic processes, energy and ideology.)

    • throwmunist [any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      This is so Steve Pinker coded: "humanity is safer now because fewer people are dying of violent causes, except if you consider indigenous populations and black and brown people in Africa and the Middle East. I will not count them! Only Civilized™ societies will be featured. Colonialism was just a blip, it’s in the past now! War is bad. I will not analyse it. " (He literally says he won’t count them in “Better Angels of our Nature”; he even uses fiction books as examples of how people lived under other historical times).

  • GaveUp [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    It’s really fucking bad because a lot of 1st world coders love their content and is their idea of learning to become a well rounded individual

  • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Mark Rober is one of these dick heads too. It should have been more obvious to me with his yearly “Porch Pirate” videos, but it wasn’t until I saw his Vortex Cannon vs Drone video. In this video, he partners with a company called Anduril to show off their “drone defense technology”. Anduril, for those who don’t know, is a company started by none other than Palmer Luckey and a Federalist Society chud named Trae Stephens. In this video, Mark is fucking glazing up this defense drone and some of the other surveillance technology created by Anduril, while palling around and talking cool with Palmer Fucky the whole time. This technology is already deployed across portions of the southern border of America, tracking and monitoring migrants attempting to cross the border. At the very front of the video, Mark pitches one of his own products, a DIY kit that builds a Nurf turret, one of the suggested ideas on how to expand on the project is to use code and some hardware to turn the Nurf turret into a device that identifies movement and shoots on sight.

    So how does Mark frame this “done defense technology”?

    Hiding inside this box is an absolute marvel of engineering you might just find protecting you the next time you’re at a public event that’s got a lot of people. And while this just might look like a boring old drone, it’s actually one of the fastest in the world. It’s autonomous, and it weighs five times more than is typical because the purpose of this drone is to lock onto a bad guy drone trying to do bad guy things and then smash it into a thousand pieces. Now the drones have become so incredibly cheap, fast, and maneuverable, It’s only a matter of time before they’re used to carry explosives, to attack key infrastructure, or even worse. But before we get too worried, there’s some good news here. And so today we’re going to take a look at all the latest technologies being developed to combat this very possible scenario.

    When talking about “events with a lot of people” he shows you clips of sporting events. He’s framing this as some defense tool to be used deep in the inner regions of the United States to protect citizens from “bad guys”, whoever those may be. Except, that’s not where Anduril’s technology is most prominently used. One of the primary use cases for Anduril’s Sentry Towers is with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency along the norther and southern border. They have been criticized by the ACLU and other human rights and immigration activists for pushing migrants toward ever more dangerous routes, and normalizing surveillance near the border, among other negative impacts.

    Here is what Mark has to say about Palmer Lucky:

    I headed down to a company called Anduril, who were one of the leaders when it comes to drone defense, where I met up with their founder, Palmer Luckey, who, by the way, you might recognize is the dude who dropped out of school at 19 years old to invent the Oculus VR headset […]

    Nothing but good vibes and killing bad guys for Mark. Nothing else to see here. Definitely don’t think too hard about Anduril’s Lattice system that can track every moving object for several miles. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to send that fucking drone at a Bird instead of another Drone if they wanted to, let alone a person.

    • haxebear [null/void, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      My main problem with Oppenhiemer is the story is so unrealistic, a nerd who was like “maybe inventing the torment vortex is going to cause bad things” while he’s inventing the torment vortex? These people would develop disgustingly unethical LAWs just because it’s a fun challenge. I went to an engineering school and I had to hear these morons complain at 19 years old that they have to take an “ethics” class and why does “ethics” matter for engineering???

  • Dessa [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    I will defend Technology Connections. It is important that we all have incredibly strong opinions on heat pumps abd christmas lights

  • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I started watching the Safety Third podcast because I like Allen Pan and that corner of YouTube, but Osman and them are horribly ignorant of geopolitics, economics, and history. And they don’t take Covid seriously! Despite one of their own (physics girl) being bedbound for like 2 years from a single infection. “Science” youtube. I’ll still put them on as background noise when I need to do something, and can’t waste focus on subtitles. But sometimes they’ll fall down a rabbit hole of shit they should just not be talking about and I’ll have to turn them off.