Pseudoarchaeology and the Pseudoscience Pipeline - Milo Rossi LIVE at Virginia Tech 

Go check out the other amazing science communicators that I mentioned in this video! Links to all of their channels are in the description of this video along with tags telling you what topics they teach.

Not a single “fuck” uttered throughout this entire presentation. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or impressed.

Milo, I am 63, and really wish I had had teachers like you when I was in school. Keep on doing what you're doing, I have been enjoying the education.

guy who answered that first question must have felt really proud i would never forget it if a teacher spoke to me like that

I'm 61, and one of those people that Milo referenced...never formally educated in history or archaeology, but I've spent my life educating myself because both fields fascinate me. Milo is the person that the History Channel needs to turn their channel back into an actual history channel, and not a pseudoscience, pseudoarchaeology, pseudohistory channel. History and archaeology are fascinating, and deserve to be presented to the public in a responsible way. We need to bring younger people to history and archaeology, and I think that (in the world of the internet), the only way to do that is to present them in a dynamic way that will get young people excited about these subjects. Milo is definitely the person to do that. I think that, as a history and archaeology educator, he is a precious resource.

I’m glad people are starting to talk about the rampant anti-intellectualism in our society. It’s scary because it’s one of the pillars of fascism. Based on some online interactions I’ve had discussing student loans, there are a lot of individuals who believe that education is useless unless it directly applies to making money. But to me, every class I’ve taken , everything I’ve learned has helped shape me and my understanding of the world. My inner and outer life. No one can ever take that away from me. It’s probably one of the main reasons I’m a boomer who’s not a fascist white supremacist.

"The fact that a lot of education is locked behind a paywall" When Milo said that I legitimately went to like the video a second time, because I knew where he was going. edit for clarity: I didn't actually click twice. I had already liked the video and when he made this point I instinctively went to like it again, but didn't because it was already liked.

A really close friend of mine is very gullible and abit of an airhead, he started falling down the rabbit hole of suedo sciences about 1, almost 2 years ago, right around the time, I discovered this youtube channel. The things he started to believe in left him absolutely terrified and filled with anxiety anytime anything hit the news, the poor guy started to spiral. Thankfully, during one call, i mentioned this channel alongside acouple others, so we started to watch and it, over the period of several months, got him out. He doesnt believe that there's aliens thatll probe him in his sleep or mountain rock snake species that'll come back to life. The way you go about debunking everything makes it easy to absorb, but laugh at in way where you dont feel demeaned or stupid if you believed it, although you do feel silly and embarrassed. Total props to you for all that you've done and all the steps you've come Milo, thank you for what you do!

I missed out on so much real science since I was homeschooled by young earth creationists. I appreciate the work you do here.

Looking down the pipeline after escaping it is like getting punched in the face by your past self and feeling depressed that you cant punch him back

Just saw the short and looked this up and thought "oh well. How many days will I have to wait for this?" "Premieres in 6 minutes" oh shit my lucky day.

The reason (one of many) why Milo and creators/educators like him are so successful is because not only are they making knowledge accessible but they are presenting it in a way where we don’t feel like morons for being naive about the topic. Science is extremely intimidating and it doesn’t take much to scare away those who felt curiosity tapping on their shoulder. Milo and the others take away this air of judgment and snobbery that the sciences seem to carry. Milo doesn’t “dumb it down” for us, he just knows how to rewrite the language so we can understand it. That’s a very hard skill and that’s what makes these inspirational teachers so amazing. (Along with their love and passion for the subject.) Milo is also an amazing orator; a skill very few people have. It’s hard to believe how young he is sometimes because of it! Anywho, I digress! I think the only explanation missing from his great lecture about pseudoscience is the lack of critical thinking skills. I took an undergraduate class literally called: “Critical Thinking: Weirds Beliefs and Why We Have Them”. One of the best classes I ever took and I think it should be mandatory. It’s a key element in pseudosciences, cults, superstitions,etc. And it’s actually a bit terrifying how many people lack critical thinking (I’m not exempt from this in many ways , no one is lol). It certainly helped me understand the world a bit more.

Milo sees the internet the way I do, and it's incredibly reassuring to know others feel the same way about how unfathomably powerful the internet is a tool for learning, both true and false information

Honestly the next logical step for our favorite archaeologist would be doing a TedTalk which I would 100% watch

It's a wonderful thought that this lecture for 20 or 30 students at Virginia Tech, has now been played in a classroom of 275,000. It's also nice to know, that the seats keep filling, and no one misses the lesson by being tardy.

I am a PhD student in Physics. I want to say, Milo, I think your mission is a worthy one. It is incredible the power we have of reaching literally everybody with the technology we have. One thing you hadn’t addressed is the barriers of entry into learning, gaining expertise. There is a lot of practice and work and pain involved. That, I think, is one of the big barriers for getting people into science. Learning is painful! Unfortunately, I feel there is a significant amount of people that HAVE gone through the pain and trials of learning and gaining expertise and obtaining PhD’s and the like, that they have to justify their experience to themselves by making sure every subsequent student goes through the same pain they did, regardless of whether it is necessary. Learning will never NOT be challenging or difficult. It ought to be. But academia is incredibly broken, and SO much of it looks shockingly like nothing more than hazing nowadays….

Hey, I just want you to know that my professor at Hamilton College played this video for us! It was super exciting to see it was you, so keep up the great work!

Last year I watched 2 men's fashion videos, and within an hour it turned from men's fashion, to general advice for men, to andrew tate, and then outright fascists who said women are destroying westen civilization. It was shocking how fast RU-vid lined up all that nonsense from men's fashion videos. I bring this up in support for Milo's claim about how these rabbit holes start from an innocent place before devolving into the most crazy shit.

I just graduated medical school, and even in my clinical years I've already experienced the pipeline's effects on our patients. The strange thing is how people will come to our emergency department and then refuse certain treatments because of the pseudoscience they've been taught. I rotated at hospitals on both coasts, and a more and more common thing I hear from the staff to the patients in every hospital I've worked at is "then why are you here?" I believe people go to the emergency department because they were told that's where they need to go when they have a problem, but they've also been told not to trust us or the science behind our work. That leaves people coming to us and then refusing our help. So to anyone who was doubting: yes, the pipeline is hurting people. Sometimes it even kills them. I want you to know that you've inspired me. I've been watching your videos for a long time, but this one was the first that invited me to play a role. It's a role that a lot of people are already doing in my field, but this was the first time someone showed me that we need more, even if they're repeating the same thing. I think I want to give it a try. Truly, thank you. Last, when I was listening to your lecture, I was struck with a question that I think has to be discussed. I agree that a degree isn't necessary to be an expert. But that leaves us with the question of how we define an expert. I don't have a solid answer for that, and I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't one. Any form of standardization invites the same attacks "the system" already has. I invite discussion on this, since I feel like it's important.

As a content consumer, can I also just say that finding reliable, factual, and easily consumable sources of real information-- like yourself, Milo-- is invaluable. I don't know enough to always know when I'm being lied to, but I trust that you, Lindsay, and others will usually steer me down the right path!

I am 15 and I am very grateful to know about your channel and I am very grateful of you teaching people about the pipeline so that others like me wouldn't go into. You might have if not certainly saved me from becoming a bad person. I am really grateful to find the educational side of RU-vid and learn useful information. Thank you greatly

I covered the Bosnian Pyramids earlier today, had no idea you'd mention it and didn't know you were gonna premiere today. Great minds think alike they say😁 Awesome lecture, I'll be watching the rest tomorrow as I need sleep now😭

Hi, I'm a blue collar worker, I've never even been to a university and have no interest in pursuing science as a profession BUT, I still enjoy learning about all the cool stuff that we as a society managed to gather knowledge about, and when I learn something interesting I share it with my friends and family. I'm glad to have that opportunity but, it happens sometimes that I unintentionally spread miss information, so I wholeheartedly agree with what you said about making science more accessible to average people, so we can all learn and not have our minds tainted with lies and biased opinions. Thank you for this lecture and making sure that it reaches as many people as possible. Ps. English is not my first language, I hope the autocorrect caught all my mistakes.

Thank you Milo. Genuinely, Im a 15 year old boy and i don’t think i could have a better person to look up to. I really want to be like you when I grow up, so thank you

As a scientific illustrator I feel super inspired to continue my work! As silly as it sounds, pictures do really help people understand larger scientific concepts!

Milo, I thought you’d like to know something. I recently became a substitute teacher at a high school in rural western NY, near Rochester. In a social studies class I was covering last week, there was a 15 year old kid who absolutely adores your channel. He does his hair like you and everything and showed me all his drawings of sites like stonehenge and gobekli tepe. Personally, I never went into archaeology, though I wanted to. I’m already married to music. But I’ve been visiting this kid and his family to tutor him in anthro and hopefully get him into the anthro/archaeology program at SUNY Geneseo. And it’s all thanks to you dude.

When I was in college and still young and dumb, a professor teaching about how to interpret character motivation in theatre taught me one of the most impactful things that I still apply to my daily life: when you are listening to someone speaking about anything- car salesman, facebook mom, or even your religious leader- you have to ask yourself what motivates them to tell you that? Everyone has motives for everything they do from money to genuine care about your well being, but you have to look at them and from their perspective, what do they have to gain by telling you what they are telling you. This blew my mind because suddenly everyone's motives make way more sense if a person is trying to peddle a product or actually does care about what they are telling you. Anytime I question someone's motives, I have a clearer understanding as to what they are really trying to get from me and if I want to actually receive it or not.

Please please please keep doing recordings of any future lectures, i love the setting and i would like to see what some students have thought too. seeing so many different pov is inspiring

A teacher in my school got rlly into ancient apocalypse so I recommended you to her and I think your videos saved her from going down the rabbit hole

Hi Milo. I am a 75 yrvold former teacher. I loved your presentation. You are so totally on track. We have provincial exams in Alberta and for decades the teachers had to pore through the exams and see where our students did not score well. For the 42vyears I taught , the critical thinking scores continued to drop. I see that lack in our society. Your challenge to those students is what is needed to help stem this process and begin to reverse it. Thank you. I teared up listening to you

"If I was only telling this to 40 people, frankly, it wouldn't matter that much" - is a really powerful take. Incredible presentation. Glad to be part of the nearly half a million people who have now watched this online.

milo, im an aspiring biologist and geologist whos very hungry for good places to learn, and what you said about science been hard to reach is very true, because for a long time i didnt really know where to start, and if i didnt have the patience to read id be very lost, its taken me a while to find people like you who i can watch and use as a starting point to find more people. i also think its really great of you to highlight the connection between pseudoscience and hate groups, because not many people talk about it and, while i never got close to it, i know people who have slipped down the pipeline and cut me off for being gay. i love your videos, and they've made me much more interested in archaeology than i ever have been, thanks from Australia

As an artist I relate a lot to Milo. I can feel how passionate and sincerely interested he is in studying and interacting with his field. I love seeing people that dogmatically fixate on their stuff.

That old fireplace setup is GORGEOUS

We have a great science communicator here in Germany, Dr. May Thi Nguyen-Kim she is a chemist and started out on youtube. She now has her own TV show talking about various topics. One sentence from one of her books deeply resonated with me, and it fits this lecture very well. She talks about how we need a common ground of facts that everyone accepts is true to enable discussions about progress and solutions. Misinformation erodes that common ground, which makes it super dangerous. Edit: spelling

Wish I could’ve listened to this live. Definitely one of the few videos I am actually actively listening to instead of just using as background noise

Why do I feel like kids in grade school need to be taught this; not just for pseudoscience but for how to recognize misinformation in general

I want to thank the show Horrible Histories for getting me and other people my age who only had free television interested in actual history .

Coming from a guy who dropped out, this was everything I loved about school. Listening to passionate people talk about what they love. Keep yappin Milo

You are absolutely correct on what you have said about breaking down the gate and the keepers, whether imaginary or not. Opening up science through social media is the way to go and to turn it from something vapid and incipid into a remarkable tool and potential. The positive and the hopeful is there, here's hoping it does turn out for the better, though i would encourage that in tandem with science we encourage more content about communication and humility in general to stem the tides of outrage that are so prevalent. In any case Milo, keep on Rossing.

You give me hope, Milo. You make learning so enjoyable, and I'm so glad I stumbled across your channel. Thank you for doing what you're doing, the world really needs it.

Milo, congratulations on the success of your endeavors. I'm 69 years old, I have had an amateur interest in archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and all the other sciences. I'm also a lover of philosophy and comparative religions. And the thing that I find most distressing is how easily people can start with science and facts then drag themselves and the rudimentary facts they have gathered down the rabbit hole of pseudoscience and pseudo-archaeology. In trying to suss the whys and wherefores of this phenomena, what I have discovered is that there's always an agenda attached to this process. One that is attempting to defeat a perceived or real power structure rather than being about revealing the truth. They say thier intent is to reveal the truth, the hidden truth, but it's really about radicalism and bringing down "the man" as we used to say in the 60s and 70s. In other words, power structures and those in control, that is, until you become one of those in the elite and suddenly you go from being radical liberal and progressive to radical conservative and hate monger. As I lived through those eras and watched people who had been on the forefront of radical change become radicalized, egocentric conservatives and hate mongers, I wondered what happened. How could they flip like that, how could they do a complete complete 180 about face. What I noticed was that the most zealot of those who led the charge against the elite, those in power at the time, were often themselves egotistical, self-centered individuals who made whatever cause they were supporting actually all about themselves. I also observed how, as they rallied for freedom of speech, and other proclaimed freedoms they felt they were being deprived of, that when pushed hard enough they devolved into petty tyrants who ranted against those they disagreed with. The terrible thing was that they saw no problem with such behavior, no hypocrisy. For people like this, the "I want to believe" becomes "I desperately need to believe." It was an interesting lesson in human nature, much of what you have discussed in your lecture. So again bravo and congratulations, I love your work.❤

Anyone else just realize that he doesn't need to edit his videos quite so much? You are amazing at this Milo. Thank you.

Thank you for taking on the role of self-appointed arbiter of establishment truth. Your dedication to maintaining and interpreting the narrative is duly noted!

Really good talk, Milo. I actually DO have a PhD and I've been trying to crack the code and find a style that works for me. I'm going to talk to my US History students tomorrow in a final lecture that brings the course to the present, about social media, filter bubbles, algorithms, etc. I think I'll add the last bit of this video. The point you make about 28 minutes in, about how the success of some of these programs showing that people are actually interested, is really powerful. Keep up the good work! ps. I took my stuff off RU-vid a while back, but maybe I'll reinstate it, since that's where the viewers are!

Milo, your production schedule is entirely in your head. You don't need to apologise for getting it "perfect" before release; the quality speaks for itself and is well worth the wait.

This seems like a natural step for Milo, educating and telling stories to us and live students at the same time. If this is something of a "lecture" then i am very happy for him. He is fulfilling what he set out to do after that last episode of Ancient Apocalpyse.

As a 16yo, I am _SO_ glad that I found you, Milo, on the internet and other people who promote independent research and responsibility rather than these pipelines

Also to further emphasize your point about being able to reach so many more people: The only reason I have knowledge of the middle ages that isn't just fantasy shit or "everyone was constantly grumpy and the roads consisted of mud" is because of a youtuber who one day decided to just do informative videos about the middle ages based on historic sources. And this guy didn't study history. He just became interested in the middle ages, started to read into it, do stuff like LARP and historic reenactment and then started to work as a guide for a couple of castles in his area. And the interesting part is: It's not just about the fate of kings and monarchs. It's about everyday life in the middle ages. Things that affect everyone. And I just love that because that is so interesting. And it's so incredibly cute to learn that humans already had snowballfights 600 years ago. Water freezes and falls from the sky? You can make sure humans will start to play with it.

Fireplace quote reads "Old Wood to burn, Old books to read, Old friends to trust." which is a shortened version of this quote: "As old wood is best to burn; old horses to ride; old books to read; old wine to drink; so are old friends most trusty to use." by Leonard Wright

Considering I live in New Zealand and would have had zero opportunity to ever see you talking about the thing you love if it hadn't been for social media; I would say you hit the nail on the head with the distribution ideas. Science is so fundamentally awesome, it's so interesting the way different fields come together to explain our world. It's a shame that that knowledge is paywalled for most people

So happy you’re out there doing the good work. We need you, kid, please never stop!

Beautiful and awesome work Milo. One of the only presentations that I actually watched from start to finish and was engaged with the whole time. You should be proud of yourself.

This man can do a presentation ten times better than anyone in my school

I honestly wish i could personally thank youtubers like Milo, Forrest Valkai, NileRed, Robert Sapolski (via Stanford's free lectures), PBS Eons, and so many more for putting real science in various fields online for people to watch. At 35 years old, i still remember the pre internest day where we had so little resources to learn about the world around us. Even TV wasn't much help because for every show that taught us real science in a fun, exciting way there were 10 shows that were sensational barely factual shows that aired just to get views rather than to teach. I witnessed the rise of ancient aliens, the mockmentaries, and the reality tv style animal shows and it made me sad to lose the ability to actually learn something rather than just being entertained. But i feel like there has been a real effort to bring education to the general public by content creators who have a real passion for their craft and I truly appreciate it. Not only is it entertaining but I feel like Ive reignited my curiosity about life, nature, and science in a way that I don't think i could have otherwise. Keep doing you Milo. That butterfly effect will have you making whirlwinds if you keep going. Best of luck to you and all the youtubers/tictokers like you❤

Hi Milo! Love your videos. I was wondering about your Dark Routes series. What's up with that? Are there going to be any more episodes?

I really like your point about the fact that there's really no place for people interested in archaeology to go. I used to love watching natural history and archaeology documentaries when I was growing up. I would binge History and Discovery in my early 20s, but then there those channels made this gradual shift to the pseudo sciences. Which is totally crazy to me, because these were places with fairly solid information. Or, at least, the only place I could get 24 hours of the stuff I was interested in. I could put up with 2% of ancient aliens if 98% of the channel is legit. Meanwhile, the channel producers are looking at their numbers and realizing that a) slightly more people are watching that 2%, and b) it's way easier to produce a TV show when they don't have to verify a single fucking thing that's being presented. Also, well done on that presentation. I think I only saw a single cut in the whole thing, which was a nice. You are an engaging presenter regardless of the platform.

It's so nice to hear about someone else who had been dragged down the far right pipeline and managed to claw his way back out. I used to watch guys like Sargon of Akkad, and now he's gone completely off the rails, while I've gone back to the side of rationality. It's always good to help deradicalize people from those dangerous ideologies while still feeding their interests in healthy ways.

Hi Milo, as a geologist/mining engineer who has done a lot of research into historic metallurgy as a personal passion and been hesitant to actually share that knowledge because I don't actually have a history degree, your push to share information really hit home. Thank you for taking that leap and encouraging us to dispel pseudoscience as well. :)

I love you, man. As a 31 year-old anthropology + archaeology student, thank you for being as relevant as you are. You may be younger than me, but you inspire me with each video 🤘

As someone who almost fell down the same pipeline as you, this video really resonates with me. Thank you for posting this on youtube so everybody can watch it for free.

Here is pseudoarcheology, on the engineer side there is new "perpetum mobile" and "free energy" machine every week... You all are doing "god's work". As an engineer, thank you all from the bottom of my heart❤

This was amazing - thanks for sharing this with us 😊 I hope you inspire other people to share their knowledge and passion with the world.

This lecture actually brought me to tears. Really powerful words Milo, very inspiring.

Someone here talked about how this reached them all the way in Spain, and I would like to add to that. I'm Icelandic. I live in Iceland, a nation of around 400 thousand people. The reach you are gaining with your channel is amazing to see and I look forward to seeing more people in Iceland watching you.

Tehe I am very excited to see Milo talk about very random things. Very very entertaining!

I'd love to hear Milo on Clear+Vivid, he's a great science communicator

Hello! I'm an arch in the PNW, and I recently took part in a conference where one of the most interesting panels I attended was about approaches to public archaeology. Most attempts at public archaeology (helping regular people understand and engage with archaeology) are mostly in-person community events that often fail to gain attention or completely miss the mark of attracting an intended audience. All this to say, I really appreciate your work and the way you have adapted the thesis of public archaeology to meet people where they're at by engaging them on social media.

You go boi!!!!! You totes deserve this and it made me really happy when you said you were doing this lecture!

Thank you so much for posting this! I'm a long time fan of your channel, you educate in a way that really resonates with me! I know I will surely rewatch this, as I have your other content. Thank you so much for all that you do, and for feeding my special interest in history in an informed and accessible way! :)

I really appreciate milo. His past set him up incredibly well to do this job today.

As someone who got to see the first goldenage of science communication through social media with the likes of scishow, crashcourse, CGP Grey, etc, it was disheartening to see many creators struggle with and fall off with the algorithm over the years. It has brought me great joy to see the likes of you and others making a comeback, at a time when clear and entertaining education is needed the most in an ever more interconnected world. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I was at University with Atlas Pro! Such an awesome channel, I’ve been a fan of both of you for so long!

As someone who grew up in a rural part of my country where the only International arceology I saw was ancient aliens, your channel has helped me nail down that wrong feeling I've allways had in the back of my brain all these years, keep up the good work 🎉

Well spoken! Had a gaming buddy that went down the radicalization path and unfortunately we couldn't pull him out of it. It's really scary how it starts with believing something small (and seemingly harmless) and ends up with distrust of anyone that doesn't share those views. Can't wait for more debunking!

Im a student at virginia tech and i cant believe i missed this. I was out of town and didnt know this was happening. Im glad it was uploaded so that im able to watch it!

I appreciate you sharing how you nearly got suckered into a pipeline In my teenage years I got into all sorts of conspiracy theory/pseudoscience stuff; including the Bosnian Pyramid guy actually. It all mixed together into a tapestry of cool stories; aliens coming down and making monuments sounds cooler at first glance than us ignorant monkeys doing it (though when you do actually think about it, that us ignorant monkeys could build things that lasted this long is actually more impressive). Most of it was via this website I won't name because it too has gone extremely far right since I stepped away; having been broadly left-ish (or at least a decent veneer of it; generally anti-capitalist) individualism at the start. They slowly moved from having 'valid concerns' about /how/ socialist policies were being enacted by their governments (sometimes that they were being watered down too much with means testing etc.), on to "should we even trust the government to administer something this big". It's scary how easily the thing I was using as background noise just got slowly more radical without me really noticing - the real warning sign was the rampant Islamophobia. The show's regular host would usually sit back and let the guest talk about whatever bullshit they'd scribbled a book about lately (oh, wow, you think all human civilisation originated in the place you happen to come from, do you? - that's at least three different guys across different parts of Europe... what a coincidence! I'm honestly embarrassed I didn't get out sooner, smh); when anything related to Muslims or the Arab world would be mentioned though, he'd go off on increasingly long and repetitive rants about how 'they' were coming over here (Sweden in his case) and not integrating, etc. (the usual guff people talk about immigrants). It was a broadly atheist show (though a lot of spiritual type people were always welcomed on), but for some reason Allah was always portrayed as worse than Jehovah, who was in turn worse than the Christian God. Funny that... When the anti-feminism stuff started to move from "Feminism wasn't all good" to "Feminism was bad for women actually; they shouldn't be forced to be wage slaves; *whispers* they should be at home taking care of the children"; that was my other cue to leave. These rants honestly just became boring to listen to, which was half of how I got myself out (not proud of myself that that was such a big part of the reason). I think the final straw was someone talking about some 9/11 theory, that was mutually incompatible with a previous guest's theory. Suddenly I actually had to put an ounce of thought into picking which one I thought was more likely; and both theories instantly collapsed. From there on I was applying actual skepticism to everyone's claims; and barely anything held up to even light scrutiny. I've since realised that when they say to 'do your own research' or 'follow the money', none of them ever meant it - they just wanted to sell you their books; but repeating the phrases serves as a way to sooth the audience into the feeling that all this has been thoroughly gone into...by someone...somewhere...must've been. And most of the suggested reading that was presented was just an ouroboros of looping citations where they all just recycle each other's bullshit until it looks like it's legit...just buy all my books please to read all about how the lizard people will be defeated; I saw it in the movie they made; because they have to tell everyone how to beat them or their magic doesn't work; because ... occult reasons. Still, would've been nice if we could've all magically stopped being dicks to each other on Dec 23 2012... but reality takes more work than appealing to ancient aliens.

I loved this format of video❤❤ I like being able to listen and get all the important info with photos being a nice addition ( also I can’t wait for the next video) I love your content so much

I fell down the Alex Jones pipeline, and I am absolutely annoyed by that version of myself. Didn't have friends to help me out as I was stuck in a small religious community as a kid.

I am from Spain. This is reaching to basically the other side of the world. Here a LOT of people believe in pseudoscience, specially old people, I have seen it in older colleages and my own family, they get fed with tons of misinformation, annunaki, ancient aliens, master race, etc, and I myself did wonder about how and why and believed those things too. Then you came along and I began to use more critical thinking, and I let myself actually be impressed by the intelligence humanity has. About our perseverance and creativity. I am very spiritual, a pagan to be exact, but that doesnt make me take away merit for our acomplishments through the millenia. What a wonder to be a human. I will do my part to let people know, I will even act as a translator to your words because they NEED to be heard. Thank you for everything!

Milo. You may never see this comment in the sea of other fans you have here but I want you to know you are not alone in the self-shame of going down that pipeline as a 14-15 year old kid during that time where anti-religion and anti-feminism lead to bigotry wrapped up in the falsehood of 'I'm just asking questions/Look how dumb this person is'. I went down the very same rabbit hole and followed that pipeline that you did, in those same years, with the same impressionable mind of a teenager trying to find her identity in the sea of uncontrolled internet access. I'll admit, I'm crying a little after hearing you say you fell down that pipeline too because it has been the biggest shame of my life to remember all that cruel content I watched and *supported* what those nasty people said and did. I'm grateful every single day that I found my own way out with the help of one online friend and my wonderful grandfather who helped foster my love for learning and challenging view points because I truly believe that if I didn't have them to stop me from getting radicalised further, I likely would still be a bigotted, nasty person that I was very quicky becoming all those years ago. I cannot put into words how much your admission of nearly following that pipeline too means to me, and likely others who have gone through the same. I don't feel alone now. That I really wasn't the only teenager that almost fell down that rabbithole of blind hatred all those years ago. Thank you, Milo.

I've been following you for a while now. I'm not usually a follower that comments and stuff, but this really made me happy. I see you as the best archeology (sp?) teacher I've had. I'm an Argentinian art student that loves watching your videos whenever I can (I literally just watched this one while doing my makeup and it was soo good!). I really hope you keep doing this for a long time cause the amount and quality of information you teach is absolutely amazing! Love from Argentina! 💕💕

it's actually interesting that you mentioned how lectures don't have enough reach, because one thing I love about the The Royal Institution is the fact that their lectures are released for free on youtube, it was the first time I had the opportunity to watch lectures from prominent scientists. imagine if every university released their lectures for free ?

I'm a biologist and also studied science communication. My education (and my sense of normal/professionalism) headed towards teaching complicated things to fairly intelligent teenagers. Hardly any attention to grown-ups, hardly any attention to kids that will work in a factory, or have a cognitive impairment. I was confused and got sidetracked, I ended up becoming a social worker and I had TONS of fun explaining difficult concepts about society, laws, health care etc to people with cognitive impairments, people with serious delusions etc. 20 years on, it's getting time to do something else, flex another part of my brain again. I agree so much with you about how amazing the opportunities are these days. Social media are ever evolving and while they have horrible aspects, they also have a fascinating access across social classes, culture, ethnicity etc. The business model of social media is based on engagement, so their engineering is built to favour content that attracts most engagement. Leave it to billions of users and creators to experiment and find out what exactly engages. I'm too old to do tiktok dances whilst screaming biology factoids and that probably wouldn't work anyway. But as science communicators, we do need to embrace all the crazy shit on social media and find our angle in there. My young kids and I have recently discovered the SpongeBob Jellyfish Dance Challenge. We are sort of not officially practicing the moves and.... It hurts, man! It hurts... I have this idea that a medical science or biology communicator could do something with that. Do a tiktok dance and explain which muscle starts aching after a certain move and why. For now, I still fall over, so I gladly donate this idea to a more flexible colleague.

I love spreading archeology, and while not always the best, Time Team was a wonderful outlet. They encouraged everyone to get out there and dig, but also record everything.

This was such an amazing video to stumble upon and discover your channel. All hail the algorithm.

at the time of watching this is 1 hour scince upload 10,620 views thats 10,000 more people who have heard this talk this message that i think everyone with this mindset of wanting to learn and understand the world around us ,which is basically everyone to some degree, needs to hear compared to the 20 you said where in that room you have at the current moment multiplised the ammount of people who heard this message by x500 We have this worlds where we cant seem to agree on stuff yet the largest most powerful tool to openly discuss this opinions and work together to create the best conclusions on these topics is just being uses as an echo chamber instead of a way to discuss stuff. In part i believe thats the Algorithim but mostly we are the ones who are feeding it the information it is using and we need to learn from that learn to have open discussion challange opinions but in a way that leads to discussion not argument :D Milo this talk was amazing keep up the absolutly awesome work at making the world a better place and i hope we can all follow in yours and so many others footsteps

Not just for younger generations, I love the things I am learning at 51. I have found more than a few channels that sounded legit at first, but it looks like, never passes the sniff test with me.

Glad I found your channel. I love what you're doing! Keep it up ! FOR SCIENCE!

What an absolute BADASS

I have 3/4 of a bachelors in astrophysics and 10 years of corporate training and adult learning theory and RAGING ADHD in my late 30s. I have mulled over the idea of making a RU-vid channel on and off for years, but I don’t really know what to talk about. But you know what? Maybe I should just make a channel where I talk about whatever cool thing I’m fascinated by that week and give my poor wife a break from my infodumping. This was really inspiring and it’s so cool to see your success and building acclaim borne from the simple need to inform. You’re one of my heroes, Milo. I hope you know how much of an impact you have on people.

I love the fireplace in the entrance of the video! That whole area is so homely and comfortable looking, if it becomes a constant place in your videos I wouldn’t hate it

Milo, man, watcher from way back, love and respect what you do, but I'll admit to being surprised at just how good you are without an editor. As a speaker, you're professional as hell. Great job man. I made some unfounded assumptions

Milo you are wonderful! I am approaching 69 yrs oldand a retired librarian. I used to teach "how to search for quality information on the internet (back to the days of the Boolian Search)". How to determind a research article from popular magazines, & how to search a library online catalog successsfully. I also worked off the cuff with fairly current subjects. I also talk fast.

Man... the point about reach really hammers home, considering I am sitting here on a rainy tuesday in a rural part of germany, watching some american giving a speech at a university in Virginia.

It's an amazing thing what you do. It's so important for people to see all the paths. People need to be told what to believe it seems, so thanks for all the good you put out.

I have no clue why this was in my recommended videos but I'm glad it was :) great talk

Wait wtf Milo was in Virginia Tech, that's where I go and I'm literally watching this video in my dorm at VT. How had I not realized this? I wish you had said you were gonna be doing this, I absolutely would've wanted to come see it in person

Yeah it's been about double the total time of the lecture, and it's reached nearly a thousand times the people that were in that room. The scientific community has got to start using social media to do science education, it can't afford to not take this opportunity. On a personal level, I know that good, accurate paleontology content on RU-vid has reignited my childhood, obsessive, autistic love of dinosaurs, and I will be forever grateful that the RU-vid platform enabled this.

“Locked behind a paywall.” How true.