I invite readers to try this experiment. To obtain evidence about a significant issue, watch a YouTube video. When you're done, explain to a friend what you learned. SPECIFICALLY. Chapter and verse.
Revelations like "the government is corrupt" or "you really need to watch the video yourself" don't count.
(To read about Jon's mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)
There is an intrinsic problem with video, with moving images. They go by too quickly. Gaps and holes in the logic of presentation are behind you before you can analyze them. The relationships among presented facts or assertions are also gone before you can piece them together.
With video, the viewer can gain an IMPRESSION, but the details of the evidence tend to leak away.
Try this experiment next. Read a thing called a book.
Make notes.
For most people, this is on the order of asking them to fly to Mars on the back of a dead horse.
"Today, a college student filed suit against his professor, charging that an assignment to read a two-page article, take notes, analyze those notes, and write an essay based on evidence had collapsed his mind and placed him in the Ninth Circle of Hell. The student's therapist has recommended he watch a hundred hours of YouTube videos..."
As I write this article, needing my own video fix, I have three added screens running in my office. The NFL playoffs, treasure hunters digging up an entire island as they search for a wooden box holding the Ark of the Covenant, and the Toodie Boo Bubble Gang cartoon marathon. This, alas, is not enough. I plan to opt for a fourth screen. I've found the channel transmitting the most commercials and infomercials per unit of air time. I need that one, too. I've also discovered a channel that broadcasts sixty seconds of news headlines every half-hour, amidst storm warnings and wall-to-wall coverage of vets performing surgeries on animals. MUST HAVE VIDEO.
According to merchdope.com, "300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute!"
There are many reasons why people who ingest evidence do nothing with it. One of those reasons is video. That's where the supposed evidence is coming from.
Reliance on video is also a reason why people who ingest evidence tend to believe in Doom. There is no solid ground for shared discourse about the evidence, since it comes across as an impression and then sits vaguely in memory, decaying like rotten eggs. "Wow, dude, that video, wow," does not quite qualify as discourse.
With a book or an article, you can stop. Not pause; stop. You can think. You can read what you just read. God forbid, you can look up the history of a word in a dictionary. You can underline a passage with something called a pen. You can make notes. You can engage.
With video, it's all flow. You tend to follow along passively. You're solidly in the march-of-frames-per-second.
Aside from all the other problems with television news broadcasts, they're on a screen. They're video. One little moment morphs into the next little moment.
"Did you watch the news?" "No, why?" "They're impeaching the president." "Yeah? And?" "What?" "Never mind." Brilliant.
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Back in the stone age of the 1970s, a friend arranged an exhibition of my paintings at her house. Prior to the opening, she came to my studio and shot video of me painting and of my work on the walls. She then set up a TV set outdoors on her patio, and during the opening she ran the video over and over. When people arrived, as if by magic they migrated to the patio and watched the video. THEN they came back inside the house and looked at my work. Several people said to their friends, "Look, that's the painting that was in the video!" Case closed.
Teacher: "All right, class, now that we've watched today's video of animals eating each other on the plain, what do you think?"
"I liked it."
"I liked it."
"I didn't like it."
"When he was talking about the thing with the thing, I wasn't sure he was making sense."
"Very good. We're out of time. See you tomorrow."
Video is in its own time. Analysis is in another time. They don't match up.
So, what DOES YouTube do?
(The article continues here.)
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails hereor his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
I invite readers to try this experiment. To obtain evidence about a significant issue, watch a YouTube video. When you're done, explain to a friend what you learned. SPECIFICALLY. Chapter and verse.
Revelations like "the government is corrupt" or "you really need to watch the video yourself" don't count.
