'Vortex Cannon vs Drone' - Mark Rober shows off tech from a "defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems". That seems bad

Rober's always seemed a little off to me, like one of those who enjoys being famous more than the stuff that made him famous in the first place. Seems like he's gotten worse, though. For instance, this video declares it "was not sponsored [by Zipline] in anyway nor did they pay for any of my travel or accommodations," despite extolling their virtues over and over again by name, and lingering lovingly on their drones and logos like Michael Bay with a car company's badge.

Smarter Everyday is also rather polished, and he's even more in bed with the military industrial complex, but (as of a few months ago anyway) he comes off like he's still actually enjoying the projects themselves and the information he's sharing. It's hard to exactly articulate the point where a content creator loses me, but I can feel it in my nerd-bones.

Yeah I just watched it and it seemed off. Almost like the mrwhosetheboss touring a fucking prison a while back.

I also had this uneasy feeling watching the video. It certainly felt a bit like a cog in the military industrial machine. While the actual content of the video wasn't exactly bad in my opinion, I don't know how I feel about pitching anti-terror or war machines to children through the lens of, "Engineering is cool!" That said, there are many more examples of that pitch out in the world in other forms. I do think Mark could be more careful especially when he is directly promoting a company in the defense industry.

The breathless enthusiasm for the military industrial complex while dropping scary descriptions of terrorism that hasn't happened gave me exactly the same impression.

I hate this kind of content, especially from someone who seems like a pretty genuine person.

Please Mark: be a bit more critical.

Also a 5mn ad break to sell his kit felt much too long.

It's like 1/3 of the video.

Ive turned this shit off after 30s. Fucking military industrial complex propaganda. Remember, they’re gonna bomb your stadiums from drones (maybe) so forget about all other problems of our society and masturbate to our defensive abilities (that we would never ever use to kill innocent kids in the middle east).

This is a common pattern in content creators. As they grow their goals shift into running a production machine that maximizes earnings, throwing away any values or standards they started with.

Just look at LTT/LMG. It's not gonna get better, so you could watch someone else who still values things other than money.

Weird topic for a channel aimed at children

While I'm not linking to an external article, I'm hoping that my write-up within the post can still fit with the intent of this community :)

Maybe I've watched too much Black Mirror, but this video felt too similar to the tech demos at the start of a sci-fi thriller. In fact, it made me think of the Slaughterbots short film from 2017.

Sci-Fi Short Film “Slaughterbots” | DUST (youtube.com)

Two relevant points from that video:

• The person in the tech demo for the drones also uses language such as "bad guys"

• The address at the end:

This short film is more than just speculation. It shows the results of integrating and miniaturizing technologies that we already have. I'm Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at Berkeley. I've worked in AI for more than 35 years. It's potential to benefit humanity is enormous, even in defense. But allowing machines to choose to kill humans will be devastating to our security and freedom. Thousands of my fellow researchers agree we have an opportunity to prevent the future you just saw, but the window to act is closing fast.

I don't know about everyone else, but I had a great interest in war when I was a boy. Now as an adult, I'd rather have Mark explaining things to kids than anyone else they might seek out.

I stopped watching his content after his ableist campaign with NEXT For Autism (another shitty autism "charity" like Autism Speaks) and his subsequent removal of comments and banning of users who criticised his campaign or attempted to inform him of the dangers of the organisation.

It's good to see that his morals and ethics are still, to this day, not exactly heartwarming. /s

Remember when he faked his first fart bomb video because he used his friends to play the part of the porch pirates? That was years ago.

Edit: My memory was a little fuzzy on exactly the nature of the incident was. See my follow up comment for a link to an article that explains what actually happened.

Mark has always been icky for me. I watch these kinds of videos almost excellently - the science-tech ones; yet I avoid him like the plague.

Such a nice name wasted. Same as Palantir

I watched it with my kids and felt uncomfortable. This sort of video is not the same as elephants toothpaste.

I don't suffer through rober videos so my kids can now worry people want to drop bombs on them at a stadium.

Thanks mark.

Mark Rober is a practicing mormon. And that already did not sit right with me. Christian, muslim, I don't care what religion, these people should stay away from child education programs. Keeping your faith completely private is borderline acceptable, but please keep your symbols of faith out of your videos (white shirt for the mormons as I learned)

This just in: Palmer Luckey is a piece of shit. This is what you bought when you paid for the Oculus Rift.

Somehow I already knew this was Anduril.

All of the people here saying Backyard Scientist is better should check out his latest video.

I understand the criticism of the tone of the video, but what I totally don't understand is that some comments say that this technology was "scary".

How? You are aware that we are loving in a world where missiles can carry nuclear bombs and where thousands of those are kept in working condition so they could be launched at any moment? A world where terrorists have successfully destroyed a building in another country with a plane? Where school shootings are a thing? Where there is a war in the Ukraine where much cheaper drones are used to kill much more efficiently with explosives?

I guarantee you that no one will ever acquire one of these drones to attack an individual because there are so many ways that are cheaper and easier and have been around for decades.

I also was not happy about the video.

That's an absolutely awful video. Loud, obnoxious, disingenuous and not even remotely as funny, informative, comprehensive, or clever as the idiot who made it thinks it is. It's valueless content made to be ingested and served up by an algorithm.

I was not expecting this amount of hate over this video when I clicked on this post. The video is... normal? I don't see issues? This whole thread seems oddly anti-military, anti-tech, and anti-Mark Rober. Like, what, is this tech going to be used to murder children more effectively than bombing a school? Even if it is, why is Mark Rober at fault and actually a phony who's just shelling out for fame/cash? I'm genuinely curious what I'm missing here.

Some children may grow to be the "bad guys" making and employing the "bad guy drones", so it may be useful for them. War is part of life.

But if you want a certain kind of atmosphere, then I wouldn't.

That sounds like a solution without a problem. We already have guns that can shoot down drones and our own recon drones at every level from squad to corps.

I haven't watched any of his videos since the second glitter bomb video. He was looking for people setting up glitter bombs as a trap and sent one to to someone who never had the intention to do ao. As consequence he sent some embarrassing postcards to the person's neighbors and claims to have submitted the address to Scientology recruitment.

I think he may have soul doubt.

So far, US start-up made drones have proved to be useless trash when tested in Ukraine.

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Why did they name a canon the same name as a flashlight OS?

^/s

Is it just me, or does that discussion of the various ways to counter drones, kinda miss the obvious of just shooting them with a conventional gun?

Its just a gun. Chill out