Maybe not that interesting for everyone here, but I found no better community for this.

  • blakemiller@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    That’s really embarrassing that we as a community have chosen, of all possible creators, to deride Kurzgesagt for taking money from The Gates Foundation. It’s 0.05% of their holdings. ZERO POINT ZERO FIVE. Which, by the way, is down from 6% in the past after public concern — yes, a whopping 6%. Scourge of the earth, locked out of heaven: The Gates Foundation. Those computer nerds strike again. And we choose to punish a great content contributor for that. Shameful display of purity politics.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      18 days ago

      The problem is when the contributors influence what the videos say, in contradiction to data.

      Kurzgesagt’s video on +2° / +3° / +4° over the global mean isn’t going to be so bad video was conspicuous to me, and is in fact, based on fossil-fuel industry rhetoric, rather than climatology estimations (which tell us over +1.5° is going to fuck us, and is).

          • CybranM@feddit.nu
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            16 days ago

            “I’m going to watch half the movie then complain about it not making sense and having a bad ending”

            • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              16 days ago

              It’s allegedly a documentary, not fiction. It should make sense from beginning to end.

              Sounds like you feel the need to defend Kurzgesagt for sentimental reasons, and since they’re presenting themselves as a source for accurate information, that just won’t do.

              • CybranM@feddit.nu
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                16 days ago

                They link all their sources. So regardless of where their funding comes from I’d rather have a good source of information instead of a non-existent perfect source.

    • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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      18 days ago

      Yeah. It seems like a ridiculous accusation to make. Bro couldn’t even answer the question about example of shilling so they had to pivot into the crime of taking money from a foundation to produce high quality educational content.

      How dare they?

      • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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        17 days ago

        They accepted, and continue to accept a great amount of money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That foundation owns over $11 billion in investments in the fossil fuel industry, including coal-burning utility companies.

        In return, there were quite a few videos that Kurzgesagt admits were funded directly by the Foundation, that exaggerate the positive influence corporations owned by the foundation have had. Videos which the CEO of Kurzgesagt has admitted they probably would not have made if the Foundation had not paid for them.

        question answered. if you don’t want to accept the CEO of Kurzgesagt word that they would not have made the videos if they hadn’t been paid to, then that isn’t my problem. I’m not here to convince you, and I don’t mind if you don’t believe him.

        • JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          I did a few searches and while I didn’t find that quote from Kurzgesagt’s CEO, I did find the contribution listed from a decade ago on the Gates foundation website. $570,000 paid out over four years. They also gave NPR $2,000,000 the next year.

          Since I didn’t find the CEOs quote you’ve mentioned, I can only question the context around it. Would those videos not have been made because the Gates foundation specifically tied the funding to those videos being created? Or would they not have been made because Kurzgesagt didn’t have the money to do so otherwise?

          Regardless, Kurzgesagt is a private company and if they wanted to conceal hidden agendas by corporate contributors, they would just keep quiet - not openly acknowledge that they made content with money given to them by some larger organisation.

          If we’re going to denounce any group of people that are connected via Bacon’s Law to a disastrous corporate industry, the moral high ground will be unachievable for the entirety of our species.

          • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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            17 days ago

            The Hated One did a video some years ago on the matter, if you’re curious then search it up because they list all their sources for everything including the quote from the CEO.

            • JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world
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              17 days ago

              Thank you for linking that video and doing what you can to share these conflict free sources you hold in such esteem.