Is Anything on the Internet Real?

[@smartereveryday]

I tried to cover this information in a series on missinformation, but I must say you did SO much better. Equating the art of the pause to a superpower is something I’ll be using. I like your concept of keeping the pause detector running quietly in the background. Thanks Henry.

[@admiralcapn]

I immediately thought of your series, Destin!

[@xXDarQXx]

@@jullyxiao814 sry, not everyone has the sense of humour of a 7 y/o

[@dvdemon187]

The almighty YT algorythm suggested this video to me in the feed and I thought about watching it, but i _paused_ until I read _your tweet_ about it. Thanks, Destin and Henry.

[@equesdeventusoccasus]

I very much enjoyed that series and recommended it to friends.

[@Mike__B]

You know it's good stuff when MinutePhysics does about 6 and a half minutes long before the sponsor!

[@charleshanson9467]

CGP Grey's adventure into searching for the origin of the name Tiffany is a real illustration in the way wrong or poor information can persist, be copied, and become "truth" if left unchallenged long enough.

[@realpvs]

Came here to say the samething, thank you

[@Soul-Burn]

Similarly Alex the French Guy on whether or not Mayonnaise is a mother sauce. TL;DR it is, and was lost in translation to English.

[@SuperMastermindx]

And a much more enjoyable video than this, which had almost nothing to do with fireworks and is just clickbait

[@tb_eest]

Lemmino's video on the eight spiders you supposedly swallow in your sleep is also a great video on this.

[@classarank7youtubeherokeyb63]

It's also an important lesson in how the internet works. If you lie, someone will devote an embarrassing portion of their life to calling you out. No exceptions.

[@JasonOshinko]

The worst part is when you tell someone it's fake, they usually come back with "Aw, it's no big deal, it's just for fun" or "Just enjoy things for once without analyzing them to death."

[@RileyBanksWho]

Yep, that's a sociopath for ya.

[@wapuvdvdv]

Its literally impossible to verify everything you see. If it does not impact me i just enjoy 😌

[@TankaFrank]

I've found it's important depending on the person saying something false to first mention the feeling of the "fact" and then offer a similar feeling with the truth as you're adjusting their foundation for how they see the world. Like: "It does sound wild that we use only 10% of the brain, but I've learned it's closer to 100% since we now have fMRI data which makes you wonder what it's all doing"

[@R_V_]

@@RileyBanksWho Not specially a sociopath. Many people of all kinds prefer, by far, the "authenticity" of their own feelings, to the actual truth of external reality. It's much more comfortable. We all have to deal with it, as it's human nature.

[@JLneonhug]

@@wapuvdvdv except it does, it's designed to drive an emotional response.

[@BillMellman]

Excellent! As a life-long skeptic I've noticed that "skeptic" has taken on a negative feel. This is so much softer and more inviting! This is definitely getting forwarded to all my friends... Oh, wait....

[@alexandriap.3285]

Unfortunately if we make a community of 'pausers', it might work for a little while, but eventually toxic pseudointellectualism would likely build up again. :P The problem isn't so much the word, but the way the word is attached to our identities and emotions. Eventually the word gets detached for its meaning and comes to be associated with the group that uses it, rather than what the word is supposed to mean.

[@ShankarSivarajan]

Pause, and ask yourself _why_ "skeptic" has been assigned negative connotations in some circles. _Cui bono?_ Who benefits from authority, garbed in the guise of Science!, not being questioned?

[@z-beeblebrox]

Some people have definitely misappropriated "skeptic" to mean "persistently and repeatedly debunking topics I personally don't like for views" which is not only bad in the sense that focusing only on negatives creates toxic communities, but is bad because it allows actors with agendas or axes to grind to easily infiltrate and rise up quickly in those communities. After all, the lie of omission can't be debunked, ergo it can be used to manipulate otherwise smart people.

[@ewutermohlen]

I get it! You have to many friends and it takes to much effort to share. You're so amazing! skeptical people sure have a lot of friends!

[@ekki1993]

It's important to remember that skepticism does have applications that can be thought of as negative. There was a Greek school that thought of it as a way to stop judgement altogether. To avoid coming to any conclusion and thus "never be wrong". Feel free to pause and check if it's true too.

[@Wolforce]

What a nice take on the uncertainty of information we are living today, and a very indirect but inspiring call to action. Video worth sharing

[@usadefcon1]

When the Fed says "it's contained to subprime" or "inflation is transitory" or "we have the ability to raise interest rates without destroying our bubble economy" ...pause

[@Abzan92]

Shill, or should I say, how does that boot taste?

[@Joettcrow]

I feel like the responses in this thread are... good examples of not pausing.

[@Abzan92]

@@Joettcrow I'm sure you feel very tall on your high horse. How about you tone down your sense of superiority as you defend the generic nonsense that was the top comment?

[@Joettcrow]

@@Abzan92 hmm? I'm not really interested in defending any of the comments on here, just got triggered by a weird trumper and odd fed bashing as a response to an innocuous comment.

[@Pickle-oh]

Honestly, the colors of the fireworks give it away more than anything.

[@-vermin-]

They didn't look realistic at all.

[@joshuaharper372]

When I first saw that video last year, I enjoyed the artistry involved in the simulation, but I suspected immediately that it was just a simulation based on the colors.

[@matthewmirabello339]

My first intuition was because they seemed too perfectly synchronized. Though being trained in inorganic chemistry maybe i should have noticed the unusual colors first.

[@AmeshaSpentaArmaiti]

the weird halos gave it away for me, it looks like an absolutely basic blur glow that a lot people learn when doing digital art or, like me, real-time rendering for video games.

[@kindlin]

I was confused at first, because I didn't think the video he was showing could be the video he was talking about. It was so obviously fake, my brain didn't even consider someone could think it's true.

[@doctormo]

From what I can tell, Shakespeare came up with eye of newt. There's no references to it from any contemporaries, even using alternative spellings such as neuft or nefet. Where as all the other items in that wich's brew are animal too, no banes, florals or any other botanical nicknames; just animal parts. You'd think if Billy S. was making a vegan potion he'd have used at least one other known herb.

[@NicolaARRMagnolia]

Yeah. I was looking up that scene in Macbeth there are a couple that are parts of plants (root of hemlock, and slips of yew), but the list of ingredients of the potion is otherwise overwhelmingly animal body parts. A few are even body parts of humans (nose of Turk and Tartar's lip). So Shakespeare was probably trying to list ingredients of a potion that sounded weird and creepy but also had to fit his meter and rhyme. He also might have picked animals that had reputations as common familiars for witches.

[@doctormo]

@@NicolaARRMagnolia Ah yes, the two poisons. Hemlock and Yew. Pretty sure mustard isn't a well known poison.

[@9sven6]

Can you share how you came to this conclusion?

[@oscargordon]

@@9sven6 It is not a bad conclusion based on the concept that Shakespeare if famous for "inventing" words and phrases. Not necessarily that these words and phrases weren't in use prior to Shakespeare, but that the words and phrases first appear in his writing. So "eye of newt". I'm sure hundreds of years from now people will be wondering where Lewis Carol or Dr. Seuss came up with all of their words and think they will have to be "real" words and phrases based on something and not just funny word play.

[@doctormo]

@@9sven6 Google books mostly. A bit of dictionary cross referencing, and trying to read the context for a bunch of sources. It's interesting how often "newe" got confused with "newt" by google's OCR. It's impossible to know for sure who invented words, and this gets us to the phrase "first attested in"

[@andrenowaczek4909]

3:08 Interesting fact: A factoid is a piece of incorrect information that is repeated very often and widely accepted as fact. So in this case you have just demonstrated that the soap opera thing is, in fact, not a factoid.

[@sumitrana2420]

But now a factoid is just a replacement for "fun fact" so is it really "factoid"? Thoughts to chew on...

[@shiveringpilgrim920]

@@sumitrana2420 well then someone that is claiming to spread true information either intentionally said “factoid” because they knew they were lying, or they aren’t very well informed in etymology and shouldn’t be trusted to spread information, if they don’t even know the meaning of the words that they’re choosing to use. Because even if factoid is used and understood a certain way by the majority of people, it still has a specific original meaning which is important, and every word we choose to speak and release into the atmosphere carries a specific frequency and energy and therefore effects and shapes our reality. Everyone should be considering the impact of their words way more than they are, ESPECIALLY public speakers/content creators and the like. It may seem like a minor inconvenient detail, but like I said; if you have such a large platform like this and are claiming to spread truth to a wide audience, you need to be well informed and aware of what it is that you choose to say and put out to the public. I didn’t know that factoid meant what it does, but as soon as I heard it in the video, I (ironically) got an automatic gut feeling and chose to pause because it sounded skeptical that he chose that exact word and I had a slight assumption that “factoid” didn’t actually mean “fact.” It’s kind of like “-ish” which essentially means “similar to” or “kind of.” That opens a whole different can of worms so I won’t go into detail but it struck me one day when thinking about how that suffix is attached to different groups of people.. anyways, I digress.

[@Pfhorrest]

I have what I call my "automatic someone-is-trying-to-manipulate-me detector", which is basically pauses like this when something seems like an appeal to emotion etc.

[@ShankarSivarajan]

Repent sinner, for the end is nigh! The seas shall rise and swallow the world lest you tithe to the government a carbon tax, and stop using plastic straws.

[@matthewmirabello339]

I also have a similar detector: "this person is an established spreader of misinformation. Unless urgent assume it is false or a waste of time"

[@HamHamHampster]

So, every news article basically. I can't find a single one that doesn't try to spin a story one way or another.

[@lioelbammalf7483]

@@ShankarSivarajan Exactly the sort of association that is an example of what the video talks about pausing over. We're used to "repent sinner..." style speeches coming from a "don't question me" rhetoric - by then going on to talk about carbon tax or reduction in plastic use it pairs those issues with the same reaction. No actual mention of arguments for or against or dive into a *why*, only an emotional association. Great example of something we should read, pause and dismiss.

[@jon3615]

@@HamHamHampster it’s all about perception. Like the stock broker from the movie “The Incredibles”. “You didn’t save my life! You ruined my death!” Do you think the news would be the same if they just listed facts? It’s incredibly difficult to not let your biases influence how you relay information. Good journalist do their best to not let their biases tell the story. There are not that many good journalists compared to the how many bad ones there are.

[@tgypoi]

Thank you. It's very frustrating to me how the "age of information" is really more like the age of misinformation.

[@srgtcolon1493]

Unfortunately misinformation is information too. The age of information probably started with Gutenberg, the current challenge we face is perhaps "just" that our good ol' pause detector v1.0, that was "Is it printed or just a rumor?", has become seriously unreliable and upgrade to v2.0, as proposed by minutephysics, can not (should not) be postponed any longer.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Perhaps the correct labeling is the “age of -information”, to cover misinformation and disinformation as well?

[@RoninMike-DR]

Pause

[@dfgaJK]

The problem with trusting anything online or not pausing at everything is that you are training the the algorithm to bypass your pause filter. I find I need to be actively uninfluenced by anything I see from the internet unless I know the truth of the information.

[@ShadowDrakken]

It's weird; I immediately saw the over saturated colors and the weird halos and thought it was one of those old fireworks screensavers. The type of blur each spark has isn't natural, it looks very much like the feathering that most photo editors use.

[@TheScienceBiome]

This was quite a change from your usual videos but it was a refreshing take!

[@tpog1]

This is why I never have any emotional response to advertisement because my first reaction is to feel manipulated which numbs all potential followup reactions.

[@KG_BM]

Suddenly i have a desire to see a video on how to be able to see the difference between tempered glass and regular glass... in case my lfe depends on it for some reason

Let's hope the price is worth it :D

[@BrianEltherington]

Have noticed artifacts that appear almost like smoke or haze in tempered glass while wearing polarized sun glasses if that helps.

[@reidflemingworldstoughestm1394]

@@BrianEltherington Hmm. So tempered glass is on fire, and it obviously burns the same way glass flows -- very, very, very slowly. Which means glass experiences time at much faster rate than the rest of the universe, which could only be true if glass were from another dimension. A dimension beyond that which is known to man.

[@Codebreakerblue]

this guy's got the right idea Glass is from another dimension

[@bbgun061]

@@reidflemingworldstoughestm1394 Pause here: Glass doesn't flow. That's a myth.

[@hebl47]

4:17 forward your inquiry about eye of newt to CGP Grey. He'll obses about it for a year until he finds the grave of the witch who came up with the name.

[@priyalasingh617]

This video taught me to understand my emotion more than what this video is intended to deliver.

[@DanUpshaw]

This is nearly identical to a distress tolerance technique from a therapy model called DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) called STOP. STOP includes: Stop, Take a step back, Observe, and Proceed mindfully. It is one of the easiest and most effective distress tolerance techniques therapists teach. So cool to see it laid out from a different perspective. (Distress tolerance is the idea of being able to weather emotional floods and other experiences of crisis or feeling overwhelmed while keeping yourself safe and not making the situation worse.)

[@JoshuaKallenberg]

Wow, that's *really* freaky. Just when I came up on that clip at 1:20, I saw out of the corner of my eye literally saw a firework go off just a hundred meters outside of my window, perfectly timed. I haven't seen a firework in real life since last new year, so that is one hell of a coincidence.

[@placeadrien5566]

cool coincidence

[@chevyguyss]

This comment sets off my pause detector… jk 🤪😉 synchronicity I suppose 😁

[@D3nn1s]

*pause* This sounds too good to be true :P

[@esajpsasipes2822]

I've meard like three fireworks go off this week, everyone is off by one week...

[@eagames456]

Knowing that the video has over 100,000 views at the time of this comment, it's quite inevitable that this happens to at least one watcher.

[@tjug0f3m]

1:42 You sneaky smarty pants...

[@justfrankjustdank2538]

0:27 that old loading made memories come back :(

[@socosurf]

you actually thought those fireworks were real for a second? they looked immediately fake to me.

[@radishraccoon3657]

Expectations play a big part in your perception though - probably a slightly more immediate reaction when you're watching a video called "how to detect fake fireworks" ;)

[@pierrotA]

Maybe you should have pause and ask yourself: but are they really fake ? You cannot just say "it look fake so it's fake". A lot of things look fake but are real (slow-motion fire, laminar flow, some fireworks,...). Being skeptical do not mean "I do not trust lies", but "I am able to think beyond my first impression".

[@socosurf]

@@radishraccoon3657 I hear what your saying based on bias but all I can do is try to counter argue that I would have known immediately just based on my specific perception of reality. But that won't make me win the argument because you probably already think I assumed they were fake based on the title.

[@socosurf]

@@pierrotA You can absolutely say 'it looks fake, so it's fake' if your educated guess has enough evidence to assume so (reflections, cgi-like design, etc). I can look at many things online and automatically determine genuine-status based on a quick glance by taking the context of what is being presented and being able to catch things that stand out that trigger my mind to call out what is fake and what is not fake.

[@pierrotA]

@@socosurf But sometimes you will be wrong... Don't tell me you are ALWAYS right and NEVER did a single mistake in your life. I'm sure I can find some videos that you would instantly reject as fake, even if they are not. You don't think so ? Again, the point of this video is not to know if this particular video is fake (it's not even an important subject) but to be aware that sometimes you can be certain you are right but you are not, and if you never question yourself you will never know. If you never pause and check if you are right, you are surely way, way more wrong that you think you are.

[@learbear]

I paused when you said you clicked on a video from an email chain.

[@agiar2000]

Excellent video! This reminds me of how I reacted when a co-worker of mine told me that the "cotton-eyed" part of "Cotton-Eyed Joe" was an old phrase referring to a symptom of syphilis. I was skeptical, so I did a Google search. I _did_ find multiple sources, but... none of them was credible on its own, and most of _them_ cited no source of their own. The few that _did_ cite any source at all only cited another similarly suspect source, like a comedy blog, a personal blog, or some other thing that should not be considered a primary or even a secondary source. I concluded that there was no serious reason to believe that cotton-eyed actually referred to the symptom of any disease. If there _is_ any scholarly source on the subject, I would love to see it, but I have not found one after my search.

[@kylehill3643]

Google scrubbed a lot in 2013 onwards when they got the Watson AI crap and now have moved well beyond that after 2016. They are deeply afraid of being found out but feel invincible especially since 2020 pulled the wool over everybody's eyes. I can't believe humanity is stupid enough to fall for the media.

[@NikoTheDoke]

So "The Pause" is effectively our "Spidey Sense"?

[@Oblic008]

This is great if used on everything (that triggers the pause instinct) that comes your way. A lot of people only do it if it rubs them the wrong way and will accept it if that like/agree/conform to what is being shared. Great video all the same. Very fair presentation of thinking about misinformation.

[@thomasking49]

It’s not every day when I watch a 7-minute video and instantly feel wiser. Thank you

[@1.4142]

Sound also travels the same speed as light in the video.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

5:49 THANK you for including THIS on your list of reasons to pause: "Does it try to convince me to NOT be angry but to be complacent?"

[@fluffigverbimmelt]

Well phrased and therefore so applicable to many fields without strongly taking sides. Most obvious and pointed out in the comments are conspiracy theories, but it perfectly matches cyber attacks like phishing. In fact this could be used as internal training material for cooperations.

[@Spacedog_42]

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

[@LabGecko]

...or something in Greek to that effect :)

[@Ozblivion]

Hmmm

[@sjraneyumo6049]

That urge and tingling in the back of your head are called Red Flags in a social scenario.

[@lukesendelbach5608]

Pause: if 100% of your donation goes to the charity… how does the sponsor make money to pay for the sponsorship?

[@shadowxaf]

Some organizations have a separate group of donors that specifically cover marketing and administrative costs. What gives me pause is "donation matching". Are there really a ton of rich benefactors out there that will only give money to charity if you do? Or if it's a company doing the match, it reads to me like just a form of advertising.

[@strangelaw6384]

The power to "pause" is what I would call your "cognitive resistance". Do you know about the trope of "cognitohazards" and "memetic virus" in sci-fi horror? And that the hero of the story has the ability to resist these conceptual monstrosities? Yeah, to me, that willpower IS the power to "pause". It is the closest you can have to a "real-life superpower" to a real-life threat.

[@dryued6874]

Things that gave me pause about the fireworks: 1. They look fake as shit.

[@steefant]

"give well" almost sounds too good to be true... what do i get for passing that test?

[@JeremieBPCreation]

For skeptics, taking that pause is like scratching an itch.

[@_BlackSpectrum]

If I really think about it, it feels like my life is at pause since 2019!

[@MammaApa]

And have you not done quite a bit of pondering during this time, even though the pause was involuntary?

[@DowlWatcher]

"established reputable institutions" a pause should always be given anytime someone hears this.

[@bretonkyle]

Nothing like running an ad right after discussing how "it's too good to be true" is a good pause-trigger lol

[@PapaWheelie1]

Wouldn’t it be great if people actually cared if they spread false information? Ignorance seems to be a valid excuse when it shouldn’t be.

[@spearhead30]

Also good rules to keep you safe from malicious email.

[@jimbrookhyser]

Thanks for this video! I think the "Well, actually..." Is underated. Sure, when seen as a competitive one-upsmanship, it's annoying or worse, but if not for external corrections, what difference does my pause make in the larger picture of a dangerous meme?

[@ghislainbugnicourt3709]

I think "Well, actually..." is associated with an obnoxious behaviour and the feeling that it provokes in the people receiving it. So it's more about the way the message is delivered and the emotions it provokes rather than the importance of "correcting" people. Here's a comment seen above that seems worth repeating : I've found it's important depending on the person saying something false to first mention the feeling of the "fact" and then offer a similar feeling with the truth as you're adjusting their foundation for how they see the world. Like: "It does sound wild that we use only 10% of the brain, but I've learned it's closer to 100% since we now have fMRI data which makes you wonder what it's all doing"

[@jimbrookhyser]

@@ghislainbugnicourt3709 I generally agree with you that communicating well is often more important than being right. I'm left still with the concern that bad information is shared and propagated in whatever way it wants, particularly with the use of strong emotions. I don't see how a strategy of corrections that deliberately avoids strong emotions could possibly provide a solution. I certainly don't want to justify people feeling self-righteous while acting like assholes, but I hypothesize that sometimes a negative feeling is a good thing. I mean, at a minimum, being corrected is supposed to feel uncomfortable (maybe I'm wrong?). Is a negative feeling necessarily a sign that things are going in the wrong direction? I admit that my style of argument has many times upset people in the past. I want to be clear I avoid name-calling, generalizing, or getting personal, but I don't shy away from the various ways of saying "you're wrong here." From all those experiences, I still haven't figured out a way that works for me, and that's one of my biggest frustrations at the moment. Thanks for helping me think about it.

[@ghislainbugnicourt3709]

@@jimbrookhyser Maybe the best way to think about it is to place yourself in the role of the one who has that wrong idea in your head, naturally you think it's true and want it to remain true. You don't want to hear someone say "you're wrong'. So ask yourself, how would you like to be corrected, ideally ? I'd say the best way is to be lead to make the conclusion that you were wrong *by yourself*. No need to say "no" or "you're wrong", instead present the arguments or facts so that the person can verify independently. Also, very frequently people are not really "wrong", they rather have a point of view or model that doesn't fit the data as well as yours. It's important to remember that your point of view, although founded on better arguments, is still a model. To be clear, I face this problem frequently too. I try to help students do their homework, and very often I notice that I start my answers with "No". That's not constructive because it doesn't encourage them to think about it, so when I notice it I try to rephrase so that they can see the mistake themselves.

[@ImmacHn]

One pause moment for me was this video when you said "Established Reputable Institutions", I would be weary of those as well, as much as possible go for primary sources.

[@festuca]

Hits differently now, esp for countries involved in the conflict. I wish more people were able to pause...

[@Leyrann]

The combination of "too good to be true" and "does it support my worldview" tends to be what most noticeably gets my pause moment going. It's always good to check whether that perfect story that so clearly proves that other people are in denial about something is, in fact, true. Because if you lose that, you _become_ the person in denial.

[@BBonBon]

0:27 minutephysics is slowly transitioning into Vsauce :)

[@thiscat4426]

This is a very good video on how to interact with the information you see around it but I admit I was disappointed throughout the video that there was no actual information on how to tell fake fireworks from real ones

[@coldReactive]

What if the "Fireworks" were the hype all along? Hmm...

[@GreatOutdoors1]

He mentioned that the colors were weird and there wasn't any smoke as two things that had him doubting they were real.

[@marcmurison]

What immediately struck me was the perfect symmetry. The real world is never perfectly symmetric like that.

[@unclecreepy4185]

Basically, if something fits someone’s narrative, they’re not going to pause to think about it. This is especially problematic with “news” channels and “reporters” who no longer seem to have any journalistic integrity and just want to report on stories that align with their thoughts and standards, regardless of the truth. And when they use the phrase “people say...”, it’s probably just one tweet, not based in facts, they read that was reposted a dozen times. But this isn’t a new phenomenon because of the internet. This type of stuff has always existed since man began communicating with each other. The internet just means we see more fake stories. But the way to discern the truth isn’t any different. And if you’re the kind of person that can’t tell an obvious lie because you want it to be true, then I know a Nigerian prince who wants to give you a lot of money if you help him.

[@FireyDeath4]

I wouldn't believe this if I were you. MinutePhysics definitely did something really horrible just a few years ago

[@andrewharrison8436]

Love the appeal to emotion and the lack of sources definitely worth an upvote for creating a pause.

[@FireyDeath4]

@@andrewharrison8436 Hooh I wasn't even expecting that. Thanks for the tip! By the way I have ADHD so it might be a bit hard for me lol

[@notverydeep9726]

A rare and excellent illustration of what you really need in addition to objective facts to make good choices: wisdom.

[@johnchessant3012]

This is a nice sequel to CGP Grey's "This video will make you angry". The pause is a necessary defense when human attention becomes more and more commodified.

[@DukasFiguliras]

Not pausing is the equivalent of being "bluepilled", in the original matrix context

[@danielfarfudinov3193]

It's actually very easy to spot CGI if you know where to look for

[@adissiusly]

Back to the old Minutephysics style, marker and paper instead of graphics

[@nekekaminger]

And here I was expecting a cool video about how to do graphical analysis of video footage to find out if it shows real fireworks or not :D

[@andrewharrison8436]

Me too, but this was just as useful/entertaining and, in my opinion, more important.

[@Kitsaplorax]

I've discovered that citing primary sources rarely works anymore for many fields, as few sources are digitized. Local tv broadcasts come to mind.

[@TheJamesRedwood]

1:47 What about "don't look like fireworks, clearly look like animations, especially the precise co-ordination"?

[@GerhardMack]

A small point about multiple blogs having the same "facts" is that they could have been copied from each other, or could in fact be the same author. I know some SEO operations that automate posts to multiple blogs so that those blogs can have links to the site they want to raise in ranking. They don't care about reality, just attention. More attention means more page hits, more page hits means more links to the blog as people share it with friends, more links means higher page rank.

[@thebestbeepbop7167]

The way the music matched the exact pacing of the video really helped deliver the message, thank you!

[@Theo_Caro]

This is so important. Everyone needs to know about and practice "the pause." I love that framing.

[@YoYo_Yatasim]

Just like you, I also think.

[@anshumansingh0312]

Censorship no longer works by hiding information from you; censorship works by flooding you with immense amounts of misinformation, of irrelevant information, of funny cat videos, until you're just unable to focus. Yuval Noah Harari, historian

[@vypxl]

Everyone on the internet today should see this. Great work!

[@iamshango3005]

But there's nobody left

[@spelunkerd]

Tendency to ponder is closely liked to intelligence. The problem is, any voice they have is swept away by crowd noise.

[@RamBhaktChandranarayan]

It's Important to pause, because life is not gonna get effect if you have a pause, but if you don't have that pause, it's gonna effect your life

[@NoahSpurrier]

This reminds me of those free IQ tests that started in the late 90’s. A friend sent me the link. I took the test and my IQ came out to be 150 or something. Neat… hmmm… That seemed a bit high. Pretty sure I’m smart, but not a genius. I went back and went through the test a few times and answered the questions randomly. I constantly got around 120 to 130, which is still a high IQ. After the free test the site tried to sell you some sort of training material for smart people. I figured I passed their IQ test by not purchasing their products.

[@RoninMike-DR]

If some smells something and goes "eww, smell that" and you smell it, you just failed an IQ test.

[@ikbintom]

I came here to learn about fireworks and the video did disappoint 😞 Spotting fake fireworks would have been a cool new year's trick/skill

[@IntelVoid]

I've seen Crab's Eye, a plant, in a remedy of that period, which made me think of eye of newt. But looking at the rest of the scene in MacBeth, they're clearly talking about animal parts.

[@jsteidel0]

Nice emphasis on the pause at 4:56. (I re-ran it three times and a fourth in a different browser to see if it was still there.) The happy and angry faces sketch at 6:17 reminded me of the comedy tragedy theatre masks.

[@sethapex9670]

I'd heard eye of newt is mustard seed years ago, can't remember where.

[@timbeaton5045]

As the Clash once put it...."Back in the garage with my bullshit detector"

[@KasukuSaki]

What annoys me is that your video was more about 'pause' than the actual title you choosed..

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

It's like having advantage on int checks in D&D.

[@TheDragonSlaayer]

I love how the way you talk about "pausing" is really just another way of saying critical thinking. Like, actually think about things before you react or come to conclusions. You know, the way that everyone should behave all of the time.

[@BariumCobaltNitrog3n]

I grew up before the internet so I feel I have some perspective that those who grew up with it don't have. This video perfectly illustrates that perspective in that you can take things at face value, but be curious, skeptical even. It's OK to ask if something really is what it says it is. When Henry said there is no pink in the rainbow, I immediately thought, and no yellow in this monitor! Henry is smart, a physicist even, and started this KZbin thing as a tutor. He wanted to help someone learn something. Be curious. Embrace the paws.

[@Green0Photon]

"I notice I am confused."

[@PoorMansChemist]

1:23 That's what I noticed first. How do you even get colors like that with chemical combustion? Also the bursts are too perfect. They are absolutely symmetrical. Lastly the colored stars are actually shaped like parallelograms and their brightness does not vary. It's not even a good fake.

[@SopanKotbagi]

You tricked us into watching this video and getting invested in it.

[@bamb8s436]

Yeah that s me all the time. It s rly cute and infuriatin when I see those "sceptics" both online and irl that strictly unconsciously select when to enter this mode but have a below avg intelligence to make valid unconventional thoughts

[@DaRealSiri]

Wow, the transition in this video is amazing. Well made. States the truth without taking a biased stance.

[@JeanPGuy3000]

I to see that post about "Eye of Newt" and it gave me pause as well. I don't know if it has anything to do with mustard seed. It does seem likely that the code names that got used were probably in reference to how a plant looked. This way no one would need an explanation of what an ingredient looked like if they had to search a shelf for it. I would personally say "Eye of Newt" is most likely a reference to a seed of some sort so I don't rule out the possibility of mustard seed. Edit: Mustard seed does seem to be the common belief but that wouldn't explain the long standing misconception from befor that it was real newt eyes.

[@tacitozetticci9308]

Epoché (ἐποχή epokhē, "cessation") is an ancient Greek term. In Hellenistic philosophy it is a technical term typically translated as "suspension of judgment" but also as "withholding of assent". […] It refers to a process of setting aside assumptions and beliefs. (Wikipedia)

[@supetorus9612]

At the end of the video I got an ad for a super flashlight that could cook my eggs, light up an entire city, and more!

[@claxvii177th6]

this "pause" is what makes me 'that guy' amongst my friends

[@bacontf2]

I give a lot of credit to videos like these from educational channels for the fact that I've thus far managed to avoid being swallowed up by conspiracy theories and left/right populism

[@theoriginaledi]

What a great video. I want to share this with everyone I know, including my students. A very important principle clearly explained with engaging examples. You can't ask for more than that!

[@owleyes8600]

"A moment of skepticism is worth a moment of your time" -Mark Twain But seriously, good video.

[@pedrohenriqu288]

lol, im from brazil and I REALLY thought you were going to explain the difference between a firework and a gunshot.

[@nilsp9426]

Wonderful video! If I could add two little details: be ready to pause if something is either very important or very judgemental. Your most important decisions or your strongest judgements of others cause great harm if they are not founded on good reason. Second, the point is not so much what to believe, but why to believe. I think the video implicitly hits that point but it is crucial to realize. For example, conspiracy theorists regularly fail to have good reasons for their beliefs. The problem is not so much that their beliefs are about conspiracies (real ones exist), but that they have very weak reasons why to believe in them. A bad reason could be an off-the-charts sense of scepticism against everyone and everything without any evidence. A good reason could be that an argument is both logically sound, free of known fallacies, and based on clear evidence.

[@mzaite]

“We demand rigidly defined areas of Doubt and Uncertainty!”

[@the-cleric4821]

As someone who writes essays about psychoactive plants, I'm glad you got to see the struggle of trying to find old botanical information 😂

[@jaybingham3711]

Relatedly, there are four parts to good paws: 1) The dewclaw...aka the thumb...aka that weird thingy a bit up the leg on your dog or cat. 2) The horn-like, beak-shaped nail on each load-bearing digit...aka fingers. 3) Digits...commonly four. But more is totes cool. Polydactyl ftw! 4) The digital pads that are prominent on the underside...aka 'beans.' Touch at your own peril. Should any of these parts of paws give you pause, posit...that that's a good thing...as per this video.

[@cosmophilevin1054]

This just makes social media unbelievable

[@i_am_aladeen]

Fun fact: The video in question was made with Fireworks Simulator. The graphics is recognizable anywhere.

[@1337GameDev]

4:18 - When you find blog-based similarities between sites on unsubstantiated content, it's USUALLY "old wives tales" and isn't factually-based, otherwise they would have cited it in their blog. It likely is purely entertainment / part of a ritual / tradition to say it as it "seems" correct and is easily reproducible. Most of the times, the simplest explanation is: "I heard this thing somewhere, and it feels true and is relatively harmless to believe if false, and is entertaining, so i'm just going to say it's true and move on." That's pretty much the case for most things -- where I have found myself doing this a few times and was called out on it when i couldn't list a source.

[@clssgn]

Much needed announcement especially in this time of life.

[@wiesorix]

My pause detector has largely been formed by the work of Captain Disillusion. Nowadays, I can almost enver watch a spectacular photo or video without thinkng "mmm, this can't be real, this can totally been done with visual effects"

[@Bobomb1000]

he was like, hmm hang on, this fire doesnt work

[@grproteus]

I felt the impulse about sharing this, but then I paused...

[@BlackHatShananigans]

This is an excellent video. I wish more people did this.