Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2020–2022
6:10 · 7.1M views · Mar 3, 2019
Kurzgesagt addresses whether viewers can trust its videos, describing its research process and how it handles older videos with errors or overstated claims.
HN cites it when debating Kurzgesagt's credibility and its corrections and removals of earlier content.
3 comments from Hacker News
> I think this explanation, as well as that from the video, is layman psychology at best Well, kurzgesagt back their statements with references to academic research: [LINK] They also vet their videos with experts and are transparent in their methodology: this video > Yes, there are factors or mechanisms that drive your desire for belonging, but it is a pretty unconvincing observation. It doesn't have to be tribalism to prefer being around people you trust. Why would you assume that I didn't consider other explanations? > FOMO is more connected to the fear of the unknown and fear of loss in my opinion. In what way wouldn't "the fear of the unkown" or "the fear of loss" be less connected with the fear of likely missing crucial parts of the conversations your social network is having? e.g. you might miss out hearing about a party, where someone makes an personal announcement (e.g. getting married, moving to another country,...). So, now your friends have a shared experience of having heard the news first hand that you aren't part of. > A "tribe" would shield you of course, but it is mostly a sign of other needs not being met. Advertisers use it to their advantage for decades. Some appeal to their audiences to be the source of other peoples FOMOs. "think different" instead of "stay connected". What "other needs" are these? > There are less suicides than in the 90s. How is the number of suicides 30 years ago relevant to a dynamic observed over the course of the past 15 years? > That
> physical vs psychological dependence is kind of outdated I wouldn't say outdated, but I do agree it is 100% up for debate. Kurzgesagt did a really similar video[0] on addiction, but the basically walked it back from such a hard line stance in a correction/update video[1]. It's not so easy to tease apart the social vs the physical vs the pure mental. > Just the same, you can be addicted to coffee. Caffeine is a drug. Right, I think you're agreeing with me. That they have similar aspects, but to treat them the same - like putting caffine on Class 1 - would be insane. [0] [LINK] [1] this video
I believe they did it on this video called "Can You Trust Kurzgesagt?". They also removed a few of their older videos at the time because they had this exact issue of presenting as fact some things that were not at all certain. this video