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Here it is! Some strangely-toned real-talk by yours truly at Skepticon AU.

Curious about your feedback. If you watch the whole thing, try to sum up your impression in one adjective!

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The Unbearable Loneliness of Being Right on the Internet - Live at Skepticon Australia 2017

Captain Disillusion creator Alan Melikdjanian frantically lectures a skeptical audience on how to never make any mistakes as a YouTuber. Recorded at City Recital Hall in Sydney, Australia, during Skepticon 2017. Footage courtesy of Think, Inc. Please consider supporting my videos on: http://www.patreon.com/CaptainDisillusion

Comments

Anonymous

Humbling :)

Anonymous

Interesting! I'm not very articulate...

Anonymous

I refuse to follow your one adjective rule. But you know how when you were a kid, watching Star Trek The Next Generation for the first time, and sat down excitedly at the television for the latest installment -- the last installment of the season in fact? There was cool stuff happening on an alien planet, then Riker is in sickbay, and then suddenly all they're doing is replaying scenes from previous shows. And you trash all of your models of the Enterprise and burn your cast promo photos carefully cut out from TV Guide. Or maybe you're a Stargate fan, fresh off a really cool Daniel Jackson show, and eager to see how he's going to prevent the forthcoming Goa'uld invasion, but instead the whole damn episode is clips from season one. Daniel Jackson action figures into the wood chipper. So that's kind of where I was partway through this video. But then it changed. And I think you became the first example in history of a clip show that redeemed itself. (And I appreciated the social justice awareness, too.) I guess I'll try the one adjective: Fuzzy. Anyway, great job. I continue to be a happy supporter. Was this another creation in QLab? I'm sure the folks at Figure 53 will enjoy seeing this video once it's public.

Anonymous

I can only say I'm disappointed because I had no idea you were in Australia! Living in Sydney, I would have totally attended, if I had known you were gonna be there. Kinda bummed I missed the opportunity.

Anonymous

Honest (which should have been your fourth H....bonus tip: over-enunciating the H in Honest would also increase its humor-factor by 20%).

casey

sargon is not, and never was, a skeptic..

Anonymous

Great presentation. How are you so...amazing?

Anonymous

Hilarious. I don't think you get enough credit for your insane levels of showmanship, which always strikes me as incredibly meta to the point where I can't tell where your characters end and the real you begins. Too bad the conference wasn't in Brisbane, would've been awesome to meet you!

Anonymous

One adjective: sweet. One sentence: A wonderful, funny, reflective, humble and sweet presentation. OK, another sentence: Fantastic job, CD. I loved the showmanship, nuance and thoughtfulness of this talk. (Last sentence, I promise) Thank you for not being one of the countless arrogant a-holes out there. You're one of the good guys :-)

Anonymous

OMG amazing. Loved this. Milk literally came out of my nose at the Asshole Singularity. Spot on, including the people who got sucked in.

Anonymous

I'd use the word reflective. You make fun of the arseholish nature that can come with skeptical thought and turn it around. You also reflect on your own mistakes and shortcomings in order to better yourself and improve. Good science requires skeptical thought and also reflection. We believed stuff in the past which is flat out wrong, and it can be difficult to accept the truth, especially when it is hard to accept. I love your content and you're probably my favourite YouTuber I watch on a regular basis. Keep up the good work, humility and humour. We love it.

Stuart Armstrong

Neat! Didn't quite get the very end, but the rest was interesting, though the "Stick to what you know" threw me for a while, as it seemed sensible.

Anonymous

TIL I'm too old to be in your core audience.

Anonymous

so true, non-skeptics have a huge investment, it is their identity so they think

Anonymous

Endearing.

Anonymous

Genuine. The videos of your talks are always a particular delight.

Anonymous

Clever - humblebrag wrapped in self-deprecation and topped with a cogent message for all. Nice job on the edit, too! Went down smooth.

Anonymous

Great talk! And while I understand you have turned your past mistakes into a learning experience for us all to benefit and reflect on, I hope that we patreons can help maintain your sanity by pointing out any issues before your video goes public. To put it simply, authors are not editors.

Anonymous

Encouraging.

Anonymous

I'm not good with words, which is why I don't do interviews. But if you did one with Richard Dawkins I'd love to see you call him a dick to his face. ;D

Anonymous

Enlightening!

CaptainDisillusion

Sorry we didn't get to meet. I did write about it prior and kept mentioning it (almost too much) on twitter. I really liked Sydney so I want to visit again. I'll try to do a better job of warning people next time :)

CaptainDisillusion

Thanks for the honest reactions, everyone! I didn't mean to fish for praise. Was just asking because I'm genuinely not sure how I feel about this talk. I was far less prepared and the content was less "fun". It went slightly more awkward in real life, but was edited down a bit for the video. The organizers gave me a pre-edited version where the camera switching was already done. If I had a chance to edit everything from scratch, I would've kept things in closer angles more...Anyway, looking forward to doing just a good old, regular, scripted debunking video next :)

David Majors

Happy to be in your target demo for one more year. :D I feel like what you did was EXACTLY what conferences like this needs. Someone who can remind us all that while truth and skepticism is great, but we all need the Golden Rule of the Internet...don't be a dick.

Anonymous

I'm seeing lots of women commenting around here ;) What an awesome thing you did, as always!

Anonymous

YESSS I finally heard you drop a fuck bomb un-bleeped. Worth it. Very worth it.

Anonymous

My one adjective summary: cromulent. Also, thanks to you dear Captain, my art has been seen by an entire roomful of Australians and other people who seem exotic to my sheltered Midwestern sensibilities. Thanks Cap'n!

Anonymous

eye-opening

Anonymous

The internet as a whole needs more of this. Great stuff.

Anonymous

optimism

Anonymous

I'm ashamed to admit I got caught up in the troll trap set up by that guy who's defending anti-feminism with a non-constructive comment on my own. Oh well, so much for humility... Lesson learned I guess? I'm going to make an effort not to read the comments on the released video though, I know I'm not strong enough to resist, and that is going to be an unruly wasteland of deplorable opinions.

Anonymous

Thanks for doing this.

Benedict Marko

Very nice, especially the self-critical view at the youtube skeptic community. Can't believe that it has already been ten years ^^ "Hasn't turned into a horrible person" - yeah, I thought about that a couple of times, too, when many others went off the deep end. Happy that you are still with us ;)

Anonymous

hopeful!

Anonymous

Tothepoint #spacesareforchumps

Anonymous

Captain, you should really consider going onto Sam Harris' podcast. I think your point would be well received by both Sam and his audience!

Anonymous

mature