• hatingfedizen@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 days ago

    Kurzgesagt: their video some time ago about current state of the world in terms of conflicts and violent deaths was disgusting. It was an apology to do nothing about the genocides occurring in the tone of “OH these things always have happened don’t be sad :))”

    • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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      4 days ago

      Kurzgesagt has a contract with Open Philanthropy (a reputation laundering vehicle for billionaires) to promote concepts related to Effective Altruism in their videos, essentially making them a propaganda outlet for billionaire egomaniacs who fancy themselves philosopher-kings. Effective Altruism is a philosophical movement that caught on in elite circles because it enables them to justify their selfishness by reframing it as focusing their philanthropy on specific causes they believe will have the greatest impact, which in recent years is mostly AI research. It gives them a rhetorical framework to pass off their passion projects as philanthropy and an excuse for not dedicating resources to things like stopping climate change, ending world hunger, or - god forbid - wealth inequality.

    • tehevilone@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Their content has always been high-quality but there’s just something terribly depressing about watching it - I dropped them years ago because of that feeling.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      4 days ago

      I stopped fawning over them when they released the " Smoking Is Cool " episode. Somebody’s getting a paycheck here

          • Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip
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            2 days ago

            I don’t have time to watch it right now, but from the comments it sounds like they’re just using clickbait to get to the usual antismoking position.

            • rumba@lemmy.zip
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              2 days ago

              It’s messier than that. They talk about why it makes you feel good, how it increases focus and then as an afterthought well it’s bad for you.

              meanwhile, they shove a red-hot poker up the ass of vaping and smoking weed.

              don’t get me wrong, i don’t smoke or vape anything, but villifying 2/3 and making a nicotine video philip morris would be prod of is HIGHLY sus.

              • Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip
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                2 days ago

                Yeah after watching it I didn’t get that vibe at all, sorry.

                Like, yeah they talk about the effects of it, but it’s basically your basic anti smoking ad minus the melodrama.