I have spoken a lot about every pseudoarchaeological and fringe theory under the sun. But rarely have I talked about the implications and dangers of pseudoscience as a whole. How pseudoarchaeology is one of many routes into a dangerous anti-intellectualism pipeline. This video is on just that topic. A live lecture that I did at Virginia Tech back in March discussing the dangers of pseudo archaeology and how it is promoted by an algorithm that is (un)intentionally radicalizing viewers.
I agree with pretty much everything this guy is saying, but personally I love watching these trashy pseudoarcheological videos and pretending its D&D worldbuilding / sci-fi. flat earth people fascinate me. dragons are on the other side of the ice wall but they dont come here because of 5g and woke
The Stargate franchise is essentially Ancient Aliens, and it's terrific fun.
Something about mentioning his number of social media followers in his personal introduction puts me off. Maybe I'm a cynic.
He's mentioning it in the context of the science communication part. At the end he comes back to it and contrasts the 40 people in the room who can receive a formal science education action versus the millions online who algorithmically get sucked into pseudoscience with a new video. It's like a "you're potentially reaching this many people and there's a social responsibility to not feed them bullshit" warning more than it is influencer bragging.
