Category: The More You Know…

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Money The More You Know...

This YouTube channel feeds on your financial fear

The current page 1 of FREENVESTING’s video list.
Click to view the financial catastrophism at full size.

If you visit YouTube but don’t sign in, its suggested videos are based on best guesses based on trends, your location, your recent browsing history and a few other factors. I do this from time to time to see what sort of things YouTube’s recommendation algorithm serves up.

The current page 2 of FREENVESTING’s video list.
Click to view the financial catastrophism at full size.

Last night, it suggested videos from the FREENVESTING channel (and no, I’m not linking to those jackals), which simply describes itself as “An inspiring channel for those who are seeking growth.” Established on September 1, 2020, it’s accumulated nearly 100 million views to date, and it appears to have done so by harnessing the fear of financial doomscrollers.

The current page 3 of FREENVESTING’s video list.
Click to view the financial catastrophism at full size.

The videos feature financial gurus of varying quality. Some are more respectable, such as Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Some are semi-respectable: Ray Dalio and Cathie Wood. And then there are the outright assclowns — I’m lookin’ at you, Robert Kiyosaki and Dave Ramsey.

The current page 4 of FREENVESTING’s video list.
Click to view the financial catastrophism at full size.

The videos may change, but the themes and titles on the thumbnails stay the same:

  • Don’t buy anything for 18 months
  • Tell your family to prepare
  • Why is nobody talking about this
  • Everyone is going to be wiped out
  • Most people will lose everything
  • And my favorite, the “collapse” titles, which typically are:
    • The collapse is coming
    • The collapse has begun
    • The collapse never ends

The channel was a little more “tips and tricks from the rich” in the beginning…

The current page 5 of FREENVESTING’s video list.
Click to view the financial catastrophism at full size.

…and they certainly covered all the angles, as you can see from these two contradictory videos, which were released one after the other:

But like any good YouTuber, they did some experimenting and found a winning formula with this gem from Mr. “Rich Shill, Poor Audience”:

…and it’s been doom-a-rama ever since.

You’d think it might be enough to say “watch this channel, but only to recognize hucksters when you see them,” or to learn some tricks if you’re an aspiring YouTuber, but I recommend doing so very sparingly. This sort of fear-based stuff has a way of getting in your head, even if you’re trying to watch it objectively and from a distance.

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The More You Know...

Which one are you?

Meme: “The two kinds of people when you explain your kinks to them,” featuring the two main characters from Zootopia. Judy (the bunny) looks horrified, while Nick (the fox) is wide-eyed, smiling, and his ears are perked up.
Thanks to James Kovacs for the find!
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The More You Know...

Helpful hints for a possible “Terminator” future

I’m sharing this image in the hope that it won’t be useful information.

Diagram showing the weak points on a Boston Dynamics robot “dog:” battery and CPU in its “belly”, limb actuators where its legs meet its body, and visual and audio sensors in its “head.”

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funny Internet Finds The Current Situation The More You Know...

Your math might be a little off, dude…

Tweet by @murvfx: “Elon Musk spent $44 Billion on Twitter. The World's population is 8 billion. He could have given each person $5 billion and still have money leftover. I feel like a cheque for $5 billion would be life changing for most people. Yet he wasted it all on Twitter.”
Tap to view the original tweet. I screen-captured this because (1.) It’s so embarrassing — if it were me, I’d delete it, and (2.) there are better-than-even odds that Twitter might experience outages soon.

Twitter user @muravfx posted this:

Your “math sense” should be tingling at this nonsense. Here is some literal “back of the napkin” math I did to see how much everyone on Earth would get you evenly split $44 billion among them:

5.5. As is $5.50 — five dollars and fifty cents. Not 5 billion.

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Florida The Current Situation The More You Know...

Hurricane tip: Don’t fill your generator with high-octane corn syrup!

Okay: in the absence of ethanol-free gasoline, you can run a gasoline-powered generator with fuel that has up to 10% ethanol. But you will shorten your generator’s life, and as long as you live in Florida, you’ll need it again. Try to fill your generator with ethanol-free gasoline!

My recommendation: Try and find a gas station that sells ethanol-free gasoline. Wawa is a reliable source — use their store locator, select Advanced Search, and check the Ethanol Free checkbox and run the search!

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Geek The Current Situation The More You Know...

It’s “FURTIVELY fired,” not “Quiet fired”

Screenshot of headline that reads “5 Signs You Are Being ‘Quiet Fired’ From Your Job”
Tap to read the original article.

The person who came up with the phrase “quiet quitting” took the effort to incorporate alliteration, which made the phrase catchy. You’d think the author of the article 5 Signs You Are Being “Quiet Fired” From Your Job (shown above) would have put in a few seconds to do the same for its employer counterpart, but instead, they took the lazy route and simply replaced “quitting” with “firing.”

In my opinion, “furtively fired” — and its noun form, “furtive firing” — sound much better, are grammatically correct, and employ an underused word.

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The More You Know...

A lesson from pie on Pi Day

Pumpkin pie with two slices taken from it: a proper slice (point at the center) and a “wrong” slice (taken from the middle).

Happy Pi Day!

Today is March 14th, which is referred to in the North American sector of the internet as “Pi Day”, since the date can be expressed as 3/14 in U.S. calendar notation. Since the Greek letter π is pronounced like “pie” in English, it’s become an informal tradition to celebrate the day by eating pie.

Note the terrible slices taken from the pies in this post’s photos. There’s a lesson in them, as shown below:

Pumpkin pie with a slice taken from its middle.

Here’s the text from the second photo:

This should be easy to understand how freedoms work

This person took his part, but it affected others negatively. He exercise his freedom, but with an injustice to others. Freedoms can’t be exercised as every individual wants without looking at injustices to others. Justice disappears when you harm others. An example of bad exercise of individual freedom.