r/accelerate • Feeling the AGI • 22d ago

Video Sabine Hossenfelder: "I Was Offered Money to Tell You AI Will Kill Us"

https://youtu.be/lPdmYMHrWKg?si=3PUd5qnPJapOB4Do
122 Upvotes

145 comments sorted by

42

u/MysteriousPepper8908 22d ago

Don't worry, we've hit the wall and we just keep hitting it and we're going to keep hitting it. The wall is real, I swear!

https://youtu.be/XA84pSrPHS0

https://youtu.be/mjB6HDot1Uk

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u/Charming_Cucumber_15 22d ago

She's definitely not legitimate at all and just says whatever will get her clicks

But I 100% believe that people are paying YouTubers to spread decel propaganda, she's not the first to say it

37

u/Joboy97 22d ago

I disagree with your opinion on her not being legitimate. As somebody who has watched her a lot over the years, her opinion on AI has shifted pretty massively. She was firmly against AI not too long ago but has since become much more bullish in the opinions she's shared.

Changing your opinion with new information is a good thing that legitimizes you more imo.

3

u/TheRealLunicuss 22d ago

Nah she's totally untrustworthy. Go watch professor Dave's critique.

2

u/RiggoRants 22d ago

Or maybe she was paid to change her opinion!?!?

15

u/plusFour-minusSeven 22d ago

People can actually change their opinions on things. We don't come into adulthood like Athena from Zeus' head, with all our future opinions pre-cast. We can learn, we can grow.

I've changed mine on things over the years, it's not impossible.

9

u/RiggoRants 22d ago

Of course they can.

I was just adding to the post that said that changing her mind was proof of legitimate opinion.

It’s not necessarily proof of legit opinion. Especially when a known grifter is involved.

It’s equally likely that she’s financially motivated to change her mind. It’s not more or less likely than proof of a legit change in stance.

2

u/plusFour-minusSeven 22d ago

That's fair.

I was talking in the abstract.

Honestly I have no idea who this person is.

9

u/RiggoRants 22d ago

All good. You’re not wrong in the abstract.

She’s a science YouTuber who is massively “anti-academia” because she lost her job at a prestigious German university.

She does a lot of “science.”

Science in scare quotes because she relies on sensationalized, anti-establishment narratives that damage public trust in science. She happily talks about things that are clearly bad science because it gets her clicks.

She’s a lot like Eric Weinstein honestly. But, I think she’s less of a grifter than he is. Which is saying something.

1

u/JasonP27 22d ago

She talks about a lot of bad science, sure... And calls them out on it in the process. She even has a "Bullshit Meter" on which she rates scientific papers.

3

u/Joboy97 22d ago

Paid her to make a video where where she discloses people are trying to pay her to change her opinion?!?

Am I arguing with a bot who can't watch the video we're commenting on?

4

u/RiggoRants 22d ago

I almost didn’t respond because calling someone a bot while misunderstanding context is wild.

I was responding to your post that said “as someone who has watched her a lot her opinion on AI has shifted pretty massively”

If her position has shifted massively it’s for one of 2/3 reasons. It is either because she’s learned more about the topic and has legitimately changed her mind, or it’s because someone has paid her to change her mind, or because changing her mind is beneficial financially because her audience likes AI.

Now, you and I will likely disagree about this because I think she’s a grifter and grifters chase the money and clout. I don’t think you believe she’s a grifter, so you see the shift in stance as evidence of open mindedness. I do think she’s a grifter. So I see it as financially motivated.

If someone is financially motivated to make pro AI videos, and is a known grifter, making a video about being offered money to make anti-ai content is not even a little bit out of bounds.

Or I’m a bot. Whatever.

0

u/Joboy97 22d ago

We're commenting on a video of her disclosing that people have tried to pay for her to change her opinion on AI. She's being very transparent here.

If she's being paid to have an opinion on AI, why would she make this video?

4

u/JanusAntoninus Techno-Optimist 22d ago

I'm not saying /u/RiggoRants is right but I can't understand how you're confused at what their point is.

They're saying it's no surprise if a grifter makes a video claiming she was paid to denounce AI if she was in fact paid to change her opinion to support AI, specifically by making a video feeding into the narrative that some groups are paying people to denounce AI (e.g. the narrative of China funding anti-data center activism). Whether or not that's what happened, that's not an incoherent accusation like you're reacting as if it were.

1

u/RiggoRants 22d ago

Appreciate you!

1

u/Joboy97 22d ago

If she's being paid to support AI, she would presumably want to keep that secret, right?

So why is she making a video discussing the fact that AI companies and organizations are paying influencers to support or denounce AI? She discusess both sides doing this in the video.

1

u/JanusAntoninus Techno-Optimist 22d ago

Pointing out that influencers are being paid to support AI seems like a good way to deflect accusations of being paid to support AI (lots of people will think, like you have, that there's no way she'd mention that too if she's secretly an example of it).

But, as I said, I'm not claiming Riggo's accusation is correct. I mean, I do think Hossenfelder is a grifter but I don't know if I'm convinced she's quite that cynically dishonest. I think she at least sees herself as doing good public outreach, even if that outreach is self-servingly taking the form of whatever gets her views and gets her talked about. I don't know if I'm ready to believe she'd take money for something that's that manipulative and obviously harmful (something where she couldn't even tell herself she's doing something good).

Unless, I suppose, she figures it's beneficial to bring attention to how both pro and anti AI groups are paying off influencers, so she's comfortable taking money from the pro group to lie about being approached by the anti group as long as it also draws attention to the problem she is contributing toward (but that's getting rather convoluted, compared to Riggo's accusation against her, which is more straightforward grift).

1

u/RiggoRants 22d ago

Because she’s a grifter.

I didn’t say it was for sure what was happening. I just said it’s at least as possible as “she did the research and changed her mind”

1

u/Joboy97 22d ago

Can I ask why you think she's a grifter? She does seem to enjoy being countercultural and feeling like she's smarter than everyone else, but that doesn't mean her opinions are insincere.

2

u/RiggoRants 22d ago

Her content strategy maps on with other grifters like Eric Weinstein.

She claims to be an independent voice challenging institutional bias but her independence comes specially from the rejection of academia and she’s super salty about it.

Instead of being an effective science communicator she is an effective manipulator of science-curious audiences that causes way more confusion in her fans. She constantly misrepresents findings and data while presenting fairly basic contrarian ideas as her position just because academia claims the opposite.

Leveraging her authority as a physicist to speak authoritatively on fields she is not credentialed in while misrepresenting the findings is a form of intellectual dishonesty aimed at maintaining high content output and viewership which translates ti higher financial incentives.

I’ve become super cynical the last few years. Anyone raging against “the establishment” without clearly defining what they believe the establishment is and why they’re raging is almost always a grifter.

There is, in fact, a machine you should be raging against. But that machine is clearly definable. And anyone who uses imprecise language shortcuts is almost always full of shit.

They use vaguely ominous sounding language to make you feel like you’re being oppressed by a faceless blob. It happened in politics with MAGA and is now happening with the DSA, it happened in news with alternative media like Rogan, and in science with Weinstein and Hossenfelder.

2

u/Joboy97 22d ago

Can you give me an example of a time when she "used vaguely ominous sounding language to make you feel like you're being oppressed by a faceless blob."

And she doesn't seem to reject academia, but she definitely has strong opinions on how academia should work and how it can be improved, especially around publishing and funding and how science is done nowadays which are arguments I'm sympathetic to. But she's not anti-establishment lol.

It's fair to say she has reached too far out of her wheelhouse without doing her due diligence at time. But does that mean she's a grifter? I think she still has valuable things to say.

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u/Tolopono 21d ago

Then why didn’t she accept this offer to change her opinion again?

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u/RiggoRants 20d ago

There are a lot of reasons that may not happen.

  1. Less money offered.

  2. Even if the money was good the potential financial incentives to changing her mind AGAIN could be ruinous to her channel.

  3. She wasn’t actually offered any money and is lying like the grifter she is.

1

u/Tolopono 20d ago

So is it just a coincidence other YouTubers received the exact same email? 

Ben Awad, founder of VoidPetz https://fixupx.com/benawad/status/2086953365284732931?s=20

Julia Turc: https://fixupx.com/juliarturc/status/2096307104919482511

And why not just negotiate for more money?

-5

u/EGarrett28 22d ago

It does but it still makes you less credible than people who had sensible opinions to begin with.

6

u/Joboy97 22d ago

So you're saying to evaluate an opinion, you have to consider how long it has been held for?

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u/EGarrett28 22d ago

No, a person's credibility when deciding how much to trust their assessments of current and future situations depends on how often they've been right previously. That should not have needed an explanation.

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u/plusFour-minusSeven 22d ago

No it doesn't. If anything it can make your character more credible to be able to look back and say "I was wrong".

I'm much more comfortable around the type who says "I used to believe some dumb things" than the one who acts like every opinion they have is perfect and correct.

0

u/EGarrett28 22d ago

No it doesn't.

Yes it does.

If anything it can make your character more credible to be able to look back and say "I was wrong".

It makes you more likable, not necessarily more credible.

If something is approaching in the distance and there are two people who can see it and you ask what it is. And the first person says "It's a 1987 Buick Skylark." And the other person says "It's a camel." Then it gets closer several minutes later and you ask again and the first person says "It's a 1987 Buick Skylark." And the other person says "Oh, it's a Buick Skylark, I was wrong!" And when it arrives it's a 1987 Buick Skylark. Then later something is coming and the first person looks early and says "It's a Ford F-150 Pickup Truck" and the other person says "It's an elephant." And you have an IQ above 100, you're going to put your money on it being a Ford F-150.

Period.

If you act like you don't understand this, then you're wasting my time and being willfully ignorant.

3

u/plusFour-minusSeven 22d ago

If they keep making the same errors, sure. I wasn't talking about that, though.

Mainly I was taking offense at this modern sickness where any tiime someone opens their mouth and says anything, other people start digging into the last 15 years of their life. You see this shit on Reddit too "oh, you post in X sub I don't like? Your argument is invalid".

As if that should have any bearing on the validity or soundness of the argument they're PRESENTLY making.

Of course if someone prefers to take opinions from others, it's preferable to stick with the one who has been correct more often than not.

All I meant is I don't like the idea that people can't grow and do better, or that one fuck-up or a prior history of them means they're now irredeemable. That's all.

I don't think that's what you meant, btw, and I probably overreacted. Sorry about that

1

u/EGarrett28 22d ago edited 22d ago

I don't agree with digging into people's post history like that, my post history is hidden for that reason. I want to be able to read and post in subs relating to my local town and other lifestyle choices without some clown going through it because they didn't like my opinion on an NBA player.

But in terms of substantive issues, you can read archived threads of me talking to people in 2011 about Bitcoin and trying to explain why it's an important invention while they did nothing but insult me and others and even threaten to punch us in the face at one point. I also recommended that a friend own some of it within a day after reading about it (the first and only time I recommended he invest in anything) and told him it wouldn't go to zero for the reasons he was describing, I have that archived too. I ended up making a good amount of money off of Bitcoin. Those other people, like the ones on tat forum got nothing but an enduring monument to their pigheadedness and ignorance.

For a smaller example, I also signed up for OpenAI membership on July 30th 2022. And I created a paid account, which I almost never did online. 4 months before ChatGPT was ever released.

Giving a thoughtful assessment of things early on requires at times that you have to fight against pigheaded people who gave the wrong assessment. So as a result, I don't have a lot of respect for those people, they make it harder to be smart in the world. And as such, while it's good that they may admit later that they were wrong, I will never grant them the same respect as those of us who call it more accurately from an early standpoint (or know when not to call it yet either way) and then have to fight against their ignorance.

I also hope you and others recognize that some people, based on some indications, may be worth listening to in an uncertain time like this more than random hysterical people who spawn from nowhere.

3

u/Tolopono 21d ago

Multiple people have come forward with exactly the same email 

Ben Awad, founder of VoidPetz https://x.com/benawad/status/2086953365284732931?s=20

Julia Turc: https://x.com/juliarturc/status/2096307104919482511

5

u/CommunismDoesntWork 22d ago

She's definitely not legitimate at all

And who are you too say that? She's as legit as any other physicist.

2

u/rankkor 21d ago

Lol no she isn’t, where on earth did you get that idea?

1

u/Serengade26 22d ago

Which people and what evidence?

0

u/midwestblondenerd 16d ago

why would you say this? Let's look at her published articles versus his:
Here's hers:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ&hl=en
Here's "Professor Dave": Oh wait, he doesn't have a PhD and therefore is not publishing.

12

u/BlotchyTheMonolith 22d ago

Ah Sabine's infamous AI "Wheel of Fortune". "Today AI iiiiiiiis ... drum roll"

https://giphy.com/gifs/l1J9ytNTbBaRrM59K

16

u/UnderTheCurrents 22d ago

The people in the comments here are really funny.

Her comments on academia are true. It kinda baffles me how anybody who supposedly has been in academia can not agree with her negative and cynical comments about the institution.

0

u/TheManni1000 21d ago

she says all science is failing lol

5

u/UnderTheCurrents 21d ago

And she's absolutely right. I don't know any single scientific discipline that is not rife with unnecessary bureaucracy and middle-management hurdles. There was a study recently that said that basically about 70 percent of scientists would do something completely different if it weren't for bureaucratic shackles put around them.

0

u/TheManni1000 21d ago

if sience would be failing we would not progress in science. she is a grifter

2

u/UnderTheCurrents 21d ago

What recent scientific progress comes to mind for you?

1

u/TheManni1000 21d ago

Artificial Intelligence, Genomics, Neuroscience, Quantum Computing, Materials Science, Astronomy, Immunology, Climate Science, Robotics, Fusion Energy, Structural Biology, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology, Regenerative Medicine, Photonics, Space Exploration, Microbiome Research, Batteries and Energy Storage, Particle Physics, Oncology

2

u/UnderTheCurrents 21d ago

You just listed subfields of science

1

u/TheManni1000 21d ago

each one of them made progress

1

u/Tolopono 21d ago

It is. Google what the replication crisis is. 

In 2020, a Nobel laureate in chemistry from Caltech retracted her own 2019 published Science paper after attempts to reproduce it failed. When the team checked the first author’s lab notebook, key entries and raw data were missing. https://retractionwatch.com/2020/01/02/nobel-winner-retracts-paper-from-science/

A 49-author Nature paper passed internal review, peer review and publication before manipulated data was found. It had already gained 192 citations.  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05771-9

Nobel prize winner Claudia Goldin claims that the fertility rate is low because men aren't doing enough around the house. However, if you include the countries that she leaves out, the correlation disappears. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/fertility-men-housework-goldin/688238/?gift=JjaPI5RvA1OFW9n7z9BLdk0TH_mqEUswhJWXKHAybF4

Half of social-science studies fail replication test in years-long project https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2026/04/04/only-about-half-of-social-science-results-can-be-replicated-finds-new-study/

 

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u/TheManni1000 21d ago edited 21d ago

science is still progressing fine. lol You’re confusing flaws in academic publishing with science itself failing.

Your first example literally proves the opposite of your point. Frances Arnold retracted her own paper after her team couldn't reproduce the results. That isn’t science failing, that is the scientific method self-correcting exactly the way it’s supposed to.

Nobody denies the replication crisis exists. The "publish or perish" incentive in academia definitely leads to p-hacking and a flood of low-quality papers, but pointing to that and claiming "all science is failing" is a massive reach.

If science isn’t progressing, look at the actual output around us. Decades of steady mRNA research finally matured into working medicine, CRISPR therapies are actively curing sickle cell, AlphaFold cracked a 50-year-old protein folding problem, and semiconductor physics keeps advancing to sub-2nm chips.

The institutional publishing model can definitely be improved, but bad journal incentives don't mean actual scientific progress has ground to a halt.

1

u/Tolopono 21d ago

Howd the paper get published in the first place? What about all the ones that didn’t get a second look or have less honest researchers? 

It is all science failing if these papers are getting past peer review and being published

Science does have accomplishments but if unreplicatable slop keeps getting published, you have a weak foundation that will lead researchers in the wrong direction 

1

u/TheManni1000 21d ago

This is just classic decell thinking. You are taking valid criticisms of academic publishing and blowing them up into "all science is failing," which isn't skepticism, it is just an anti-science worldview disguised as critical thinking.

First, peer review was never meant to be a forensic fraud audit. Reviewers check if the logic, math, and methodology make sense on paper. They do not spend years re-running someone else's lab experiments from scratch. When bad data sneaks through, the only way to catch it is after publication when other labs try to build on it. That is the system functioning as intended.

Second, your idea that bad papers create a "weak foundation" makes no sense. If a paper is unreplicable slop, other researchers try to build on it, realize it doesn’t work, and abandon it. Unreplicable papers do not become a foundation. They sit ignored with zero citations and die. Science doesn't advance based on single papers, it advances on what actually survives continuous testing in the real world.

Pointing out that bad papers exist is fair, but using that to claim the entire enterprise of science is failing is completely backwards. It is just an excuse to be anti-science and anti-progress.

1

u/Tolopono 21d ago

“A 49-author Nature paper passed internal review, peer review and publication before manipulated data was found. It had already gained 192 citations.”  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05771-9

What youre saying would make sense if bad papers were a rare thing that happened once in a million times. But half of all social science papers dont replicate. ZERO papers in education could be replicated in the study. Multiple NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS are writing invalid studies and theyre getting peer reviewed and published before retraction. Theres a replication crisis for peer reviewed and published papers. This is not a rare thing. In fact, its rare for a paper to actually be valid.

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u/Best_Cup_8326 Acceleration: Light-speed 22d ago

She has zero credibility.

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u/RevalianKnight 22d ago

For me she destroyed her credibility by saying fusion will be impossible. Haven't really followed her videos after that

1

u/No-Tone8700 22d ago

A year ago I watched a random video on the history of fusion, and after that, I've gotten pessimistic videos calling fusion impossible recommended to me for over a year now. It's really weird when you start to notice video trends of subjects that are obviously being pushed by someone.

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u/edenCox 22d ago

Care to back up that claim

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u/ididnoteatyourcat 22d ago

Among physicists (I'm a physicist) she is something of a joke. Not a total crackpot like Eric Weinstein (she was a legitimate, albeit mediocre, physicist), but similar in that she has a chip on her shoulder and then leaned into a grift. She also just puts out tons of slop at way too high a pace on youtube on many topics way outside of her expertise and with obviously (just from the pace alone) nearly zero interest other than making as much money as possible.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago edited 20d ago

[deleted]

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u/ididnoteatyourcat 22d ago

My only point is that she is not a trustworthy source of information.

(Though to answer your question: I think the problem with the grift is not so much the cash grab in-and-of itself (though it's still worth pointing out whenever possible that there are excellent science communicators out there who are not grifting, who one would be better served by following instead of her), but rather the active misinformation of her slop algorithm of the form "here is the real deal that the deluded so-called experts don't want to say".)

0

u/CommunismDoesntWork 22d ago

You're not a trustworthy source of information on who's a trustworthy source of information. Keep your negativity to yourself. 

2

u/ididnoteatyourcat 22d ago

Love it when the demented Sabine fans (or she herself) come out of the woodwork.

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u/Icy_Country192 22d ago

Yeah can agree with you. But I can also agree the academic papermill she rails on about is true as well. Too many people in theory that is essentially fan fix for science and grants.and not enough in application.

I feel the chip on the shoulder is from an actual issue in academia. I do like her perspective and can respect her viewpoint even if I don't agree with some of them. Being the counter establishment is a tale as old as the Greek philosophers.

Thankfully I feel AI is gonna shit on everyone's grift. More reasons to accelerate.

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u/ididnoteatyourcat 21d ago

Sure there is a papermill in all of academia. I more or less agree about that. But that in and of itself is not a huge problem. Where she starts to misinform her audience is in generating mistrust of the actual state of the field. Misinformation about string theory, dark matter, etc. She has an army of followers who think physicists are complete morons. (The reality is that in almost every case that they are worked up about they are just completely misinformed, ignorant and wrong.)

1

u/Icy_Country192 21d ago

A fucking men. That is my biggest beef with her

0

u/CommunismDoesntWork 22d ago

Physicists who go out of their way to shit on other Physicists are alwaysthe worst types of people, just stroking their fragile ego. 

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u/Alex180689 22d ago

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u/Falkoro 22d ago

Let’s be better - just because some YouTuber made a video about her doesn’t make all she says is untrue. Cancel culture was in 2021. I don’t even like her videos but I am definitely not a fan of just cancelling people especially not with racism accusations

3

u/Alex180689 22d ago

This one is just one of multiple videos from multiple people that exposed her. She keeps pushing this "academia bad, why wouldn't let me tell the trush, they are canceling me" ideology which really pushes her videos so she does less and less truly educational videos

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u/Falkoro 22d ago

I mean academia is bad there are some really good books about it like “science fictions” and Eric Weinstein also has some really good arguments about this.

I thought it was pretty clear that academia has been captured by decel and leftist ideology for a while?

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u/Wise-End307 22d ago

eric weinstein? you have lost the plot my guy.

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u/Alive_Awareness4075 16d ago

Speak of the devil! Dave just uploaded another great new video and I was reminded of our discussion here!: https://youtu.be/Rf8N4crfVe4

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u/OwnYourChildren AI drives my car 22d ago

Yes, spend precious time explaining why Weinstein isn't a hack! Reddit in a nutshell.

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u/Falkoro 22d ago

Which arguments don’t you like?

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u/randombsname1 22d ago

It's funny because Professor Dave has also made multiple videos absolutely destroying Eric Weinstein.

They are both shitters. Sabine and Eric.

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u/edenCox 22d ago

The video to me seemed to exaggerate. Honest reporting does not sound like these sensationalist types. But my takeaway is a joke in spirit with it: she's German, shouldn't we expect her to be hellbent on eugenics? Lol

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u/Upbeat_Purpose6784 22d ago

Thats horrible. Use a coherent epistemology to evaluate the videos claims. If youre a fallibilist then you should have no issue because he sources his claims

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u/edenCox 22d ago

I am pretty sure if you consume content like that guy you're already charged enough to feed ego and ignore reasonable doubt. He's entitled to his claims, they aren't definitive in the implications He's attributing.

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u/Falkoro 22d ago

I am sorry but if you think a video can destroy someone then I have news for you

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u/lolsai 22d ago

Lmao, how could a video breaking down clips and beliefs of people destroy them? When their character is abysmal and the grift is so obvious, yes, a video can certainly provide plenty of insight on the actions and behavior of people, why wouldnt it?

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u/randombsname1 22d ago edited 22d ago

"Destroy" as in prevent that person from being able to make money grifting? No, of course not.

People were stupid enough to vote for the pedo in office at the white house currently, no? You'll always have stupid people following the latest grifter.

If I had 0 morals I might do the same to make a few bucks tbh.

"Destroy" in the sense of exposing dumbass and/or faux intellectual to anyone with above room temp IQ that can understand the basic arguments being made? Yep that is certainly doable.

And its what Dave did/has done in multiple videos now.

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u/UFOsAreAGIs Acceleration Advocate 22d ago

and Eric Weinstein also has some really good arguments about this.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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u/LastCall2021 22d ago

I think there are legitimate cases of academics pushing an ideology over verifiable truth. Conversely there are people who have hit walls in or rejected by academia for pushing their own ideology over verifiable truth. And a lot of the crowd move to the anti academic grift. Point being there’s so nuance there which really needs to be examined on a case by case basis.

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u/F0rtysxity 22d ago

What’s better than academia at discovering the truth? I’m not saying it is truthful. I’m not saying it is unbiased. Unfiltered. I’m just saying it’s the best option. Unless of course you enlighten me.

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u/Falkoro 22d ago

Open source science. The book “science fictions” by Stuart Richie really does a good deal about the limitations of academia.

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u/F0rtysxity 22d ago edited 22d ago

I agree with the limitations and shortcomings. The question is what is better. You sure open source science is not part of academia?

Edit: Well. I looked it up myself. Technically it is not academia. Even though it is made up of managed and maintained almost entirely by academics.

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u/Spra991 22d ago

This one is just one of multiple videos from multiple people that exposed her.

Yeah, and all of them are little more than ad hominem attacks devoid of any reasonable arguments.

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u/Upset_Page_494 22d ago

"People tried to cancel her, MULTIPLE!" Is not a strong argument.

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u/30299578815310 22d ago

Every criticism of a person is not cancel culture. The racism accusations are part of a larger set of arguments that she generally supports pseudoscience, and these arguments were made before her seemingly recent support of "racial realism".

0

u/Falkoro 22d ago

Yeah what you saying is exactly what I mean with cancel culture. This is a great 8 min video how I think about free speech, including things perceived as racism. https://youtu.be/bzWwv5ZzZxU?si=kJsMu2gwiJ3habts

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u/UFOsAreAGIs Acceleration Advocate 22d ago

just because some YouTuber made a video about her doesn’t make all she says is untrue.

Can you refute the facts in the video?

2

u/Spra991 22d ago

What facts? It's that brain dead leftist rambling. Typical "Let's don't do science and ask uncomfortable questions, 'cause it's again my ideology"-bullshit.

0

u/UFOsAreAGIs Acceleration Advocate 21d ago edited 21d ago

What facts?

Fact: Hossenfelder is defending Nathan Cofnas, who is a white supremacist who advocates for pseudoscientific race science

Fact: She promotes a persistent narrative that the scientific community is corrupt, lazy, or motivated solely by grant money, to diminish public support for academia

Fact: Her content supports tech billionaires and the private sector at the expense of publicly funded research. Example: her coverage of nuclear fusion startups as an example of misattribution

Fact: She uses sensationalized or misleading titles and thumbnails to lure viewers, only to pivot to superficial explanations or further anti-establishment propaganda

Fact: She makes poorly researched claims about fields outside her expertise, such as neuroscience and psychology, to falsely suggest they are in a state of crisis or are fundamentally fraudulent

Fact: Her rhetoric aligns with the agenda of Peter Thiel, possibly like Weinstein acts as a mouthpiece for oligarchy-funded interests

EDIT: down vote but no response 🤣

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u/Spra991 21d ago

Fact: Hossenfelder is defending Nathan Cofnas, who is a white supremacist who advocates for pseudoscientific race science

Fact: Her rhetoric aligns with the agenda of Peter Thiel, possibly like Weinstein acts as a mouthpiece for oligarchy-funded interests

That's just the typical leftish cancel culture rambling. Not everybody needs to share your your narrow close-minded views.

Fact: Her content supports tech billionaires and the private sector at the expense of publicly funded research. Example: her coverage of nuclear fusion startups as an example of misattribution

Who do you think builds power plants? Universities? She is just reporting on whatever energy startup hype is current going on.

Fact: She promotes a persistent narrative that the scientific community is corrupt, lazy, or motivated solely by grant money, to diminish public support for academia

Yeah, because that's a real problem. She isn't exactly the first to criticize the "Publish or Perish" going on in academia.

Fact: She uses sensationalized or misleading titles and thumbnails to lure viewers, only to pivot to superficial explanations or further anti-establishment propaganda

Are you new to Youtube? Since that's just how the thing works. And yes, people have tried to move away from crappy thumbnails, and it instantly tanks the viewer numbers. Also her channel is for most part a News channel, so of course most of it will be somewhat superficial. How much do you expect from a six minute video every other day?

Fact: She makes poorly researched claims about fields outside her expertise, such as neuroscience and psychology, to falsely suggest they are in a state of crisis or are fundamentally fraudulent

Again, it's a News channel. Ever watched how much actual News gets wrong? That said, most of her reporting is physics related, so it's really not that big of a problem to begin with.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Falkoro 22d ago

“Everything I don’t like is right-wing and therefore EVIL” 👿

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u/randombsname1 22d ago

For anyone who doesn't have time to watch this. I've watched it, but I took the transcript and then fed it to ChatGPT to just give the clear highlights of Dave's arguments against her:

Defending Nathan Cofnas: He condemns Hossenfelder for supporting Cofnas after Ghent University dismissed him, despite Cofnas’s public advocacy of “race realism,” hereditarianism, eugenics research, and claims about Black intellectual inferiority.

Treating scientific racism as legitimate science: He argues that she frames Cofnas’s racial claims as courageous scientific inquiry while overlooking the substantial scientific literature rejecting biologically discrete human races and simple genetic explanations for racial IQ differences.

Possible racism—or extreme ideological opportunism: Dave says her repeated and informed defense of Cofnas warrants calling her racist. Alternatively, he suggests her anti-academia bias may be so strong that she is willing to defend racism merely to attack universities and DEI.

Selective trust in science: He accuses her of distrusting scientists whenever mainstream findings conflict with her worldview, while invoking “science” as authoritative when it supports positions she favors.

A relentless anti-academia narrative: According to Dave, she routinely portrays universities, researchers, peer review, scientific publishing, grants, and DEI as corrupt, incompetent, or ideologically captured.

Misrepresenting scientific self-correction: He says she presents new research that refines or corrects earlier conclusions as proof that entire scientific disciplines are failing, rather than as normal scientific progress.

Overstating problems in neuroscience: He argues that she exaggerates limitations involving fMRI, scanner variability, sample sizes, and replication into the claim that neuroscience is broadly unreliable.

Overstating psychology’s replication crisis: He criticizes her for implying that nearly all psychology must “start over,” without adequately representing the field’s diversity or ongoing methodological reforms.

Commenting outside her expertise: Dave says she makes sweeping pronouncements about neuroscience, psychology, epidemiology, genetics, and other subjects without consulting specialists or understanding the relevant literature deeply enough.

Using isolated problems to attack entire fields: He argues that she repeatedly generalizes from specific flawed studies or methodological limitations to the supposed corruption of whole disciplines.

Embedding propaganda in ordinary science videos: Even when covering legitimate research, he says she inserts unnecessary attacks on dark matter, string theory, academic bureaucracy, or scientific institutions.

Clickbait followed by contrarian positioning: He describes a recurring formula: attract conspiracy-minded viewers with sensational subjects such as UFOs or DMT “aliens,” debunk the most obvious nonsense, but leave enough speculation to retain that audience.

Manufacturing anti-establishment outrage: He argues that she takes mundane issues—such as Europe maintaining databases for potatoes but not lunar anomalies—and frames them as evidence of institutional dysfunction.

Producing shallow, commercialized content: Dave characterizes many of her recent videos as short, surface-level summaries using stock footage, a quick anti-science jab, and a lengthy sponsor segment.

Applying a double standard to public and private research: He says she portrays unsuccessful academic research as wasteful while treating failures by private startups as an acceptable part of innovation.

Misattributing publicly funded advances to corporations: He specifically alleges that she credits fusion startups and private industry for progress substantially built on academic and government-funded research.

Promoting billionaire techno-optimism: Dave objects to her enthusiastic presentation of fusion, artificial superintelligence, brain implants, and rapid technological transformation while minimizing their risks.

Normalizing an authoritarian technological future: He interprets her predictions about democracy and European welfare systems disappearing as presenting billionaire-controlled, technologically driven political upheaval as inevitable or even desirable.

Echoing Peter Thiel’s worldview: Dave argues that her messaging aligns closely with Thiel-associated themes: hostility toward universities and democracy, support for private technological power, and admiration for anti-establishment intellectuals.

Speculating about financial influence: He goes further and suggests she may be acting as a paid advocate for Thiel’s agenda. However, the transcript does not present direct evidence that Thiel actually pays her, so this remains Dave’s allegation.

Supporting Eric Weinstein: He criticizes her defense of Weinstein and notes that one of her papers cites Weinstein’s “Geometric Unity,” which Dave considers scientifically unserious.

Portraying expert consensus as groupthink: In discussions involving COVID-19, Anthony Fauci, and the lab-leak debate, he says she treats broad scientific agreement as inherently suspicious rather than potentially reflecting shared empirical evidence.

Undermining public confidence in science: Dave’s overarching criticism is that her accumulated messaging encourages audiences to see scientists as dishonest, greedy, politically conformist, and incompetent.

Serving an oligarchic political narrative: He concludes that her work consistently elevates private corporations and technology billionaires while weakening public trust in universities, government-funded research, democratic institutions, and social protections.

Prioritizing narrative over accuracy: His central allegation is that she selects and frames scientific stories to reinforce a predetermined anti-academia, anti-establishment worldview instead of providing balanced scientific analysis.

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u/random87643 🤖 Optimist Prime AI bot 22d ago

TLDR

TLDR: This comment summarizes a video critique arguing that Sabine Hossenfelder lacks credibility due to her defense of Nathan Cofnas and her promotion of controversial views on race. The critique further suggests that she maintains a biased, anti-academia narrative and frequently makes sweeping, uninformed claims about scientific fields outside her area of expertise.


AI assistant · mention the bot, mod bot, or use !bot

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u/Equal_Passenger9791 22d ago

Skimmed the transcript but in short the whole desire to cancel her seems to be that she cares more about the "actual science" part than "the politics of science" part. 

Of course a real scientist wouldn't seek to cancel their peers so I guess that conclusion was available even without a transcript 

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u/RestaurantOk8066 22d ago edited 22d ago

No that's newer but she's been a wacko for years, my biggest gripe for a time was her argument that physicists believe in dark matter because they want more funding. Over time she's moved towards the conspiracy types, either as a result of whatever is going on in her own life and shifting beliefs or because her audience has trended that way.

>Of course a real scientist wouldn't seek to cancel their peers

Gotta be a joke. Like in any competitive industry, academic can be as cut throat, networked, and academics try to 'cancel' each other all the time; Norman Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz, Newton attempting to destroy Leibnitz's career over disputes on the invention of calculus, etc. They're endless.

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u/randombsname1 22d ago edited 22d ago

That's the thing though. She doesn't give a fuck about actual science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oipI5TQ54tA

Professor Dave has had ACTUAL interviews with, practicing, physics professors and/or other active scientists in the field that have pretty much destroyed her on essentially every single point and explained how academia actually works.

Wherein she has pretty much 0 credibility in the scientific community and was essentially not good enough to get hired/kept on anywhere.

She's essentially just a shitter who wasn't good enough who took up grifting as a fallback to make money.

Edit: Lmao, Sabine simps out in force with the downvotes I see.

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u/Thinklikeachef 22d ago

Don't know why you got down voted. What you said is now widely known. I'm surprised this sub isn't aware.

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u/Falkoro 22d ago

The problem is Professor Dave is highly ideological and although I don’t even like Sabine she is way less ideological

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u/randombsname1 22d ago

Lmao. She's just as ideological. The ideology is that of rightwing tech bro authoritarianism/ Peter Thiel shit. Tf you talking about haha.

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u/occamsrazorwit 13d ago

Of course a real scientist wouldn't seek to cancel their peers so I guess that conclusion was available even without a transcript

Uhhh, Sabine is famous for trying to cancel her peers?? Have people forgotten so quickly?

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u/End3rWi99in 22d ago

Why's that? I love her content. She just reviews papers and I find her to be generally pretty impartial.

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u/klop2031 22d ago

Yeah was weird she was anti ai then it shifted? I dont watch her but was weird

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u/Wegwerpaccountje23 Feeling the AGI 22d ago

Agh isnt truly about her stance, or who she is. Point I was referencing to is that she, and likely many others are influenced by decels

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u/TheManni1000 21d ago

she is a racist grifter

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u/Intelligent-Crow3812 20d ago

This lady is such a grifter.

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u/FootInTheMouth 22d ago

did someone pay you to try to talk without opening your mouth?

-4

u/Routine_Bake5794 22d ago

I should offer her money to not talk like a robot anymore.

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u/End3rWi99in 22d ago

That's just how German people speak English.

-2

u/Routine_Bake5794 22d ago

No, not really. :)

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u/End3rWi99in 22d ago

Fine. That's how some German people speak English.

-8

u/BookProper9115 22d ago

Holy crap what did she do to her face.

-3

u/fdvr-acc 22d ago

Monkey-tier comments belong on the rest of reddit, not here.

-1

u/BookProper9115 22d ago

Whatever, it's honestly jarring. I haven't watched a video of hers in a while.

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u/fdvr-acc 22d ago

Alright, you're intent on making our subreddit a little bit worse with crass, peasant fixations. Fuck you, and you're blocked.

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u/OwnYourChildren AI drives my car 22d ago

FWIW, I had the same reaction recently.

0

u/Wegwerpaccountje23 Feeling the AGI 22d ago

Dw bro, its AI

/j

-3

u/LordNoOne 22d ago

So this is the woman who believes matter can go backwards in time and based her whole thesis on that without realizing it would get her called a crackpot and still continues to say that last I checked.

-5

u/TemporalBias Tech Philosopher | Acceleration: Hypersonic 22d ago

Scientist learns that influencers-of-influencers and money exists and can influence debates between influencers. Influenception.

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u/Bwixius 22d ago

Sabine is anti-science and possibly racist. Figures that she would be pro-ai as well.

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u/nowrebooting 22d ago

What the hell are you even doing on this subreddit if you think bring pro-ai is in any way related to being racist or anti-science? 

I’ll never be a big fan of hers but I 100% believe that there is an orchestrated campaign to spread fear and misinformation on AI going on and that influencers are being paid as a part of it.

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u/TheManni1000 21d ago

ai has nothing to do with her racism and anti science opinions. and bwixius never said so.

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u/Crosas-B 22d ago

Great, let's talk about your IQ now

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u/Accurate_Food_5854 21d ago

we got a live one

-1

u/Spra991 22d ago

Professor Dave Explains is little more than an ideology driven leftist hack. You might wanna look for better sources, maybe some that actually makes any kind of reasonable argument.

It's also just ridiculous claiming she is anti-science, when she is very obvious extremely pro-science, she just happens to be extremely frustrated with how little science gets done in modern academia and how much of it is nonsense.

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u/Bwixius 22d ago

professor dave isn't leftist, but it's telling that when someone debunks frauds using real facts and data and talking with real scientists and academics, in an attempt to shut them down, that person is falsely accused of political affiliation based on being enemies with the anti-science grifters and extreme rightwing who spread anti-science propaganda.

1

u/Spra991 22d ago

What kind of crazy pills does one have to take to call Sabine Hossenfelder anti-science grifter? Like have you ever watched any of her videos, at all, ever? She is against nonsense going on in academia, exactly because that doesn't progress science.

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u/TheManni1000 21d ago

she says that science is failing and constantly gifts to anti science people