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Hopefully as an FYI that is free of too much skeptical criticism (I mean... I actually get it, but I just don't want to deal with negativity right now), there's

Hopefully as an FYI that is free of too much skeptical criticism (I mean... I actually get it, but I just don't want to deal with negativity right now), there's actually a rapidly growing number of NDE accounts on YouTube right now. I am putting together a playlist of the most compelling ones: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvnDbwjRqIOkgR1eUMfpnk9_OT6Fc_5vT https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvnDbwjRqIOkgR1eUMfpn... Some of these are from well-educated people like doctors, former skeptics and at least 1 neuroscientist.

ScoobleDoodle 3y ago
NDE is an initialism for “near death experience” here.
csharpminor 3y ago
I’ve noticed these near-death-experience videos coming up in my recommendations and found it truly odd. They don’t seem to have anything to do with what I normally watch. I have to wonder if they’re the top of the funnel for religion campaigns like “hegetsus”.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  That's interesting to me because they showed up in mine but I'd already expressed interest. I don't know why they're being tossed at you. I honestly don't believe there's much money in the "NDE space". Certainly less than "hegetsus". Which is funny because the vast majority of NDE accounts really make all of the most popular world religions look pretty wrong (including Christianity, although its message of love over all remains... Not that its adherents follow that much or anything).
stvltvs 3y ago
Skepticism is indispensable precisely because smart people believe dumb ideas all the time. It's our only defense against flimflam and bad reasoning.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Is this to say that you possess necessarily accurate knowledge about the objectively true status on an afterlife, or is this more so just standard culture war rhetoric?
  - stvltvs 3y ago
    The most accurate thing we can say is that no one knows what happens to consciousness after death. The evidence we have, like NDEs, doesn't support a continuation of consciousness beyond bodily disintegration.
    - mistermann 3y ago
      If this was not actually the case, would you necessarily be able to know? If so, can you describe the novel, literally foolproof epistemic methodology you are using?
      - stvltvs 3y ago
        I'm saying that we don't know and should withhold our belief one way or the other until there is sufficient evidence to help us tell the difference.
        mistermann 3y ago
        [flagged]
        stvltvs 3y ago
        Most people believe one way or the other. We don't however know what is true (meaning in this case having a reasonably justified belief based on looking at the evidence as a whole and weighing alternate explanations). The evidence doesn't rise to the level that anyone can reasonably claim to know one way or the other. People just feel like they know which isn't the same thing as knowing.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
I just watched this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_IbXrBOnME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_IbXrBOnME. What he described actually sounds a lot like lucid dreaming. Even complete with waking up. I am still interested in watching a few more of these but I'm getting the feeling that I'll be thinking that a lot. (There also appears to be an unrelated video in the playlist, FYI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bzQYKm3xTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bzQYKm3xTA.)
- pmarreck 3y ago
  YouTube likes to pre-add videos to other recently-added-to playlists before I've even checked one off. I still haven't figured out a way to have it stop doing this. Frustrating. I have to constantly comb my playlists to fix these. I've now removed the non-NDE-related ones. This bug/behavior has existed for years, apparently: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/bywczb/youtube_adding_video_to_last_playlist_by_default/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/bywczb/youtube_add...
748 3y ago
I would strongly assume that a big chunk is made using generative AI with the purpose of spreading one particular religion, or just making the population more spiritual and therefore less opposed to certain changes. With all due respect, we don't know everything, but know enough about our brain to be fairly certain that there is nothing even close to any afterlife, with all respect to people's own beliefs that they are entitled to. It is wishful thinking, it makes humans feel good, gives them hope and is a pretty significant psychological relief, especially given the current mental health situation on earth, but what happens after life is fairly certain - nothing. I suspect the letters were written with the exact goal I have listed above - to give hope, to make happy and to give psychological relief. After all, you want people you interact with to be happy. If you will tell them the truth in cold blood, well, that won't be a very pleasant moment and it will lead to sadness. I do the same to be honest. Small lies that make people that I care about happy. It makes me happy in return. Is it bad? What even is bad? Everyone defines bad for themselves. Making other people happy is definitely not bad in a system of values where bad is on the opposite side of happy. But what do I know.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  You very clearly haven't seen a single one, much less a bunch of them as I have. There's no generative AI going on with people on video telling their stories going back years ago. I'm a skeptic and I am pretty convinced at this point that something real is going on, here. They also actually are mostly ANTI-religion (in fact, the ones that seem very religion-slanted also seem false or fail to maintain internal consistency, so I've easily dismissed the vast majority of those). The testimonies in the playlist I put together almost entirely push the notion that most if not all religions are false in small or large part. > but know enough about our brain to be fairly certain that there is nothing even close to any afterlife You can't say that for sure. The brain might be a consciousness conduit and not a consciousness generator (which is pretty much what these testimonies are saying). If I step on a garden hose (assuming I can't see beyond it) and the water stops, and I stop stepping on it and the water resumes, you're basically saying the garden hose must be the source of the water, when we know that isn't true (but only because we can see beyond the garden hose). A naïve individual from, say, 10,000 years ago who has never seen seemingly unlimited pressurized water on tap who encounters a garden hose might initially conclude that the hose produces the water... > it makes humans feel good There's a large set of things that are broadly agreed to be true which do not make people feel good and a large set of things that are broadly agreed to be true that do. "Feeling good" is therefore orthogonal to veracity so this is a non-argument. I'm disappointed that you're responding as a person who literally hasn't watched a single one of the videos (because the very things you said prove that). You're just yet another human who prefers to bury their head in the sand than confront evidence against their pre-existing worldviews, like most people. And "with all due respect," that's not rational at all.

ScoobleDoodle 3y ago

NDE is an initialism for “near death experience” here.

csharpminor 3y ago

I’ve noticed these near-death-experience videos coming up in my recommendations and found it truly odd. They don’t seem to have anything to do with what I normally watch. I have to wonder if they’re the top of the funnel for religion campaigns like “hegetsus”.

pmarreck 3y ago
That's interesting to me because they showed up in mine but I'd already expressed interest. I don't know why they're being tossed at you. I honestly don't believe there's much money in the "NDE space". Certainly less than "hegetsus". Which is funny because the vast majority of NDE accounts really make all of the most popular world religions look pretty wrong (including Christianity, although its message of love over all remains... Not that its adherents follow that much or anything).

stvltvs 3y ago

Skepticism is indispensable precisely because smart people believe dumb ideas all the time. It's our only defense against flimflam and bad reasoning.

mistermann 3y ago
Is this to say that you possess necessarily accurate knowledge about the objectively true status on an afterlife, or is this more so just standard culture war rhetoric?
- stvltvs 3y ago
  The most accurate thing we can say is that no one knows what happens to consciousness after death. The evidence we have, like NDEs, doesn't support a continuation of consciousness beyond bodily disintegration.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    If this was not actually the case, would you necessarily be able to know? If so, can you describe the novel, literally foolproof epistemic methodology you are using?
    - stvltvs 3y ago
      I'm saying that we don't know and should withhold our belief one way or the other until there is sufficient evidence to help us tell the difference.
      - mistermann 3y ago
        [flagged]
        stvltvs 3y ago
        Most people believe one way or the other. We don't however know what is true (meaning in this case having a reasonably justified belief based on looking at the evidence as a whole and weighing alternate explanations). The evidence doesn't rise to the level that anyone can reasonably claim to know one way or the other. People just feel like they know which isn't the same thing as knowing.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago

I just watched this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_IbXrBOnME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_IbXrBOnME. What he described actually sounds a lot like lucid dreaming. Even complete with waking up. I am still interested in watching a few more of these but I'm getting the feeling that I'll be thinking that a lot. (There also appears to be an unrelated video in the playlist, FYI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bzQYKm3xTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bzQYKm3xTA.)

pmarreck 3y ago
YouTube likes to pre-add videos to other recently-added-to playlists before I've even checked one off. I still haven't figured out a way to have it stop doing this. Frustrating. I have to constantly comb my playlists to fix these. I've now removed the non-NDE-related ones. This bug/behavior has existed for years, apparently: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/bywczb/youtube_adding_video_to_last_playlist_by_default/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/bywczb/youtube_add...

748 3y ago

I would strongly assume that a big chunk is made using generative AI with the purpose of spreading one particular religion, or just making the population more spiritual and therefore less opposed to certain changes. With all due respect, we don't know everything, but know enough about our brain to be fairly certain that there is nothing even close to any afterlife, with all respect to people's own beliefs that they are entitled to. It is wishful thinking, it makes humans feel good, gives them hope and is a pretty significant psychological relief, especially given the current mental health situation on earth, but what happens after life is fairly certain - nothing. I suspect the letters were written with the exact goal I have listed above - to give hope, to make happy and to give psychological relief. After all, you want people you interact with to be happy. If you will tell them the truth in cold blood, well, that won't be a very pleasant moment and it will lead to sadness. I do the same to be honest. Small lies that make people that I care about happy. It makes me happy in return. Is it bad? What even is bad? Everyone defines bad for themselves. Making other people happy is definitely not bad in a system of values where bad is on the opposite side of happy. But what do I know.

pmarreck 3y ago
You very clearly haven't seen a single one, much less a bunch of them as I have. There's no generative AI going on with people on video telling their stories going back years ago. I'm a skeptic and I am pretty convinced at this point that something real is going on, here. They also actually are mostly ANTI-religion (in fact, the ones that seem very religion-slanted also seem false or fail to maintain internal consistency, so I've easily dismissed the vast majority of those). The testimonies in the playlist I put together almost entirely push the notion that most if not all religions are false in small or large part. > but know enough about our brain to be fairly certain that there is nothing even close to any afterlife You can't say that for sure. The brain might be a consciousness conduit and not a consciousness generator (which is pretty much what these testimonies are saying). If I step on a garden hose (assuming I can't see beyond it) and the water stops, and I stop stepping on it and the water resumes, you're basically saying the garden hose must be the source of the water, when we know that isn't true (but only because we can see beyond the garden hose). A naïve individual from, say, 10,000 years ago who has never seen seemingly unlimited pressurized water on tap who encounters a garden hose might initially conclude that the hose produces the water... > it makes humans feel good There's a large set of things that are broadly agreed to be true which do not make people feel good and a large set of things that are broadly agreed to be true that do. "Feeling good" is therefore orthogonal to veracity so this is a non-argument. I'm disappointed that you're responding as a person who literally hasn't watched a single one of the videos (because the very things you said prove that). You're just yet another human who prefers to bury their head in the sand than confront evidence against their pre-existing worldviews, like most people. And "with all due respect," that's not rational at all.