Thunderf00t 2012: The Aspirations.


The Priorities :

Why Do People Laugh at Creationists.

Of the people I talked to at The Reason Rally, (of the stuff I’d done) this was mentioned more than anything else as the key factor in ‘saving the saved’.   Two more episodes were meant to be put out before the Reason Rally (they are all scripted, just need a couple of weeks to put them together), just all the distractions that WLCs DMCA abuse and Dawahfilms flagging harassment took up all my spare time.  The Reason Rally, above all else convinced me that this is an area to focus on.   I am hoping to get 1/3 to ½ the time devoted to this (probably means somewhat under half the videos will be WDPLAC).

 

“OMG, The Bible says WHAT?!”

The bible is batshit crazy.  Most Christian have never read it, and so Im going to make the media.  I may even start this up as a guest spot for people read their favorite crazy bible verses.  This may take the form of a ‘mid-week short’.

 

SCIENCE BITCHES, IT WORKS

I’ve already got permission to get the footage from within a nuclear reactor for an experiment (~June).  Last year I showed you how close the edge of the unknown was and even demonstrated, for the first time as far as I can tell, that gaseous potassium is evolved when the metal is thrown into water, and its GREEN!  This year I’m going to show you the REAL face of the unknown, and how it could affect your life.  Yup going to go inside a nuclear reactor to look at something a billion times smaller that your typical human!

 

Nailing the religious types in the 2012 elections.

I would have liked to have been more active here, but regrettably I got sidetracked into DMCA and flagging complaints.

 

Build the community. 

The secular atheist community on YT emerged strongly, quickly overtaking all the religious communities.  In order to maintain and take full advantage of this position we need to increase the number of people producing good media regularly. I will be moving towards facilitating that goal.  There will be two mechanisms, 1) A (biyearly?) competition for people who have produced at least 3 good videos in three months.  This way promotional effort is focused on those who are both committed to, and capable of producing the goods 2) donation of equipment (green screen, cameras, sound equipment etc) to active folks who are making quality content videos, but that have the amateur-ish look that doesn’t fly so well on youtube these days.  Basically, imagine if someone had supplied ZOMGitscriss with a camera, green screen and other kit early on how much this would have helped.

-Deploy the resources where they will have greatest benefit for the community.

 

Create a DVD.

This is another project I’ve been trying to get done for about a year, to create a dvd of the work, if not for sale, then simply so it can be hosted and torrented.  Indeed I had wanted to get a thousand or so pressed (several kgs) to give away at the Reason Rally.  Sadly again event overtook the aspirations.

This year I’m not going to get enough time to go touring, so sadly no touring or dark sky astro video.   I might yet be able to get a good timelapse of Mars though!  Hope for clear skies 🙂

Yup, it’s going to be a busy year!

 

-=Support via Paypal=-

 

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26 Responses to “Thunderf00t 2012: The Aspirations.”

  1. Adrian Lee Magill Says:

    “The secular atheist community on YT emerged strongly, quickly overtaking all the religious communities.”//

    Believe it or not, there are religious communities on YT that were unaffected. (Namely because they have nothing against atheism.) Many Pagan groups come to mind. (Not all of them, mind you. Some are just as affected as Christians and Muslims.)

    I myself am an atheistic pagan, but I do understand what you mean, TF. Many Abrahamic faiths are falling these days, due to the onslaught of reason presented to them.

    However the rest of the article is pretty good and I can’t wait to see your upcoming vids.

    Peace.

  2. 123h Says:

    Stay Strong Thunderf00t! You´re needed now more than ever!
    Donations from Sweden sent just now.

  3. Mike Says:

    “The bible is batshit crazy.”

    That’s putting it pretty kindly, lol. 🙂

    • Mike De Fleuriot Says:

      I realise that the bible is the america favourite, but there are other holy books out there that have equal or better crazy in them. A nod to them once in a while will be nice.

      They can be used a good stick to beat Christians with, if used correctly, aka why is your system the correct one.

  4. Mike Says:

    “I may even start this up as a guest spot for people read their favorite crazy bible verses.”

    We’ve been archiving some of the nuttier stuff said by believers and creationist as well as by regular religious whackos on atheistroundtable.com (In “Quotes From Theists & Atheists”).

    Please feel free to stop by and check us out!

    And visit the Atheist Baby Hunter page if you’re hungry. (Cuz we all know how much we godawful atheists love to eat babies!) 🙂

  5. Cephas Borg Says:

    I’m relieved to hear something’s condensed out of the “level playing field” thoughts you had last year. I agree, you can’t risk too much supporting the 1-offs, there are too many of them already on YT. 3 good uploads in 3 months sounds about right. Are we going to nominate people as well as you trolling the vidbits?

    WDPLAC is what got me going all those years ago. So I’m glad you’re going to continue the thread. The DVDs sound fantastic – I’ll buy ’em at up to US$10, assuming that covers the costs of duplication and so on. Any more than that, though, and my pension starts to thin too much!

    I’m disappointed that you won’t have enough time for a dark skies tour, especially considering how popular (and good!) this inaugural tour was… But given the ideas you’re working on, nuclear physics is cool too. 🙂 Pity you can’t get a quadcopter and fly it down the well. Now THAT I’d pay to see!

    I’ve been having some dark days recently (just the hand I was dealt, nothing worse than that), so I’m glad to hear one of my Pillars of Effective Reason and Sanity (PERS) has a plan for the year!

  6. Robin H Says:

    Hi Thuderfoot.

    Thanks for your continued hard work in this field, I’m really looking forward to the next couple of WDPLAC vids this year.

    While I concur that the bible is batshit crazy, I recently read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book “Infidel” and it’s left me feeling that Islam might be the greater threat to our culture. It seems a lot more aggressive and continues to benefit from the magic shield of Islamophoebia, with which it can divert any and all criticism.

    The Christian right remains a strong retarding factor in America, but has largely been in retreat in Europe since the enlightenment (an aptly named era). Islam on the other hand is definitely on the increase, and for whatever reason, academics seem incapable of criticizing it. Just this week, mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone effectively performed a verbal kowtow to the faith and the prophet in a London Mosque.

    if we continue down this path, the enlightenment will be slowly eroded and its replacement will not be good. Any efforts you or the Magic Sandwich possy could make to combat this particular brand of batshit crazy, would be warmly received this year.

    Happy Hunting.

    Rob

    • Adrian Lee Magill Says:

      Hi Rob,

      I just read you post on Islam. Perhaps I am an optimist, but I get the sense that with the Arab spring and the uprisings toward democracy there could be an opening in many Muslim countries for greater freedom of speech. If this happens many of the controls on the internet could be abandoned and people in those countries who question the norm will finally be allowed to explore different ideas. Some, perhaps abandoning Islam altogether.

      I often wonder, in a country where belonging a religion is a legal requirement, how many Muslims actually “are” Muslims and not just pretending to stay out of jail.

      Just a thought.

  7. confusedious Says:

    Hello Thunderf00t,

    As a vocal atheist and a post-graduate biological anthropology student in Australia, I have been considering starting a YT series on the human fossil record and human evolutionary genetics. The aim is to clarify our evolutionary past, as it is understood by those in my field, for those who have not had the benefit of a formal education in the subject or who have actively been taught to ignore/reject this explanation of human beginnings for religious reasons. While the area of focus in my own work is the relationship between agriculture, urbanisation, disease burden and the accumulation of alleles of resistance to infectious disease (a decidedly less ‘palaeo’ topic than most fossil work), I do read often on the subject of the human fossil record and have had formal education in it under several dedicated palaeoanthropologists.

    The only difficulty here is that I am a relative Luddite when it comes to making videos. While I build my own PCs and assemble my own networks, I know nothing about multimedia. Any suggestions on the best video software to use if I am just going to start by using my laptop webcam for talk footage and overlay images where needed? One small caveat, while my PC is a gaming beast, I don’t do any of my academic work on it, so any suggestions should be Mac friendly (boo Mac, seriously not my idea. Seriously).

    • Adrian Lee Magill Says:

      Hi confusedious.

      I read your post to TF and I hope you don’t mind, but I might be able to help.

      Apples are actually better for multimedia work than PC’s is my understanding. When I was in university, (Ok, that was some time ago, granted) the Apple programs for things of a more artistic nature were always superior to PC.

      That being said, a Mac should come with some basic editting software that’s easy to use and can create some decent productions. Just don’t be afraid to experiment with the programs and try different things.

      I post music and other videos on YT myself with some out of date PC based software and it doesn’t turn out too bad, (though I am dying for some better stuff, in all honesty.) If you’d like to check a couple of my vids out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0D3rWXXsYQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQHjcSLGC3A were made using a 8+ year old copy of ulead’s movie maker program that came free from somewhere I don’t remember.

      Also: It has been my experience that no matter how much reason you throw at extremists they always seem to refuse to accept evidence that is contrary to their philosophy. Don’t let this bother you, just keep using evidence to validate your points, question them on everything they say, and soon they’ll have a meltdown.

      Good luck!
      Adrian.

    • Greg Lawrence Says:

      I have found the app “Pro Show Gold” to be a great tool for producing videos with a “wow factor” impact. I am unaware if they have a Mac format, but it should be easy to find online for download. Lots of bells and whistles! – Then again, there is always the bloated overload of Adobe Premier. Many times I will use several different apps to produce a video. Some are good at one thing, and others good at other things.

    • Thunderf00t Says:

      I know very little about macs, so Im afraid I cant help there. As with the academic, determination counts probably for more than anything else. Learning curve is high for making videos, but if you show promise and determination, Im sure both I and many others would be glad to help you out.

  8. kellycoinguy Says:

    Thunderfoot, I’m a big fan of yours, really I am. Love what you do. I just have one question… above you talk about going after the politically religious… and yet Obama’s picture is not in the mix. He’s just as screwed up on the religion front as any of the rest of them, don’t you think? I mean when Jerimiah Wright is your inspiration?!! WTF dude. We’re pretty much screwed either way on the religion front, and we will be for a long time.

    -Kelly

  9. Cephas Borg Says:

    Just a footnote to the “batshit crazy” comment from Dr Phil…

    Can I just recommend the “Interlinear Scripture Analyzer” from scriptures4all? Good. There. I’ve done it.

    OK, what this (free!) programme does is let you read the original texts of the (canonical, don’t get me started) Wholly Babble. It lets you read the original Hebrew and Greek, with pronunciation, englishisation-ism-istics, and the bizarre and flouncy version they churn the original into.

    It’s great for pedants, christian baby eaters, and other arrogant, immoral atheists just like us!

    Seriously, it’s such a sense of wonder seeing the (mostly, but by no means always) original text, where you can see where They changed all the “him”s to “Thy Lord” and so on. Very funny read, sometimes, especially if you’re not hot on grammar (and none of the original scribes were anyway!).

    Just a though for any other Aussies with a long Sunday Autumn afternoon to while away…

    I’m waiting for the “underground” non-canonical scriptures package. Imagine, seeing Jesus straighten Joseph’s dodgy carpentering, turning mud into larks, and killing kids in spite. Can’t wait!

  10. 1973razorback Says:

    Do you think it might be a good idea to host all your videos on The Pirate Bay for sharing at the same time as uploading to Youtube? This way anything that is taken down, will still be available to your subscribers and will be back up on multiple channels before Youtube can say “but they found it offensive”. I’ll quite happily mirror your stuff on my channel, as I don’t actually vlog myself. So mirroring is one way I can give back to all the vloggers I enjoy watching. Kepp up the good work.

  11. Agent F Says:

    Last time I was in a nuclear reactor, I found a toy train… True story…

  12. Great Ape Thoughts Says:

    I wish I could have been there for the reason rally. But, school and work just didn’t want me to go. 😦 But from all the videos that I’ve seen, it looks like it was an amazing event. I’m glad to see that the side of reason is gaining a voice in the public sphere. And I hope the dvd project works out for you; I know I’d buy one.

  13. Alben Says:

    TF I work in the IF field and have some access to big Internet pipes if you do decide to torrent a dvd let me know and I can lend some bandwidth support.

  14. Elsi Says:

    Well My husband and I fully support you in what you’re doing! If you ever need someone who know Mt St Helens or Seattle just throw us an email.

  15. goikolkm Says:

    Thunderf00t I love your work, greetings from Spain. I hope you keep your work going on. If you ever come to Spain, don’t forget to enjoy the cities and it’s marvelous variety of countrysides! Props.

  16. Ja Som Says:

    Hi, can you disproove statements in this video pls? /watch?v=xokMcO3T0SY

  17. Luis A. Lopez Says:

    What happened to these aspirations? How about an update?

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