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I saw Dr. Tyson speak at UW Madison some years ago. He was engaging but didn’t want anything to do with questions. Every question he took he’d pause and say something like “I’ve covered that before. Read my book.” or in one case “That’s a dumb question. Next?” to a very valid question about stardust.
I’d listen to him speak again but man, don’t see him on a bad day.
Oh damn, that sucks. I got to talk to him a phone call once. A friend of a friend was making a podcast and somehow got his contact info. She asked him if he’d be willing to come on the show for an interview, and he said he didn’t have time, but was there anything we’d like to ask about. She spoke to him for about 5 minutes then handed the phone to me, and he and I talked for about 45 minutes. It was amazing. He just rambled on and on. He asked if I had any physics questions and I asked “if you had a giant vinyl record shaped device in space and spun the center at near light speeds, why wouldn’t the outter edge move at/beyond c?”
He spent 45 minutes on the answer. I asked no other questions, but he went from saying basically “it would tear itself apart” to then talking about how light speed isn’t really a constant speed, that light travels at different speeds depending on the medium, and potentially in the early universe it was faster, anything that managed to exceed light speed would be considered a tachyon, then he started talking about time travel which brought him back to early universe stuff and it was… Amazing. I was giddy for days afterwards. I had his number written down (he told me I could and said to call sometime, if he couldn’t talk it’d go to voicemail) for years but lost it in a move.
Friend never did make the podcast, either. But what an experience.
That’s awesome! A pal of mine hung out with him afterwards and got him a Spotted Cow (beer from New Glarus, WI) and he was more relaxed. I don’t fault anyone who speaks publicly. They have the honor and privilege to be up there. Also, we all have bad days. Some of us have the ability to take care of our stuff in private.
I give him all the props on keeping me engaged with nerdy science and space stuff after schooling. But damn does he come across as an asshat the last 10 years or so.
I much prefer the team on How the Universe Works to keep relatively up to date.
Does anyone have recommendations on bleeding edge science channels that respect my intelligence but can speak like I’m not a post grad astro physicist?
Here are some that I like on YT
PBS Space Time
PBS Eons
Fermilab
Anton Petrov
Fraser Cain
Sabine Hossenfelder (good, but often goes against mainstream science with mixed results)
I can’t speak to Sabine’s physics content but her social science oriented content is awful:
The capitalism video: short response, long react
Honestly I’m convinced at this point she’s a propagandist. She’s following all the same beats as one. 1) start with apolitical (usually science) content to build credibility 2) start to transition into slightly more political topics to test the waters 3) Start pushing your political views hard
I jumped ship when she started talking about philosophy because I had already went through that rigmarole with GradeA and wasn’t at all surprised to find out she’s been doing right-wing propaganda since I left.
At first I wanted to dismiss your worry and just call her dumb, but you may be right. I’m still not entirely sold on that, I think she can just be out of her depth, but what you’re saying would make for a very nice pivot to political grifting. What makes me skeptical of that is her old trans video, about sport. Though, now that I think about it, it used the exact same “both sides” and “insufficient data” arguments the new video abused.
I actually also wanted to link a video about free will and a livestream react but I couldn’t find a good one. Was that the one that made you quit?
It wasn’t one particular video it was just me picking up on the trend and wanting to get off before they started dropping the payload.
Pbs eons is awesome.
He got really cocky and has a thick smog of arrogance now. I remember seeing his JRE interview years back and thinking the same thing. It was the first time I had listened to him speak in long form, and he just dominated the entire conversation in a way that left a bad taste in me mouth. That was right around the tipping point for JRE in general before the entire thing fell off.
Tyson appears to have let his ego inflate his head.
He always strikes me as having become burnt out on actually being a communicator, because he’s constantly having to cover and recover the same stuff over and over again, and the only times where he’s genuinely having a good time is instances when someone like Stephen Colbert can come out and hit him with an angle he wasn’t expecting or that could explain something he had a beef with.
Because it seems like he’s just flat exhausted with everyone else just yelling “suspension of disbelief” at him whenever he tries to talk about the actual science of what’s going on in media like it’s some sort of “The Power of Christ Compels You!” chant to make him shut up about something he’s passionate about.
Like sometimes it just looks like people are hating on the guy for engaging with media in a way they don’t like.
Like sometimes it just looks like people are hating on the guy for engaging with media in a way they don’t like.
Specifically, he’s engaging the public about media in ways they don’t like. Nobody would give a shit if he just did it with friends or whatever. Turns out being a public facing “um, actually…” guy about fictional bs isn’t a very popular role. Big shocker there.
And? Is there actually anything wrong with it? Is the media he’s talking about so shit that an um ackshually is enough to knock it over for people?
It’s not morally or ethically wrong; but it’s not funny and is well past being annoying. He could state real scientific facts without being a condescending “um, actually…” nerd and then it wouldn’t be taken so negatively. Or even just changing from fiction to pointing out inaccuracies in news headlines.
You’re missing the point. He’s a celebrity that is mostly known for doing a thing most people find annoying. He’s gonna get shit for that because most people don’t like it. That’s all there is to it. Whether he’s “right” or they’re “wrong” doesn’t matter.
I agree about right or wrong not mattering, what I’m saying is that it’s only annoying if being reminded that orbital mechanics doesn’t work like that is akin to being told for the first time that Santa isn’t real.
You clearly don’t mind it. Many others clearly do. Turns out what people are annoyed by is incredibly subjective.
What’s “suspension of disbelief”?
The amount of bullshit a story expects you to just accept to be able to follow its logic and plot points.
For example, Harry Potter expects its readers to just ignore that magic is physically impossible and that a world like what Rowling describes would have WILD implications for the course of human history that would render notions like “The United Kingdom” and “Trains” and the like probably non-existent in favor of a society that better reflects what those forces would shape the world as.
The biggest suspension of disbelief that HP expects of us is that racism, slavery, antisemitism, torture, ableism, poverty and much, much more are all things we should just accept from a society filled with people that can literally play god.
Accepting that the reality of a story is as described. Magic is real? Sure. FTL? Sure. The colour red makes you fart? Yeah why not? For the sake of the story, I Believe.
BUT the term often gets hijacked by rabid fans trying to justify plot holes, self-contradictions, and nonsensical gobilygook. Suspension of disbelief doesn’t mean I should also suspend all semblance of reason, unless of course there’s a clearly established in-universe justification for doing so.
“AkShUaLly…”
As much as it pains me to say, his “um acktually” brand of dudescience probably primed a lot of people for radicalization in the s(k)eptic community, the precursor to what eventually became the alt-right. Now that we can see it for what it is, that’s why we’re repulsed by it.
