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> but she has taken a hard turn into audience capture and speaking over-confidently far out of her area of expertise. Sounds like she is doing Youtube to earn

> but she has taken a hard turn into audience capture and speaking over-confidently far out of her area of expertise. Sounds like she is doing Youtube to earn some bucks off it, then? Usually, you'll stir up a controversy or make bold claims to create engagement, which in turn pleases "the algorithm".

Aurornis 1y ago
Kind of, but there's a difference between trying to stir up controversy by "just asking questions" as opposed to attacking the actual experts while overconfidently pushing competing theories, for example. Lately she's been dabbling with soft support for well known grifters like Eric Weinstein, though last I heard she stopped short of actually endorsing his theories. I think there's just too many views to be had by courting that audience, so it becomes irresistible to engage with. The best thing a good physics communicator could do would be to completely ignore the well known physics grifters and focus on the quality content, but instead she has been leaning toward defensing Weinstein and others.
mrguyorama 1y ago
She makes really really good money. Angela Collier recently made a sad video about this. Sabine makes a video with sponsorship included basically every day. With her subscription numbers, that's a LOT of money. Basically, screaming that "They don't want you to hear THIS" is extremely profitable. She's a very well paid member of the anti-science ecosystem.
- dylan604 1y ago
  With that kind of description, I'm surprised she hasn't been tapped to join POTUS' administration.
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    I mean, don't take my description for it, just scroll through her videos, watch some about things you understand, etc. I am critical of her, but I would not put her on the level of Alex Jones or other really awful people. However, her blurb on the back of that "War on science" book is pretty gross. Sabine absolutely is still capable of producing and understanding science. She chooses to make the content she does. She also clearly treats her youtube career as just business, making pretty good money from taking random science papers from random journals and using them as a reason to lambast all of science. Plenty of youtubers who do science, including people who post here like the guy from Applied Science, are pretty far from monetizing their content, sometimes to a fault, generally because they aren't looking to make crazy money, just cool stuff. I actually hope she publishes more. This paper looks..... not good, but every good scientist has put out papers that are more like afternoon fun than rigorous work. That's fine by me. I would love for Sabine to produce real science, it's vastly more beneficial for humanity than her "Here's how science LIES TO YOU" slop. I tried to watch her in the beginning, but even then it was clear the kind of audience she was trying to cultivate. It feels gross. I don't know if she truly believes what she says. Her complaints about being mistreated for being a woman seemed sincere, and not as trumped up as most of her videos, and there's plenty of sexism in science Academia, just like most places. It's hard to criticize Youtubers for their thumbnails and titles, as the soulless youtube machine forces them, but there's definitely a pattern. Basically, it's hard to look at people like NileRed, Explosions&Fire, Applied Science, Thought Emporium, etc who are literally running science labs through patreon funding and then Sabine says she's being silenced for her unorthodox views with over a million subscribers. I'm tired of people claiming they are silenced while parrot literal mainstream talking points to an audience of millions. Complaints about "The hubble tension shows we might not have everything right in our astrophysics models" is fine, dandy, I literally agree (I'm not a physicist), but complaining about string theory, which remember she's a physicist so she KNOWS nobody in physics actually spends any time, breath, or effort on string theory, and her claims that "Physics hasn't done anything in 50 years" is blatantly false and she is well equipped to KNOW this.
    - consumer451 1y ago
      > making pretty good money For context: if I did the napkin math correctly based on the Angel Collier video on this topic, it appeared to be easily over $2M/year. The grift pays very well.
- ZebusJesus 1y ago
  She isnt against science she is anti BS and calls out physics in general for well all of the BS. She is the one pointing out the problems of publish or perish and why it has resulted in a bunch of BS in academia and a bunch of scientists doing BS science just for the sake of writing papers. No new advancements, no new testable theories just a bunch of people making claims that can't be tested and screaming we need a larger collider.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    > she is anti BS The problem with influencers like this is the way their fans get a giant blind spot for “BS” that comes from their chosen anti-BS person. Sabine fans will always cite problems with academia pushing BS papers, but Sabine has herself been embroiled in a lot of arguably “BS” content for the sake of YouTube views and advertising dollars. You have to acknowledge the irony of thinking that an ad-supported YouTuber pushing clickbait headlines is the lone person saving you from the scientists and their misaligned incentives.
- the__alchemist 1y ago
  I suspect you misunderstand either her videos, or have a misunderstanding of what science is.

Aurornis 1y ago

Kind of, but there's a difference between trying to stir up controversy by "just asking questions" as opposed to attacking the actual experts while overconfidently pushing competing theories, for example. Lately she's been dabbling with soft support for well known grifters like Eric Weinstein, though last I heard she stopped short of actually endorsing his theories. I think there's just too many views to be had by courting that audience, so it becomes irresistible to engage with. The best thing a good physics communicator could do would be to completely ignore the well known physics grifters and focus on the quality content, but instead she has been leaning toward defensing Weinstein and others.

mrguyorama 1y ago

She makes really really good money. Angela Collier recently made a sad video about this. Sabine makes a video with sponsorship included basically every day. With her subscription numbers, that's a LOT of money. Basically, screaming that "They don't want you to hear THIS" is extremely profitable. She's a very well paid member of the anti-science ecosystem.

dylan604 1y ago
With that kind of description, I'm surprised she hasn't been tapped to join POTUS' administration.
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  I mean, don't take my description for it, just scroll through her videos, watch some about things you understand, etc. I am critical of her, but I would not put her on the level of Alex Jones or other really awful people. However, her blurb on the back of that "War on science" book is pretty gross. Sabine absolutely is still capable of producing and understanding science. She chooses to make the content she does. She also clearly treats her youtube career as just business, making pretty good money from taking random science papers from random journals and using them as a reason to lambast all of science. Plenty of youtubers who do science, including people who post here like the guy from Applied Science, are pretty far from monetizing their content, sometimes to a fault, generally because they aren't looking to make crazy money, just cool stuff. I actually hope she publishes more. This paper looks..... not good, but every good scientist has put out papers that are more like afternoon fun than rigorous work. That's fine by me. I would love for Sabine to produce real science, it's vastly more beneficial for humanity than her "Here's how science LIES TO YOU" slop. I tried to watch her in the beginning, but even then it was clear the kind of audience she was trying to cultivate. It feels gross. I don't know if she truly believes what she says. Her complaints about being mistreated for being a woman seemed sincere, and not as trumped up as most of her videos, and there's plenty of sexism in science Academia, just like most places. It's hard to criticize Youtubers for their thumbnails and titles, as the soulless youtube machine forces them, but there's definitely a pattern. Basically, it's hard to look at people like NileRed, Explosions&Fire, Applied Science, Thought Emporium, etc who are literally running science labs through patreon funding and then Sabine says she's being silenced for her unorthodox views with over a million subscribers. I'm tired of people claiming they are silenced while parrot literal mainstream talking points to an audience of millions. Complaints about "The hubble tension shows we might not have everything right in our astrophysics models" is fine, dandy, I literally agree (I'm not a physicist), but complaining about string theory, which remember she's a physicist so she KNOWS nobody in physics actually spends any time, breath, or effort on string theory, and her claims that "Physics hasn't done anything in 50 years" is blatantly false and she is well equipped to KNOW this.
  - consumer451 1y ago
    > making pretty good money For context: if I did the napkin math correctly based on the Angel Collier video on this topic, it appeared to be easily over $2M/year. The grift pays very well.
ZebusJesus 1y ago
She isnt against science she is anti BS and calls out physics in general for well all of the BS. She is the one pointing out the problems of publish or perish and why it has resulted in a bunch of BS in academia and a bunch of scientists doing BS science just for the sake of writing papers. No new advancements, no new testable theories just a bunch of people making claims that can't be tested and screaming we need a larger collider.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > she is anti BS The problem with influencers like this is the way their fans get a giant blind spot for “BS” that comes from their chosen anti-BS person. Sabine fans will always cite problems with academia pushing BS papers, but Sabine has herself been embroiled in a lot of arguably “BS” content for the sake of YouTube views and advertising dollars. You have to acknowledge the irony of thinking that an ad-supported YouTuber pushing clickbait headlines is the lone person saving you from the scientists and their misaligned incentives.
the__alchemist 1y ago
I suspect you misunderstand either her videos, or have a misunderstanding of what science is.