Mark Rober and the manipulation of children for profit
portal.drewdevault.com
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He did this two months after he made a video explaining how easily the virus spreads.
It's clear Rober is in in for the money, and using science as a hook. Everything else in his behavior is utterly unsurprising if viewed through that lens.
You make two claims
1) "including being known-positive for Covid and still traveling to another country"
2) "intentionally skirted international travel laws"
He "teamed up with the Discovery Channel" for this video. I find it unlikely Discovery Channel" would partake in this. All evidence seems he followed the protocols at the time.
Do you have a link for these claims?
Order of events:
0. Mark tests positive for covid-19
1. He self-isolates
2. Later he tests negative
3. But by then the Bahamas has banned US travelers on commercial flights
4. Mark takes a private jet to get around the ban.
He might have recovered from Covid before traveling. Either way, he posting a highly-publicized video in which he used his wealth to skirt international travel restrictions during the first months of a global pandemic. He did this mere months after posting a video about how easily such viruses spread. This is irresponsible at best.
He had recovered from COVID and was not subject to any personal restrictions on travel. Commercial flights has been suspended at the time, while private ones had not. He didn't skirt any travel restrictions, and AFAIK he didn't use his wealth to do it (it was a Discovery Shark Week project, and Discovery hired the jet.)
This also doesn't justify his behavior once in the Bahamas, which included no social distancing or masking.
* I don't know enough about Rober to have an informed opinion. Based on his charity drives for autism and other acts, I thought he was a decent guy.
This is true, but then so is polemic blogging, yet here we are.
I think the net utility of Rober's channel stands though, as I'd imagine that there are a number of kids who have become actively engaged in engineering/STEM projects/or even moviemaking due to his influence.
I know that he also guides an online course where anyone, of any age, can learn engineering concepts and apply them by following along with some of his builds during the course.
Hell, I got into programming at a very young age (10 or 11) to figure out how to make a Counter-Strike themed website for me and my friends. Programming now affords me a comfortable life.
TL;DR: Exposes kids to engineering in an engaging way, at the cost of advertising to them. There are much darker places on the Internet.
> I'm picking on Mark today, but he is just one gear in a larger machine which seeks to rear children as participants in a consumerist, capitalist system, a machine which Mark himself was probably raised in and views as normal.
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Pretty much all content is propaganda. I'm more comfortable with someone advertising a product than subtly advertising what political or cultural or moral views I should have or how i should feel about something.
Same goes for pretty much all art.
The people creating aren't subject matter experts in what they write/sing/act about. Their art doesn't capture the nuance or realities of a situation. It captures their very limited view which more than likely itself is formed on propaganda of someone else.
That aside, I do agree with the criticism of Rober. Indeed, the scammmy/mature advertising on unmoderated youtube videos should be behind an 18+ wall. But youtube is American and doesn't feel any pressure to patrol their product as they'll just claim it's the content creators responsibility.
Youtubers like to think they can behave American and use american legal defense but still want to be viewable to the greater world. That will change.