I think Tesla does some innovative stuff - like using the worlds largest metallic moulds (built by some Italian company if I recall, which make those exclusively for Tesla). But ultimately Elon is a "hype man", and most of his promises have fallen flat (check out Thunderf00t's youtube channel - he debunks many scammy startups as well as Elon's claims, using high school chemistry and physics).

I do applaud Tesla for opening additional factories in Germany and China so quickly, but exponential growth (for any EV maker) is impossible - there's simply not enough easy-to-mine lithium in the world. (Maybe Elon is planning to mine some asteroids instead of going to Mars? who knows)

The GM battery tech isn't exciting or sexy, but it is a means to building a more affordable EV. Ford is already shipping F-150 Lightning (assuming its not affected by the same contactor recall as the Mach-E). Rivian has been (slowly) shipping trucks.
Where's the CyberTruck? I bet even the electric Silverado will start shipping before the CyberTruck.

I agree with newtboy - Elon has a lot of bad ideas. (most of which are debunked with high school physics - see the many Thunderf00t videos). But there's a lot of smart people working at Tesla and SpaceX who are actually doing a bulk of the work & innovation.

But, this video isn't about Musk, it's about Robots and AI. Many more examples and companies than just Tesla-bot.

Don't worry though, humanity will be 'saved' from the robots by a large coronal mass ejection event that fries the grid and most computers on Earth.

Thunderf00t should analyze this and see if their claims on the amount of power generated if anywhere close to what they claim.

The narrator's tone in this video was clearly condescending, and that is not how you reach the other side of an argument. Even if every statement she made in this video was objectively factually accurate, the way it was presented all but ensures a full-on backfire effect.

I would compare the tone of this video to the youtuber thunderf00t. Even though he is someone with whom I agree on nearly every topic, I still find the tone of his videos to be overly patronizing, and as a result the message doesn't reach as many as it could.

I usually despise overused, banal platitudes, but there is one, I think, that should be considered. "You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar." Even if it is factually incorrect, the spirit of what implies is clear. You will have a greater chance of conveying your side of an argument if you treat the other side with dignity and respect, even if they don't deserve it. I have learned this the hard way over the years in many of my debates with theists.

-----

All that being said, I can give the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe her tone was entirely for comedic effect, even though I think it utterly fails in that regard, and is a missed opportunity to contribute to a real debate.

She didn't call, she sent letters to his employer, the local police and the media. In that letter she referred to him as a Nazi so many times it could be required reading for anyone studying Godwin's Law.

Keller decided to act like a petty vindictive asshole simply because someone had to gall to disagree with her on the internet. The fact that someone else managed to turn her life upside down does not change what she did or somehow make it more excusable.

That being said, I did find the video where thunderf00t doxxed Keller and I also thought he acted like a petty vindictive asshole. And I'm fine with calling them both out on it, rather than trying to draw attention away from one person's wrongdoings by pointing to someone who they believe to be worse.

Sure, the MRA trolls will love some of what thunderf00t has to say about Sarkeesian and other feminists. Liking or agreeing with something someone says however does not mean you buy into their ideology in it's entirety. Donald Trump could tell me the sky is blue, and I might agree, but agreeing to that does not also mean I think we should build a big wall to keep out Mexicans.

As far as what some of his "fans" and or Baphomet did I suspect you'll ignore their individual or group responsibilities in favor of simply blaming it on thunderf00t simply because you want to. Buttered my bread? Based on what I've read so far I can imagine you would know something about bias.

I don't really care what his fans said on Twitter or anywhere else for that matter. Unless he explicitly instructed them to go out and harass somebody you can't realistically hold him responsible for the actions of others.

1:1 example? Were we even reading the same article? The bulk of the article describes how the Baphomet board on 8chan used publicly available information, possibly gleaned from thunderf00t's video, or perhaps not, to target Jennifer Keller and her business. The folks over at Baphomet were really just doing this for their own amusement, here's a quote from the article.

" I'll save the trouble that I'm a bit of a thunderfag and while I understand he's a cucked shithole obsessed with Anita Scamkeesian, the fact they will get him fired merely on the base of their hurt feelings kind of ticked me off. "

I should also take a moment to point out that Jennifer Keller aka 'Laughing Witch' on YouTube along with others engaged in a letter writing campaign to try and get Phil Mason 'thunderf00t' fired from his job. Now I don't know about you, but I would call that harassment. I find that kind of behavior unacceptable no matter which side you are on. But there she was, down in the trenches slinging shit right along side the other trolls and misanthropes.

As for specious arguments, the focus on minor details and painting whole groups of people with a broad brush, Sarkeesian and company do all of these things. Sarkeesian criticizes an industry and thunderf00t attacks her criticisms and questions her rationale. But supporters will try to draw attention away from his arguments by calling it an attack on her.

You want to hold thunderf00t responsible for the actions of trolls and MRA wack-jobs, but are you willing to hold Sarkeesian responsible for the actions of feminism's lunatic fringe?

Then you haven't encountered any of his fans on twitter.

And he is pretty much the largest and most 1:1 example the above video is referencing: He uses specious arguments, focuses on minor details or extreme examples to paint with a massive brush, and generally is more vitriol than skepticism.

And the difference between Sarkeesian making videos critiquing and thunderf00t is myriad: Sarkeesian focuses on depictions and media, thunderf00t focuses on indviduals and a very amorphous idea of "feminism" with videos like "Why feminism is poisoning atheism", "Why 'feminism' poisons EVERYTHING", all pretty much completely obsessed with Sarkeesian and Rebecca Watson.

That's not skepticism.. that's a creepy personal vendetta.

The other major difference are their fans. I don't recall Sarkeesian ever taking out a personal vendetta against a random person and suggesting her fans bombard their business on Yelp with bad reviews and then people on the doxxing boards of 8chan joined in the online attacks.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/25/1439148/-Phil-Mason-is-Working-With-Baphomet-to-Ruin-DC-Business

I mean, it's not quite as simple as "one person makes videos critiquing, another makes videos critiquing". But I feel like you probably already knew that.

Why look for that excuse? I think the word you are looking for is 'validation'. I think it's really human nature that compels us to search out those who we see as being like us and helps to reaffirm our beliefs. Fox News became a media empire based almost entirely on this principle and ever since then many other media outlets have followed suit.

@Imagoamin
I read that article a little while back, but I'm not sure taking away Patreon or ad money would silence those people. I'm pretty sure many like thunderf00t would just keep on doing what they're doing anyhow. I've watched some of thunderf00t's videos and while they may not use the most genteel language or may come off as snarky but it never sounded like harassment to me.

YouTube, and the internet in general are a soapbox which people like Anita Sarkeesian can use to criticize popular media and can also be used by others to criticize Sarkeesian in turn, this is perfectly fair in my opinion.

Underwater tunnels dont need a complex solution sitting behind them to maintain that pressure.
Underwater tunnels arent open to the air, where retards can shoot at them.
Water doesnt act like air in a decompression event like what thunderf00t is talking about....it doesnt travel at the speed of sound to fill the void..

I'll agree with everyone on TYT. I like the message, but the delivery needs work.

Captain Disillusion. I enjoy debunking, but the persona and gimmick makes it hard to watch most of the time.

Thunderf00t. I enjoyed him for awhile, especially his Creationist debunking era, but then something happened and I just can't do his videos most of the time. Partly it was his stance on elevator gate, which he just pushed and pushed endlessly, but he seemed to just go off after that whole incident. I don't mind the opinion, I disagree, but he just wouldn't let it go... and never got back to what he originally was doing.

Oh and yeah, Angry Videogame Nerd I agree with. Way too much fluff...

Markplier. My kids love him, so my suggestion box is full of him for a few days after every other weekend. I love Twitch and stuff like that, but I don't find his personality at all enjoyable. He's a Pew De Pie wannabe and I can't stand Pew either.

Earthling Cinema... no. Just no. Another annoying personality, I just don't get the appeal.

Speaking of cinema related ones, Cinema Sins. They give 50 or 60, and really only a third or so actually count, even on movies I hated. I appreciate critique but I don't know, I normally can't watch a full episode.

I'll agree with others about mean spirited pranks. Truth distorters, especially when it is for financial, political or religious gain, which I guess is most of those types.

Joshua Feuerstein is a perfect example of the above.

People doing videos in cars, even if parked... there are exceptions to that, like the guy who does carpool karaoke, but most others...

Guy on the street type videos. It's been a format around for too long. How many people did you have to edit out to get a few idiots? Occasionally they'll show one person who knows among 8 others.

When otherwise smart science channels like SciShow and the like use the word "theory" in the common sense of the term and not the scientific use. It continues to distort the public image of the word. They come to a science channel, see it used where they should be using hypothesis. If they want to keep it simple and use guess or ideas. Just don't use the word theory until it's a more accepted theory. This way people don't keep saying "it's just a theory" on actual facts like the big bang, evolution, human accelerated climate change, etc.

in response to the TYT comments: i really appreciate what TYT are trying to do but they need to get their shit on lock. they're too experienced to be operating like a high school news channel/early morning radio comedy show.

same with the real news but their stories are way, way better. and why can't they title their videos in any kind of coherent way?

and i feel similarly about bill maher. about 10-20% of the time he has something worth saying. he does, however, put together some awesomely bizarre groups of people, which i appreciate so long as they're allowed to speak in complete sentences.

anything from the amazing atheist or thunderf00t is just pure cringe these days. they lost the plot years ago and now just their voices sound like crying toddlers to me.

any MRA/ideologically anti-feminist stuff is also pure cringe. i'm all about critiquing ideas and i have my own critiques for parts of feminism but pretty much everything i've seen devolves to "look at this stupid fat girl" pretty quickly.

i also second what newtboy said.

anything political that bobknight posts is just a clusterfuck of wrong/partially wrong/intentionally misleading and adds nothing of substance to any discussion.



what i miss rachael maddow articles. she always seems to research and cover the facts of her stories really well.

tag: Thunderf00t
I used to think he was great but his obsession with Anita Sarkeesian got boring very fast.

Jesus, thunderf00t is such an arsehole, even when I agree with him, I still want to punch him.

What was the point of the digression about pressure waves?

And as for getting the aluminium powder from an etch a sketch... I dunno, maybe if you're engaged in a criminal enterprise you don't want thermite ingredients showing up on your amazon history?

Or maybe because "let's order the ingredients online" IS A FUCKING BORING STORYLINE.

When someone claims to have the moral higher ground, I can assure you that the personality of the person making the claim is absolutely an integral part of the issue.

Edit: And besides her claims are in many cases unsubstantiated and highly manipulated. I know someone already mentioned a thunderf00t video, and I don't know if it's this one, but just watch it. It's pretty fucking pathetic just how manipulative and a liar she is when conducting her "research".

Edit 2: Or she could just be really, really dumb. Either way, she sucks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRSaLZidWI

@Enzoblue

Thunderf00t is probably the least level-headed response you will find. His video is terrible for a lot of reasons, mostly because he does all the same things Anita Sarkessian is accused of doing (for example, cherry-picking) to an exponential degree, but I recommend you watch it anyway and draw your own conclusions.

As much as some Gamergate supporters would like the movement to be about ethics in gaming journalism, it has its roots in a witch-hunt started by claims from a jilted ex-boyfriend that his girlfriend (Zoe Quinn) slept with reporters to get good reviews--claims that were later shown to be completely untrue but not before the Gamergate movement had found a cause to rally around. From the very start, the movement had trouble separating actual journalistic ethical problems (i.e. gifts from game publishers to game reviewers... see pretty much any tweet or video by TotalBiscuit about Gamergate for a reasoned overview of the problems) from anti-feminist screeds against Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and later Brianna Wu. And it only got worse over time.

To understand why people might be opposed to Sarkeesian's critiques, you should probably read: this article. Just to summarize the article's main thesis: there is a group of gamers out there who refuse to see a problem with the status quo and make the claim that anyone trying to point out a problem is demanding special privileges. This is not to say that Sarkeesian's critiques aren't without flaws. It is rather to explain how so many people got enraged by her analysis that they felt the need to personally attack her.

So, to put it in a nutshell, there ARE some problems with gaming journalism but they are akin to the same kinds of problems entertainment journalism has in general (Colbert's point). But there are also some serious problems with gaming culture that were brought under the magnifying glass by the whole Gamergate phenomenon.

Frankly, as a "hardcore gamer" (30+ years of gaming experience including games across dozens of consoles and the PC), watching the "debate" on the topic has been embarrassing to say the least. Gaming was finally overcoming the stigma and stereotypes that it had been shackled with before this thing blew up and made us look like the bunch of socially inept man-babies the rest of society assumed we were.

I think not only is it going to take years for our social image to recover, it is going to take years to overcome the toxicity that has pervaded the debate. People on both sides are seriously butt-hurt about how everything went down and the back and forth has been more on the emotional side than the intellectual, leading to lots of flame wars and very little critical reflection.