tech skepticism

A Last Week Tonight segment on tech monopolies, their hidden harms and possible remedies such as antitrust reform. John Oliver covers lobbying and legislation along the way.

Linus Tech Tips addresses criticism of its clickbait-style thumbnails in an Honest Answers episode, explaining that the YouTube algorithm pushes creators toward them.

The opening episode of Ted Nelson's Computers for Cynics series, in which he casts doubt on conventional accounts of computer basics. He argues that conventions and packaging are mistaken for technology.

A political commentary video arguing that tech billionaires such as Thiel, Musk and Andreessen, along with figures like Yarvin, are using the new administration to push their agenda. It connects Yarvin's ideas with Project 2025.

Veritasium argues that every new technology, from motion pictures to TV, was predicted to revolutionize education and none did. It asks what actually could, drawing on the host's physics education research.

A video debunking popular primitive-building YouTube channels, arguing that their digging, concrete and construction are staged. It uses the Primitive Technology channel as a baseline for what is plausible in a natural setting.

A one-minute clip in which columnist John C. Dvorak explains to Dave Winer his technique for trolling the Apple community.

A long Techlore video documenting what it presents as hostile conduct by GrapheneOS leadership and community members, including lead developer Daniel Micay, toward CalyxOS and others.

A look at AT&T's 1993 You Will ad campaign, which showed technologies such as video calls and telemedicine that were then under development. It explains the story behind ads that anticipated much of today's technology.

Linus Tech Tips gives its 2020 breakdown of how the company earns money, including ads, sponsors, merch and affiliate links. It includes a pie chart of revenue sources.

Linus Tech Tips breaks an iMac Pro and then tries to pay Apple to repair it, only to be refused service. The video documents the frustrating runaround and what it says about Apple's repair policies for its professional machines.

Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips discloses that he has invested in Framework, the modular repairable laptop maker. He explains his reasoning and the commitments he is making to viewers about future coverage.

Linus Tech Tips documents a major RAID failure on its Whonnock server and the attempt to recover the lost data with a data recovery firm.

Linus Tech Tips benchmarks the prebuilt PCs from its second Secret Shopper series, shares final thoughts on each integrator and picks a winner. Dell ranked last.

Tony Heller presents a short video arguing that climate science relies on data truncation, cherry-picking and selective presentation of statistics. It is a one-sided polemic against mainstream climate claims.

Tom Scott describes trying ChatGPT to fix his Gmail labels and being unsettled by how capable it was. He argues that we cannot know where we are on the technology curve, comparing it to Napster.

AdoredTV's history of Intel's monopolistic behavior over three decades, covering its dealings with AMD and its anti-consumer practices.

John Oliver covers student debt and the for-profit colleges that push students into it, including Corinthian-style schools and ITT Tech. It is a segment from Last Week Tonight.

Y Combinator partners Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell discuss how startups shifted from attracting outsiders to status- and money-seeking conformists. They give advice for nonconformist founders.

A Technology Connections video essay arguing that algorithmic feeds make people passive about finding content, leading to complacency in how they seek information. It urges people to actively choose what they consume.

Linus Tech Tips explains how Windows Modern Standby causes laptops to drain battery while asleep, arguing it makes Windows laptops hard to recommend compared to MacBooks.

Linus Tech Tips starts a series in which Linus and Luke move their home workstations to Linux. This episode has each pick a distro and try to get a game running on it, and Linus ends up breaking his Pop!_OS install.

Linus Tech Tips argues that big air coolers beat AIO liquid coolers for most PCs. They compare quietness and temperatures, using the Noctua NH-U12A as the example.

TechAltar's eight-minute video arguing that Chrome is becoming the new Internet Explorer as Google leverages its browser position. It covers anti-competitive behavior toward other browsers like Firefox and Edge and the role of Chromium.

Linus Tech Tips compares Microsoft's Surface Pro X (SQ2) with the Apple M1 MacBook Air, focusing on how Windows on Arm and x86 emulation perform against Apple's Arm hardware. The verdict is that the Surface falls well short.

Linus Tech Tips' rant on Intel's X299 platform and Core i9 launch, criticizing how Intel segments the market by limiting PCIe lanes and charging for features like VROC keys.

Benn Jordan details security vulnerabilities in Flock Safety license-plate-reading cameras and how easily they can be compromised. It includes citations from security researchers and discussion of police surveillance.

Physicist Angela Collier gives an hour-long critique of Avi Loeb's alien claims and reputation, placing them within the broader topic of physics crackpots. The Loeb discussion starts around the 24 minute mark.

A 43-minute skeptical critique arguing that Starlink fails to live up to its promises, covering satellite lifespan, costs, bandwidth and viability. The creator later added an update about FCC grant requirements.

Thunderf00t analyzes the leaked Pentagon UFO videos and offers mundane explanations for the fuzzy triangle and tic-tac footage.

Physicist and YouTuber Angela Collier argues in this hour-long video that AI as commonly described does not really exist. She covers the limits of the tools, biased datasets, and why they should not be used to make decisions.

A short clip of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, speaking to financial analysts in September 2008, questioning what cloud computing even means. He calls it a fashion-driven buzzword.

Thunderf00t critiques a 60 Minutes segment in which Navy pilots describe UFO encounters, arguing the footage has mundane explanations and has been debunked.

Thunderf00t goes through the three UFO videos released by the Pentagon and offers mundane explanations for each. He treats the footage as sensor artifacts, parallax and camera effects rather than alien craft.

Tony Heller argues that US thermometer data shows a century of cooling and that NOAA adjusts the record to produce a warming trend.

A short, humorous critique of Helion Energy's fusion approach, framed as a response to a Real Engineering video. It covers low reactivity, neutron production, bremsstrahlung losses and diagnostics.

Thunderf00t critiques SpinLaunch, the startup that proposes flinging payloads to space with a giant centrifuge. He argues the physics and engineering do not hold up.

Former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez reviews spy scenes from film and TV and explains how realistic they are, including disguise techniques and masks.

Thunderf00t argues that the Pentagon's officially released 'UFO' videos have mundane explanations such as birds, parallax and sensor artifacts.

The Hated One argues that Apple tracks users and shares their data despite its privacy marketing, pointing to Apple's own privacy policy. It is a critical take on Apple as a corporation rather than a friend of privacy.