answerswithjoe

[answerswithjoe]

Why do we believe in conspiracy theories?

In 2010, there was a surge of shark attacks off the Egyptian coast, and it was starting to affect tourism, so the government was put under pressure to find an answer. 

On a popular talk show, a diver said that they had found electronic devices on some of the sharks, and came to the only logical conclusion. 

The sharks were being remotely controlled by Israeli intelligence. 

The conspiracy went viral, even prompting a government official to say, “It’s not out of the question. But it needs time to confirm." Finally, this was put to bed when an Egyptian marine biologist confirmed that yes, they were just GPS tracking devices that they were using to track the movements of the sharks. 

And the surge in attacks was traced to excessive dumping of sheep carcasses in the ocean nearby. At least, that’s just what the government wants you to believe. Sheeple. Roughly 30% of the population are prone to conspiracy-mindedness, meaning they tend to assume that there are larger machinations behind what’s going on in the world. 

And conspiracy theories cross all boundaries, people of all political stripes, economic status, races, sexes, and on and on.

Education level makes a little bit of difference, 46% of high school dropouts vs 24% of college graduates. But still… That’s a quarter of college graduates that believe in conspiracy theories. 

This is not a small percentage of the population. So what’s going on with that? What causes some people to see conspiracies where others don’t?

A typical conspiracy theory has four parts to it: 

A group (1) acting in secret (2) to alter institutions, usurp power, hide truth, or gain utility (3) at the expense of the common good. (4)

And a lot of that comes down to trust.

Often in politics, people all want the same thing, but they put their trust in different institutions. Like liberals would trust the government and conservatives would trust private industry. But conspiracists distrust the mainstream. 

The accepted truth that the rest of the world believes, a conspiracist would say is propaganda being believed by people who have been lead astray. Hence the “sheeple” slur. 

But it’s also a function of anxiety and loss of control.

Researchers found that inducing anxiety in respondents often triggers them to see nonexistent patterns or create conspiratorial explanations when answering questions. And people experiencing anxieties in life like job insecurity tend to be more conspiratorial in their thinking. 

And you might have noticed that every major world event seems to have at least one conspiracy attached to it.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t conspiracies, there almost assuredly are, but not everything is a conspiracy. 

Even natural disasters like earthquakes props people to embrace conspiracy theories. 

I really feel like people are drawn to conspiracies because in an only-the-human-brain-could-be-this-paradoxical kind of way, it makes them feel safer. The idea that someone is in control, even if that someone has evil intentions, is a comforting idea.

Because the idea that the world is chaotic and random and nobody is in control is a hell of a lot scarier.

That’s how our brains work, it tends toward what makes us feel better, that’s how addictions form, and being able to point to something else as the cause of your anxiety, to say someone is behind all the problems in the world, that gives you someone to direct your ire onto. And that release of anxiety feels good. So we keep thinking that way.

This is especially easy because the natural flow of the world and the systems we’ve created lend themselves toward patterns that look like there’s something behind it. 

For example, in economic systems, we have all these individual entities, companies and corporations, and they designed to do one thing: Make money. If this were some kind of computer program, that would be their one function: make money.

There are no extra points for going alone, if your company stands to make more money by working with another company, even if that other company is a competitor, the choice is clear, you work with the other company. Sometimes that leads to many companies working together, to fix prices or manipulate the market, but was that a conspiracy, or just business? 

There is no master plan, no smoke-filled rooms, it’s just… each entity doing what that entity is designed to do. So is this a problem? Is there anything wrong with believing in conspiracies? Not really.

But just like everything else in our lives, we need to have some self-awareness about it. Understand that we have a cognitive bias toward believing that there’s someone pulling the strings. 

Because that kind of thinking, left unchecked, can lead to something far more dangerous. Paranoia. And a lot of really bad things happen because of paranoia.

Conspiracy minded people are often smarter than other people, but intelligence and mental health is not the same thing. 

Our brains are pattern recognition machines, and the smarter a person is, the more likely they are to see patterns that other people don’t see. There is truly a fine line between genius and madness.

So if you’re someone who is more conspiracy-minded, this isn’t an attack on you, there’s nothing wrong wth you, in fact, you’re probably a little smarter than the rest of us.

But I would ask that you point that healthy skepticism inward from time to time. Examine your thoughts. Doubt your assumptions. Remember that the world is chaotic and random and sometimes, things just happen. Question whether this is the most likely answer, or just what feels most likely? 

You might find the real conspiracy is taking place inside your mind.

[answerswithjoe]

Big news!

My channel got picked for the YouTube NextUp workshop in New York. Watch to learn more. Excited!

[answerswithjoe]

The Boötes void is a giant, empty area of space located about 700 million light years from Earth near the constellation Boötes. Hence the name.

It was discovered by astronomer Robert Kirshner in 1981 and has been baffling astronomers and scientists ever since.

Voids in space are not uncommon, in fact, they’re everywhere. The universe is actually a very spongey configuration of filaments of galaxy clusters separated by voids of emptiness.

But Boötes is different. It measures 250 million light-years in diameter, it’s literally more than a quarter of a percent of the entire universe. And it’s almost completely bloody empty.

There are only 60 galaxies in the Boötes Void, which may sound like a lot, but a typical region of space would have roughly 10,000 galaxies. For comparison, there are 25 galaxies within 3 million light years of the Milky Way.

So what could cause such a massive anomaly in the universe? This is a question that’s puzzled scientists for the last 30 plus years.

And it’s attracted a lot of interest because some of the theories really challenge our understanding of the universe.

For instance, one theory challenges the big bang itself.

The big bang theory states that in the earliest moments of the universe, energy and matter were spread uniformly across the cosmos. But because of tiny quantum fluctuations, the particles combined to form atoms, atoms formed gas clouds, that eventually became stars and galaxies.

Which is why while there are voids, they seem uniformly distributed across the universe. Except for the Boötes void.

Boötes void flies in the face of this cosmic uniformity, and has led some to speculate it disproves the big bang theory altogether.

Another thought is that maybe it’s a dark energy bubble.

Dark energy is the force that causes the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. Could it be that something in the void is radiating more dark energy than the rest of the universe? And if so, what could it be? What kind of cosmic object would radiate dark energy? And at the level that it would push tens of thousands of galaxies apart for hundreds of millions of light years?

Could there be some type of unknown object out there that we don’t understand?

Could it be a black hole somewhere else in the universe that transformed all the matter it sucked in, converted it to dark energy, and then punched through the fabric of spacetime,  spewing it out and creating the void? That’s totally hypothetical. But a crazy idea.

A much more fun interpretation of Bootes’ void is… of course… aliens.

Kardashev Type III civilizations can make use of all the energy in their galaxy. Could it be that a massive super-civilization took root in the center of Bootes’ void billions of years ago and began converting whole galaxies into power stations, blocking all energy and light coming out of it?

Maybe Boötes void isn’t empty at all, but is filled with an all-consuming alien civilization. That would explain why it’s so spherical - a civilization that spreads like a virus would travel out in all directions to the nearest galaxy, forming a perfect sphere, which is another curious attribute to the void.

What we may be witnessing is basically a cancerous civilization that eats galaxies as it grows uncontrollably. Such a thing would almost assuredly be a mechanistic AI-driven system of self-replicating machines that probably split off from their physical selves eons ago.

Think of the multitudes of civilizations, species, and life forms that were destroyed as this mechanical virus spread throughout the galaxies. This is a science fiction nightmare come to life.

For this reason, some astronomers are watching the galaxies at the edge of the void to see if their luminosity dims over time. Because if we start seeing some more lights go out… Yikes.

So it’s easy to see why this theory has captured so many imaginations.

But… The least fun theory, unfortunately, is the most likely.

It’s very possible that the Boötes void is is simply a combination of two or more other voids that have merged together.

It’s like bubbles in a fizzy drink. The bubbles start small and merge together over time, to become larger.

Galaxies merge all the time, drawn to each other by their gravity. But what would attract voids to merge with each other when they're empty, there’s no gravity to attract to each other?

It’s possible that if two voids were close enough, the gravity at the edges of the voids would pull the galaxies toward each other, thinning the barrier until it doesn’t exist anymore.

And there is a reason to believe this is the case. Remember those 60 or so galaxies that do exist in the void? They exist in something of a tubular structure inside the void, possibly a remnant of a barrier that once existed, and now leaves them stranded inside the biggest super void in the universe.

These galaxies are so isolated, in fact, that if the Milky Way were in the middle of the void, we would have never known there were any other galaxies until the 1960s.

So when you look up at the night sky and feel like the universe is a big, empty expanse of nothingness, just remember… It could be worse.

[answerswithjoe]

Chinese geneticists to do first ever CRISPR trial on humans - Will edit their T cells to hopefully destroy cancer tumors

A team of researchers at Sichuan University’s West China Hospital has announced plans to begin a clinical trial where cells modified using the CRISPR gene editing technique will be used on human beings for the very first time. They plan to edit genes in such a way as to turn off a gene that encodes for a protein that has been shown by prior research to slow an immune response and by so doing treat patients with lung cancer.

The CRISPR gene editing technique has been in the news a lot of late as scientists creep ever closer to using it as a means to treat diseases or to change the very nature of biological beings.

READ MORE ON MEDICAL XPRESS

READ FURTHER ON NATURE | NEWS

[answerswithjoe]

Our mental and physical health can suffer if we’re surrounded by people who think we’re wrong or crazy.

Matt Motyl, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Illinois-Chicago. New research says being politically isolated (being a liberal living in a conservative area, for example, or a conservative living in a liberal one) can hurt our ability to form relationships. (via sciencefriday)

[answerswithjoe]

Let’s turn the solar system into a giant computer!

In past episodes, I talked about the Kardashev scale as a way to measure the size and power of potential alien civilizations. A Type 2 civilization is one that can utilize all the energy in their home star.

A popular idea to capture all the energy from a star is a Dyson sphere, or a Dyson swarm, a solar array large enough to encircle an entire star and collect all the energy coming out of it. An ambitious idea, to be sure, but in 2008, futurist Robert Bradbury took it a step further in the book anthology, Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge.

He basically asked, if we’re using all the energy of the sun, what the hell are we using it for? He proposed using a Dyson Sphere to power a massive supercomputer.

And not just one sphere, but multiple spheres, stacked inside each other. He called this the Matrioshka Brain. Named after the Russian nesting dolls where smaller ones fit inside larger ones. The idea is that each sphere would both take in energy from the sphere below it, while radiating out energy to power the sphere above it. So the most inner sphere would be almost as hot as the sun itself, and the outer sphere would be almost as cold as interstellar space. Literally capturing every watt of the sun’s energy. And that’s a lot of watts.

4x10 to the 26th power kind of watts.

This is known as a Class B Stellar Engine, or an engine that derives its power from a star, in this case the engine is powering a massive computer.

A Class A Stellar Engine, if you’re wondering, is propulsive, meaning it moves the star and solar system across space.

An example of this would be a Shkadov Thruster, basically a giant sail that would reflect the energy of the star in one direction, causing the entire system to trail in the opposite direction.

The most likely scenario would be that we create robots that can travel to Mercury and take it apart piece by piece, creating the materials and pieces for the first sphere.

But they aren’t just building spheres, they’d be building more of themselves. Self-replicating robots would grow along with the project, so while it may start slowly, it would grow exponentially.

Once the first sphere comes online, we’d use that energy to build the next sphere, dismantling Venus and growing outward from there. And by the way, if you think mining other planets is a crazy idea, guess what… We’re already doing it! Or… Planning to do it anyway.

Billionaire entrepreneur Peter Diamandis created a company called Planetary Resources with the goal of mining asteroids. They’ve already got about a dozen asteroids in their sights and several satellites designed to do the job.

And last year, President Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, that recognizes the right of citizens and businesses to own asteroid resources.

And finally, what kind of civilization would build a Matryoshka brain? And where would they live without any planets? Well, here’s where things get kinda crazy. Because a computer as powerful as a Matryoshka brain would be able to simulate entire universes. So where would the civilization be? In the computer.

A civilization that builds a Matryoshka brain isn’t just building a megastructure, they would be constructing their entire reality. A reality they would upload their consciousnesses into.

This runs completely counter to the concept of super intelligent alien species transversing the galaxy and exploring the universe, this is a civilization that has decided to go inward. Build a literal bubble around themselves and live inside of it. The ultimate tune in, turn on, drop out.

Which like any simulation argument, begs the question… how do we know we aren’t just living in a Matryoshka brain?

I will say I don’t think human beings would ever go the Matryoshka brain route. Exploration is such a part of our DNA, the idea that we would go the other way and literally shut the universe out is almost impossible to comprehend.

I’m pretty sure the future beings that would go that route would not be considered humans anymore. It would be something else. Something that follows us. Something that with all of its advancements and intelligence has decided that there’s nothing else out there to see, nobody to find, and no meaning to this universe. Just a lonely, empty void.

So they created their own. Which, come to think of it, is a very human thing to do.

[answerswithjoe]

You have to work hard to make the future a better place.

[answerswithjoe]

Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness

Last year, a pretty amazing thing happened at a lab at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. A robot demonstrated self-awareness for the first time. 

The experiment was called the Wise Man test and it worked like this: the lab took three robots and programmed them all to believe that two of them had been given “dumbing pills” that prevent them from speaking - but they didn’t know which of them received it.

He then asked them which ones got the dumbing pill, and the robot answered, and then realized that because it was able to answer, it couldn’t have gotten the pill.

This is something no computer or robot has been able to do before. Artificial Intelligence has grown by leaps and bounds just in the last few years, with the self-awareness test I just talked about but also the computer AlphaGo beating a world-class Go champion earlier this year.

These are not small things.

It was always believed that if you could combine the computational power of computers with the creative and innovative thinking of a human brain, you’d have something with unlimited intelligence that could solve all of our problems.

Or wipe us off the face of the Earth. One of the pioneers in consciousness research is Sir Roger Penrose.

He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, and spent his early career tacking cosmological questions relating to general relativity such as the cosmic censorship hypothesis and the Weyl Curvature hypothesis. He has been awarded the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Wolf Foundation Prize for Physics, both of which he shared with Stephen Hawking, and in 1994, he was knighted for his contributions to the world of science.

Beginning in the 1980’s, he turned his attention to the questions of consciousness and the brain, using math and physics to try to understand how that creates our consciousness.

He’s written two books on the subject, including The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics, Shadows of the Mind, A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness. The main point that Penrose makes, and the thing that has earned him a bit of notoriety, is his conclusion that consciousness can’t be explained by conventional physics.

His assertion is that the structure and connections of neurons in our brain simply does not physically hold the computational capacity to create the consciousness we experience.

He argues that there must be something else at play, at an even smaller level, and he believes that exists in quantum space.

So along came Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist, who became intrigued by Dr. Penrose’s work, and brought to Penrose the idea that there are structures inside brain neurons called microtubules, and that they may hold the key to allowing the brain to compute within the quantum space.

Microtubules make up the cytoskeleton inside the cell and hold it together. They’re tiny - only nanometers across - and Hameroff suggested that the tiny spaces inside the hollow tubules allows for qubits, or quantum bits of information, to communicate with each other.

Working together, they created the Orch-OR model of consciousness, which states that consciousness in the brain originates in processes inside of neurons, instead of through the connections between neurons.

Interestingly, a study in 2014 at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan discovered quantum vibrations in microtubule latices that proponents of Orch-OR believe is evidence in favor of the model.

But this theory is hotly contested, with most critics arguing that the brain is too “warm, wet, and noisy” to create a coherent quantum system. This has become known as the Warm, Wet, and Noisy argument. As AI research continues, we’re finding that the key is not in simple processing power, but in neural networks.

There’s a fascinating book called Who’s in Charge? by neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga who has worked with split-brain patients over the last 20 years or so.

Split-brain patients are people who have had their left and right brains disconnected from each other. Our hemispheres are connected by a bundle of fibers called the corpus collosum and back in the 70’s the discovered that if you cut the corpus collosum, you can actually stop seizures in people who were getting them on a daily basis.

So there are hundreds of people who have had this surgery done and it’s produced some very unexpected results.

For example, the visual cortex usually resides in the left hemisphere, so when people were shown images of say a chicken in the right hemisphere, they literally thought they weren’t seeing anything. Their right brains couldn’t process it in a way that allowed them to put it into words.

But, when a pencil was put in their left hands, their left hands would draw a chicken. And then, when asked why they drew a chicken, they would respond with, “well I ate chicken yesterday so that must be why."

We also have a number of subconscious modules in our brain that cause us to take actions and decisions before our conscious brains can decipher it.

The story here is that what we perceive as a holistic conscious experience is a collection of a dozen or more conscious modules in our brain making decisions for us which are later justified by an interpreter module.

In other words, our conscious experience��� might just be an illusion.

For now the answer to the hard problem of consciousness remains out of reach, but as research into artificial neural networks and quantum computing continues to progress, we might be on the cusp of some very relevatory stuff. Stay tuned.

[answerswithjoe]

The main thing I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Illuminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening – Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.

Alan Moore, Novelist/Author ‘Watchmen’ (via sagansense)

[answerswithjoe]

Did you ever notice that the Star Spangled Banner is a question?

I ponder what that means.

[answerswithjoe]

Why Not Ammunition Regulation?

Chris Rock did a hilarious standup bit one time where he talked about stopping gun violence by making bullets cost $5000 a bullet.

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

Now, that was played for laughs of course, but... Why aren’t we talking more about this?

The Swiss have one of the highest levels of gun ownership in the world but their levels of gun violence are far below ours. Why? Well, it’s partly cultural, it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but also they have a very different policy toward ammunition.

In Switzerland (and I’m going off memory here so feel free to correct any errors), as I understand it, you are allowed to have guns, but your ammunition must be stored at a shooting facility.

I don’t know if it’s ALL ammunition or if you are allowed a certain amount in your home and the rest must be stored at a licensed facility, but that’s part of their gun policy, and it seems to work.

So why not here? Why not ammunition limits? Is there not a number we could find that would be accepted by the majority to be the line between safe for hunting and protection without potentially endangering people en masse?

Could we say each home is allowed to have X amount for protection and X amount for hunting, and anything above that must be kept in a bullet bank?

Then people can have their guns and their feeling of security while people can go around in public without having to worry as much about mass shootings.

I see 2 objections to this right away: 1 - that the vast - VAST - majority of gun deaths are from things like suicides and domestic disputes (tragic in other ways) that this would do nothing to stop. No argument there. This doesn’t solve everything.

But it might make a difference on the mass shootings. And I hate that I can’t go to a movie in the opening weekend without the thought at least crossing my mind that some crazy person would find this a great place to make himself famous.

I’m not saying it’s kept me from living a normal life - I’ve been going to the theater a lot less in recent years anyway - you know, internet and all - but it sucks that it’s there. And I know I’m not alone.

The 2nd objection is what about the right of people to protect themselves from a tyrannical government, if you take away their ammunition, you take away that right. 

Okay, all right, I’ll go with you on this, I don’t necessarily believe that was the original intent of the 2nd Amendment, but for now, sure, let’s go with it.

Allow state militias to store ammunition. If you’re a member of a state militia, you can store a larger amount of ammo, which must be stored at the militia. How much are they allowed? Unlimited? Rationed? That’s controlled by the states.

You know, state’s rights!

And let’s be honest, it does say, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state...”

So now you’ve got your ability to protect yourself, hunt, and defend against a tyrannical government. Those are all defensive reasons to be using your gun. And, if you just enjoy firing off a bunch of rounds (I’ve done it, it’s exhilarating), you can go to a gun range and re-enact Call of Duty to your heart’s content.

The only thing this stops is someone who wants to go blow away a bunch of people. Is there anybody who’s going to argue that we can’t do this because it takes away someone’s right to blow away a bunch of people? 

Despite what many may think of me from the jokes I may make, I don’t want to take people’s guns away. Besides, it’s simply not practical. And maybe this is, too. I just want people to have the discussion about middle ground and think outside the box a little bit.

There are some answers that will protect people’s rights and their sense of security. On both sides. If we can just talk about it.

[answerswithjoe]

Worst. Indigestion. Ever.

You can’t unsee this… ::barfs in mouth::

[answerswithjoe]

We Must Have The Courage To Change

I’m actively avoiding Facebook right now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not succeeding very well. 

But I just can’t.

I just can’t watch people change their profile pics to have some overlay of a rainbow symbol in a desperate effort to feel like they’ve actually done something about this. I just can’t hear the same calls for policy change that I’ve heard a million times which never get implemented and forgotten about by the time the next episode of Dancing With the Stars airs. 

I just can’t listen to more defensive NRA talking points regurgitated without any actual reflection or thought applied to it. 

I just can’t with the righteous indignation from all sides. 

I just can’t with the finger pointing. 

I just can’t with the grief porn. 

I just can’t. 

It’s the same thing over and over and over again, like Groundhog Day in hell. I find myself so easily sucked into an argument with people I’ve never met, desperate to get them to see things differently (not necessarily my way, just different), when I really have other things I should be tending to.

The really heartbreaking thing is there is SO MUCH middle ground to work with. So many things we could do that would keep people safe without infringing on anybody’s rights, but we can’t even have the conversation. 

Gun rights supporters are not bad people. I know, because I’m friends and family with many of them. Nobody wants more gun violence. So now that we’ve broken YET ANOTHER record, can we maybe just sit down and discuss some of these things: 

Study the problem. 

Right now, there is a law - yes, that was backed by the gun lobby - that prevents Congress from allocating funds to the CDC to study gun violence. The reason given is that treating gun violence like a public health issue is unfair and paints a bad picture of guns. 

But that’s semantics. The CDC has studied lots of things not related to disease; car safety being a main one. And their research has made cars far safer and saved millions of lives over the years. 

And sure, plenty of other non-profits and research centers have studied gun violence, but none of them have the breadth and weight that the CDC has. Can’t we all agree that we should be studying this problem instead of burying our heads in the sand? 

Terrorists buying guns. 

We in this country famously have a terrorist watch list. If your name ends up on this list, you aren’t able to even buy a plane ticket. But bill after bill has been voted down (yes, with pressure from the NRA) that would prevent people on the terrorist watch list from buying a gun. 

And what happened in Orlando is the perfect example of this. He was investigated by the FBI twice for being an ISIS sympathizer. And yet, he had no problem buying an assault rifle. 

Surely, we can agree that it is not an existential threat to the Constitution to keep machine guns out of the hands of known terrorists and mentally unstable people. This is not a slippery slope.

Technology. 

I have a thumbprint scanner on my cell phone that makes it so that nobody else in the world can use my phone. This technology exists, and it’s everywhere.

And yet, every day some kid finds his parents’ gun and blows someone away (more Americans are killed by toddlers than terrorists). And people who carry guns have a statistically significant chance that they will be killed by someone using that gun against them. 

Plus there are a plethora of non-lethal options from taser bullets to pepper spray-infused plastic bullets and more technologically advanced ways to incapacitate an attacker and protect yourself and your family - without the risk of little Timmy shooting a friend to death. 

Cars have been made safer over the decades without taking them away from anybody. Can’t we do the same with guns? Who can’t get on board with that?

The gun spectrum. 

Let’s get something straight. If you don’t think people should carry bazookas, surface-to-air missile launchers, use land mines, or drive tanks, then you already agree with gun control. 

All the same arguments can be applied to them. “If someone wants a grenade launcher, they’ll get one anyway.” But nobody ever says that. 

We all agree on gun control, we just disagree on where the line should be drawn. And we generally draw that line where we think the line is crossed between defense and offense. People don’t defend themselves with bombs. That is a weapon of attack. 

Hey, what’s another word for attack? Oh, yeah, assault. 

People act like banning or tightly regulating assault rifles is tantamount to tyranny, but that is a very new idea.

I grew up in small town Texas, the kind of place where a lot of students came to school with rifles mounted in the gun racks in their trucks. These were not people who had a distaste for guns. But I remember the prevailing wisdom on assault weapons was that if you wanted to play with military weapons, you should join the military. People who had AR weapons in those days were seen as posers; weekend warriors who wanted to look tough but didn’t have the sack to join up and serve their country. Somewhere in the last 20 years, this changed. 

 Now apparently it’s totally in vogue to go to Chipotle with an AR-15 strapped to your chest. 

Once upon a time, assault weapons were banned. In fact, restricting access to assault weapons would reinstate laws that Reagan implemented. 

Can we agree to just step back and re-evaluate our relationship to these types of weapons? Again, this is not a slippery slope. Making assault weapons available did not lead to the legalization of bazookas. And restricting access to them will not lead to all your other guns being taken away. 

The overall point I want to make is can we just agree to talk again? Put down the talking points and the righteousness and just listen. Agree that we all want the world to be safer, and find the courage to fully investigate the problem and follow the answers wherever it may lead, even if it goes against the worldview that makes us feel so warm and cuddly. 

Because it’s not about the guns. It’s about us and our need to cling to ideas that make us feel safe. But feeling safe and being safe are two different things. 

Let’s strive to have the wisdom to know the difference.

[answerswithjoe]

I Am The Worst Cult Leader Ever.

When I was in my late 20s, I wrote and directed a feature film. I wrote it for two reasons: 

1: I wanted to be a filmmaker and in order to be a filmmaker you must eventually make a film. 

2: I was nursing a broken heart after a breakup, so I wrote a movie about a guy nursing a broken heart after a breakup.

It was writing by therapy.

It literally started as a bunch of scenes of me saying the things I wished I had the balls to actually say to my ex. The catharsis of having that moment; of coming to a new understanding; the fantasy of finding closure. It eventually came together into a story about a guy who ends up spending a week at a vacation house with his ex-fiancee.

It was supposed to be my Ed Burns moment. I wrote it, directed it, produced it, starred in it, edited it, catered it; the whole indie film thing.

Everything about it was selfish. I wanted to unburden my heart, I wanted to be a successful filmmaker, it wasn’t there to serve anybody but me.

But at an early film festival screening, I had a young guy come up to me - and he thanked me. I had gotten used to people congratulating me and praising my movie - people are generally nice, after all - but THANKED me?

He said he had just gone through a really painful breakup and that watching this movie helped him.

I could barely process this. I just cracked a joke and went on with things, but that stuck in my mind. And it would happen again. And again. It turned into a fairly common thing. People thanking me for making this film. People saying I’d improved their lives in some way.

It honestly never even occurred to me that I could do that with this movie. Entertain them, sure, but improve their lives?

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Something I’ve learned over the years is that there are a LOT of people out there. And life follows familiar patterns. Any fear you have, any loss, any fetish, any dream you may have, no matter how weird or unique they may seem to you, there’s somebody else out there that feels the same way. Often a lot more than you’d think.

So as you reach out into the world, the more you can express those elements of yourself, the more you’ll find and affect others who share the same thing.

Nothing proves this point more than my YouTube channel.

I created my YouTube channel all the way back in 2006. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the top 1% of oldest channels, to be honest. In the beginning, it was just a place I could upload videos to share with people in email and the like. Before, you’d have to compress any movies down to the size of a postage stamp so you could email it to someone. Now, all you had to do was send a link. As I was marketing my film, I wanted to be able to share the trailer with press people and I didn’t want to send them a tiny little shitty attached video. So I started a YouTube channel.

In fact the first thing I posted was the trailer to my movie.

Later in the marketing for the movie, I made a series of fun talking head videos inspired by Ze Frank. I really enjoyed doing them and began thinking seriously about how to use YouTube as a platform.

That idea eventually turned into a series I called Ask Joe. This was right after Facebook and I took questions from people there and made videos out of them. They were 90% comedy, more Daily Show than Cosmos. But over time, I began to notice that the episodes where I actually answered a question with a real answer were the most popular.

So it went that route.

Several iterations later, I finally settled on the format of Answers With Joe. Each video answered one question in the most thorough way possible, as entertaining as possible.

Eventually, a video on the Fermi Paradox - which was a blatant ripoff of a WaitButWhy article - got recommended by the great Algorithm (all praise the Algorithm) on an extremely popular “Space Mysteries” video. That sent a lot of nerds my way, and so the questions became a lot more science-oriented.

And after about a year of following that path, the channel has grown by leaps and bounds. When I attended VidCon last year, I had just hit 500 subscribers, and I was crazy proud of that.

I’m on track to have 10,000 by this year’s VidCon.

And the film festival experience is repeating itself, only this time on steroids.

I get comments almost every day from subscribers telling me how watching my videos has helped them in some way. Gotten them through a dark time. Changed their life!

And I’m just sitting there thinking, I’m the guy who said, “Uranus was twitching” and did a video where I added fart sounds to Cosmos clips.

But I also did videos about rewiring your brain to stop negative thoughts, about the vastness of time and space and our tiny perspective inside of it, even pondered the nature of life and God.

Things that apparently a lot of other people are thinking about.

I didn’t write these to change anybody’s life. Like the movie before it, I was unburdening myself in a way. A little over a year ago, I suffered from a massive anxiety attack, probably brought on by the fact that I was turning 40. The quickening passage of time and shortening of my remaining years sent me into a spiral I couldn’t pull out of.

I was prone to panic attacks when I was young, but it mostly went away, only appearing twice afterward. One right after college. And one now. I apparently don’t handle transitions into new phases of life very well.

But I worked my way through it and spent some time on a therapist’s couch, and I read. And thought. Meditation became a big part of my life, and studying it brought some insights to me. Thinking of the big picture made my one tiny corner of it not look so bad.

Some of this leaked into my videos, and it sort-of followed my journey.

A journey that apparently a lot of other people are on.

Which is why the trickle of gracious comments has turned into a firehose of thanks and love.

I feel weird talking about it, but I feel so affected by it, I can’t help bringing it up in conversation. But even saying how much it’s affecting me, I don’t think can get across how over the moon these comments are.

The only thing that I think will really get it across is to show you some of them:

Tommy Meyer: Joe, you're definitely contributing man! I look forward to the videos every week! With all the huge YouTube channels out there trying to do similar things, I think you definitely do it far better. You're a funny, well spoken guy who offers a relatable platform that challenges the normal, average Joe (terrible pun) kind of person to THINK. That is one of the most sorely needed things in our society today. You're as genuine as they come man! Keep up the good work!

Jesse Batton:  Joe, you are amazing! You really inspired me and changed my perspective of the world. I was in a dark place in my life when I stumbled across your videos. I know I can feel confident in life again and get through this hard time. Please, keep up the great work! Thank you!

Pickle Wicle: Straight up man, your channel is one of the highest quality, most interesting but low subscribed channels I have ever seen. You would never expect a channel this small to have this kind of production quality. Keep up the great work! I appreciate it and so do many others!

Iaspis Luna: To be quite frank, I only ever joined Patreon to support you. (It's as good a reason as any other.) As a recent fan of your channel, I was shocked (for the lack of a better word) to see how small your viewership was, especially considering how great the quality of your videos were. A constant YouTube user, I was thoroughly amazed by the content you uploaded, as it was not only well researched (trust me when I say this), but also well explained and presented. There was just something about the way you did things that put you apart from other content creators, (and I mean this in the best way possible). You are not only my weekly source of enthusiasm, but also my weekly source of inspiration. I, now an avid fan and supporter, wish you all the best, Joe! :)

Nikola Kranjcevic: Joe, I only found your channel just recently, and I am very happy that I did, you have a great vibe and a positive message, thanks for sharing your life with us, thanks for being here to answer our questions and thanks for being a really genuinely good and decent man, people like you give me hope in my day to day life, just knowing there's someone out there who gets it and shares the love, so rock on buddy, you're an inspiration...

MuzeXC: One of the most genuine guys i have ever seen

Tim Graham: Hi Joe, I have to thank you for such a lot, I found your channel by chance and I enjoyed all the thought provoking videos and really was pleased whenever there was a new video. Then a few days ago I discovered the video about negative thinking and what it can do to you but most importantly how to change this. It wasnt until this video I realised what I was doing and you helped me discover this, I had been putting hurdles in my way over and over again and it had to stop. I am eteranlly thankful to you for this, I have been to some dark places (and not just on the internet ;)) and this video helped me discover why. I then came across this video and wow, the thought that someone that has essentially changed my life forever may not be able to do the thing he enjoys and help other people is horrifying. I have become a patreon of yours not because I felt I had to but because I wanted to and I hope others join too, as you are a life changer in fact saver to be honest and need to be saved and praised too. Thank you Joe, just thank you. Tim

Nyssila Indigo: Thank you, Joe. We love you and you help us all take better care of each other with your brilliance and positivity. You make the world a brighter place. Thanks for shining!

Colin Barker: Joe, I truly believe that your channel will go far. I only stumbled on one of your videos a few days and its really cool seeing your subscribers grow day by day. Good luck man! Look forward to my patreon contribution here soon.

Jeff Kot: Don't think this is not appreciated! I watch you on youtube don't forget us. This channel is a delight .... Science channel , or Discovery needs you. I would throw in a few bucks to keep watching. It must be hard to find the time ! Thanks Joe!

Victor Alejandro Paez: Hey Joe, thanks for all the videos you have made. You are a really intelligent guy, I like the way you change perspective on how people view things, it is simply awesome. I agree with everything you and what you stand for in the youtube community and think you should keep opening the minds of others. Great stuff man, really appreciate all you are doing to keep the videos going but you do need some rest :) Try to get some more if possible. Anyways, thanks for the content, really lets me see things in a different sense. Goodluck with the whole youtube thing and get huge (I know you can!)

Aaron Robinson: I thoroughly enjoy your videos, your commentary, and your style in general. I hope that you go far with this channel, and with your side business. I may not comment on every video, but i watch every single one of them, and some multiple times! Keep it up, we're here to back you up Joe, seriously.

Matt Herring: I'm recently unemployed and some of your videos helped me get my head back on straight. Throwing money at someone who's entertaining and educational is the best way I can think of to use my money. I honestly think encouraging the kind of behavior you exhibit is the only way we'll ever "fix" the "problems" with our race. And the fact that you make yourself go out and propagate that formula every week is admirable. Thanks for being you and having the courage to ask for help Joe!

Mathieu Royer: You are very inspiring Joe, the world needs more people like you. Your videos are helping me through some tuff times as well. I thank you for your good energy and positive thinking.

All of those were collected over about 3 days.

And if some of the grammar or syntax was off with any of them, it’s because the channel currently has subscribers in 125 countries.

Now that I get these in the numbers that I do, I’m beginning to notice that my reactions when reading them have changed. It’s become a startlingly strong combination of two seemingly disparate emotions:

Unimaginable gratitude.

Abject terror.

The gratitude is unavoidable and obvious. It’s the abject terror I wasn’t expecting.

The thought that people are looking up to me in that way, putting me on that high of a pedestal, It’s quite disturbing. Especially when you’re afraid that your pedestal is made out of popsicle sticks.

“Oh, my God, they think I know what I’m talking about. I don’t have the answers, I’m just a guy trying to avoid another panic attack. I haven’t studied any of this stuff, I failed Pre-Cal in college, now they want me to explain special relativity? Someday they’re going to realize I’m a fraud and this whole thing is going to collapse underneath me…"

I almost feel I need to apologize to them, like I’ve mislead them in some way. What is that about? Is this what Canadians feel like?

I have to say, this is new territory for me.

In a way, it’s exciting, because that means I’m moving from one stage to another one in this journey. But it’s providing me with new struggles that I didn’t see coming.

The most surprising struggle? The struggle to not think about it too much.

It’s very easy for this to go to your head. I suppose megalomaniacs let it turn them into apocalyptic cult leaders who really believe they are God, but apparently I’m failing the Charles Manson/Jim Jones/David Koresh test.

In my case “get to my head” means I second guess everything. These videos take on a measure of importance they never had before. It’s not enough to just crack jokes around science stuff, this has to change. someone’s. life.

This same importance makes me overthink things, put off writing, and delay videos.

The struggle I wasn’t expecting was the struggle to just have faith. I don’t know what exactly I’m doing that’s resonating so much with people. I’m sure it’s a lot of different things.  But I can’t pick it apart and try to assemble it together. What’s been working was just me being me. I don’t need to know how I’m helping them, just trust that it does.

In fact, it’s none of my business what they think of me. Every viewer brings into your video - or your movie for that matter - a lifetime of experiences and challenges and emotions that could match up with yours. Or clash. I can’t change someone who wants to hate me. Why they hate me is none of my business.

Just like it’s none of my business why people may love me. Stop trying to figure it out. Just know it’s there. The why comes naturally. Trust it.

I think somewhere deep down I always wanted to be someone influential. My influence is still small, but starting to build, and now I’m encountering what that actually looks and feels like. It’s exciting, gratifying, and a little scary. It requires a lot of faith in yourself and in the world.

Seriously, no matter what it is you’re into, no matter what problems you’ve had, there are millions of other people out there that have the same thing. That’s life. That’s math. And I’ve found that every time I’ve listened to my heart and made something with it, it has wound up helping other people. Even if it was never intended to do so.

That might be the most cheesetastic thing I’ve ever said, but it’s true.

And it’s also the reason that I wrote this.

Share my struggles. Unburden my heart. Make something.

[answerswithjoe]

[answerswithjoe]

[answerswithjoe]

#getreal, Flat-Earthers.