Wow, such a great reflective and introspective interview. I really appreciate reading about hbomberguy's own feelings about the whole thing and I've gained even more respect for him, which I didn't think was possible.
I might come across as an old fuddy-duddy, but when a headline refers to something/someone/someplace/ as 'that', it had better be of such earth-shattering importance that the entire readership knows what 'that' is.
I read vulture once in awhile and I know neither about who 'hbomberguy' is, nor do I know what 'that video' is.
the whole goddamn point of a headline has moved from "quick summary of material" to World Weekly News style "hook-em with Bat Boy!", and it sucks.
Yeah, I don't blame him for not wanting to make this kind of content at all. His answer to why kinda sums it up perfectly:
> It’s something I’ve always wanted to avoid doing because people are immediately rewarded for it, and then you have a very strong incentive to make worse videos that make your life sadder, because of the income and attention it can bring you.
Drama videos are like culture war videos in that they draw a certain audience in quickly and in large numbers. So once you make one, it can become very tempting to look at the stats of the video and how quickly your audience is seemingly growing, and pivot entirely to that type of content.
We see that all the time with tech and gaming channels for example. They start off talking about Linux operating systems and new game releases, then end up either going down the "oh my god [YouTuber name] is such a scumbag!" or [latest movie] is SJW written woke trash!" route, sacrificing all that made their work interesting in the process.
So it makes sense he was hesitant to make such a video here. The topic tends to bring in the kind of audience you don't want as a creator, and can end up incentivising you to change from talking about varied, interesting things to talking about the same reality TV level trash that floods much of the platform.
To be honest HBomberguy could do a video on the merits of watching paint dry and I'd probably watch it. That guy is just intelligent, compassionate, funny and has a big heart.
that's why the smarter, more business oriented content creators make separate channels for separate types of content, and only cross promote using the channel audience to get the initial "kick".
as an example, the well known channel "economics explained" has found that there's a lot of political content when talking about economics of a country. It brings in different and perhaps undesirable audiences - in the comments for example, arguing.
Instead of changing, their (correct, imho) move is to create a new channel ("context matters"), which discusses geopolitical events and such, but cross promote it so that it gets a head start in the algorithm.
A youtube channel is a business. Don't let it be personal. Go where the money is, but also keep your integrity. Use smarts to avoid breakdowns in incentives.
His documentary on Andrew Wakefield has become my definitive answer to people who ask me if the MMR vaccine causes autism, a question I have been asked directly and indirectly for decades. Despite the fact I'd been asked this for decades, and despite me having much time to research this topic in that time, his 2 hour documentary released two years ago blew everything I had ever seen anybody say on the subject out of the water.
This comes across as posturing around internet drama. The article's subject demolished a plagiarist for ripping off the community they're apart of; not bad at all! Then the subject gets an interview where they talk endlessly about their guilt and the good they've done; well, this part feels off.
"Virtue signaling" might be the lazy term to describe it. Or maybe it's how self-awareness mixed with self-marketing is too self-convincing. Particularly when one's audience is too eager to confirm that marketing as reality.
Joking about Rearden using his steel to back a train in and out of Dagny Taggart's tunnel against a ticker tape backing soundtrack does not a fan make.
Further, it's possible to appreciate works for the impact they have on you, even if you don't necessarily agree with them.
Coincidentally, I read Atlas Shrugged right after finishing an economics degree, and it made me think about free markets vs constrained markets (in both directions) in ways the degree did not.
For example, the coursework used microeconomic graphs to demonstrate monopolist pricing/supply strategies (and the resulting loss of consumer surplus relative to perfect competition), but the degree didn't cover what that meant for actual humans living in that hypothetical economy. Nor did the degree cover the opposite: what happens when markets are constrained by laws/bureaucracy and the best and brightest seek more permissive places to set up their businesses and simply up and leave. An economics degree helped analyse markets, but it didn't go deep into the human impacts as Atlas Shrugged does.
For this reason, I claim it is very possible to strongly appreciate Ayn Rand for her works without necessarily agreeing with (any) of them.
> what happens when markets are constrained by laws/bureaucracy and the best and brightest seek more permissive places to set up their businesses and simply up and leave.
To a place where they are free to process spodumene, extract lithium, and just leave megatonnes of acid and radioactive by products pooling in unregulated dams that burst and pollute downstream?
Zero regulation is just a little bit too much Silent Spring surely?
It's clear you didn't absorb ideas from Atlas Shrugged unthinkingly, which is exactly my point: it made you think about the extremes (i.e. heavy regulation; no regulation).
The key idea isn't that all regulation is bad, but that there is some cost to regulation. Hyperbole is used to exaggerate the cost so it's clear and a more fun read.
I was stunned by how little an economics degree touched on the costs of regulation beyond the deadweight loss of taxation. The degree didn't go into depth on the negative human impacts of regulation (i.e. on both entrepreneurs and consumers). That is, if regulations get too burdensome, entrepreneurs will find it too onerous to create and run businesses, and will either leave the economy or find other hobbies, which, in some cases (e.g. inventions, industries where the second best producer is lightyears behind the best) will come at significant (and often silent) cost to society.
The fact Atlas Shrugged got me thinking about this at all was a win, considering an entire economics degree kinda failed to do so! (beyond deadweight loss)
I read it when I was 14 or so and thought of it as a very silly book.
Meanwhile, in the real world, I was surrounded by primary industry, mining, cattle stations, etc. and it was pretty clear what happened without some form of both regulation and proportionate repurcussions.
When I did arrive at high school economics it was a stain on my otherwise unblemished acedemic record as I stubbornly told an Econ. Honors graduate with a teaching degree that almost all the assumptions being taught in high school economics (perfect knowledge, rational actors, etc) had no place in real world models .. with the result that I got sent to the Principals office and was caned.
Still gives me a chuckle to this day, it didn't particularly hurt my undergrad | postgrad work in STEM as basic economic assumptions don't have many fans and it apparantly falls under acceptable rebel with a cause .. :)
I'm no fan of overly complex regulation that has strayed from some simply stated core raison d'être, but I hold that even Adam Smiths "Free Market" had rules and that stock exchanges must have transparent disclosure and penalties for false infomation, etc.
