I feel that Destin (SmarterEveryDay on Youtube) is straying from the path
Disclaimer: I'm dismissive of religious beliefs
Just for the record. I'm was raised and am an atheist. I use to have a period where I was ostensibly against religion. I have soften my stand the last ~10 years, I believe I'm more tolerant and don't care what people believe in if it makes them feel better, from religion to homoeopathy. However, I still vehemently oppose any pseudo-science or religion being brought up when discussing real science.I don't know if you know Destin Sandlin. He has a youtube channel named "SmarterEveryDay." I believe he would self-describe his channel as "a red-neck doing sciencey stuff."
The guy has everything, from the southern accent to videos about seemingly-dumb red-neck things that involve a significant amount of engineering and the opportunity to teach about science. If you don't know him, some (not all) of what I consider his best videos are:
- How Does A Carburator Work
- Why Snatch Blocks are AWESOME
- Bullets HITTING Bullets in Slow Motion
- World's Longest Home Run
The large part of his content is like this. Maybe not of this quality, but the theme is often some, what he calls, "redneck" thing turned into an engineering challenge. And overall, the quality of his videos is quite high.
Sometimes he will just tag along with some expert explaining their fields. These are also entertaining and IMHO educational pieces of content. If you want examples, there are:
- This is Music On An Oscilloscope
- How Carburetors are Made
- His 3 parts series on how photographic film is manufactured: Part #1, Part #2 and Part #3
- Everything About Grain Bins
And more rarely, he will post weird, life advice or motivational content. Usually this is wholesome or harmless, but it feels disconnected from the rest. Examples are:
I've always like Destin. This is not a university class, and in the past he has taken some shortcuts with safety. But overall, I think he is an honest content creator, and he is entertaining and educational. He also has increase the safety of his experiments, and been educational about (see the video linked above about bullets hitting bullets) I feel that he has kept the clickbait as low as he could get away with Youtube's algorithm, and that's rare in this day and age, therefore I respect him for that. Overall his content is, IMHO, humble and wholesome.
I think this contrasts with Veritasium which has become way too clickbaity, and Mark Rober who reminds you every 5 minutes that he quit his job at NASA to do Youtube. By the way, did you know Mark Rober used to work at NASA?
Of course, Destin is not perfect. He has taken, what I consider to be, bad sponsorship in the past, such as NordVPN which is just a shady VPN (just use Mullvad or Mozilla VPN if you want to circumvent geoblocking), HelloFresh which is overpriced food delivered by a Roach Motel company, or Casper Mattress which AFAIK is a dropshipping company selling products with some health concerns. But many other Youtubers took these sponsorship, so I won't criticise him too much for that. Also his quest to make something 100% in the USA is very laudable, at least to me.
There are some weird stuff though. I'm trying to not be too much parasocial, but most of his content that is not science related feels... weird. It's often about family, helping the poor, being a good member of the community, which I think are good values to have, but it has this weird religious semi-conservative undertone that I can't really pinpoint, it's more like an uncomfortable feeling.
Most of his videos used to finishes with a reference to a bible verse in gray over a black screen. This has disappeared most likely as the Youtube algorithm started asking him to link to his other videos at the end of his videos. I also always find weird the videos with his kids because they address him as "sir". I don't know if it's cultural, but in France (where I'm from and where I live) this is usually associated with radical Catholics (aka "traditionalists")
I've pro-actively tried to avoid judging him on the last part, because I believe people can live their life as they wish as long as they don't hurt anybody.
But now, I'm torn... He has recently made more and more references to the bible for historical and biological facts. The two videos, I have in mind are:
- Nature's Incredible ROTATING MOTOR where at 27:25 he hints at creationism.
- More recently, in Pompeii Changed How I Think About The Roman Empire, the video uses the bible as some kind of historical reference, for example at 12:36.
And this is starting to bother me. I don't mind the past "I have some belief I want you to know, but unrelated to that, I put it aside, here is some engineering/science video." However, I do mind the recent "I'm talking about science, and let me tell you how it matches my made up beliefs based on a book made up by people 1000s of years ago."
I know that Destin owes me nothing. And the counter point should be "hey... if you're not happy just stop watching him." But I just feel that I'm watching a guy who spend more than a decades building his brand and audience just tearing it appart, and it was a good brand and audience. I'm just sad about it, but maybe I'm overreacting.
What's your opinion?
Eh, I don't share his beliefs, but I don't have any issues with people who believe in God, or are religious, even devoutly so, as long as they're not using it to promote harm, or being overly preachy/prostheletizing.
I don't see Destin as ever doing any of those things. He's obviously a Christian, and it's an important part of his life, so I'd expect that his channel, which is largely based on him as a person, would share a little bit of that. I don't think he's a creationist or anti science at all. I don't see any problem with saying "this thing is cool and I want to thank God that things like this exist"
I have similar feelings as an atheist when I'm excited about something; not about God obviously, but I get thankful that things exist the way they do, and I'm certain if I were religious, I'd be specifically thanking God about it.
About the Sir thing, yes, it's 100% a cultural southern US thing. I live here and moved down from the northeast when I was a kid, and it was very jarring to me back then too. A lot of my friends called their parents sir/ma'am growing up, and I even got in trouble a few times for not also calling them sir/ma'am. It's not explicitly a religious thing, even though there is a strong correlation. I agree that it also makes me uncomfortable, but I'd chalk that up more to a me problem than a them problem; it's definitely very common down here, if not a norm. It's not only radical Christians that do it, although most of them definitely do.
Overall, no, I don't have any issues with him. He's a southerner, and very much is part of southern culture, but he's never been racist, ignorant, mean spirited, abusive, or overzealous as far as I know, so he's a ok in my book. He also seems like a very nice guy.
That's good to know. Thanks! As I said, I try not to be too judgemental on this specific point.
However I have to admit, reading the comment there is a spectrum from you "I live in the south and 'Sir' is slighly correlated to conservatism, but it's wider than that" to other comments "I moved to the south and while it's more prevalent, it's heavily linked to religious conservatism."
I'll take the middle :) .
If you watch any Peanuts / Snoopy, the kids refer to adults as Sir /Ma'am. But they also subvert it a little bit by Marcie habitually calling Peppermint Patty Sir, to annoy her a little bit.
Some cultures require all children to call older people as Big Bro/Big Sis/Aunty/Uncle/Grandma/Grandma. Just because sometimes implying kinship can be problematic to our culture (eg, weird uncle whoever, annoying old aunt whatever), doesn't mean it is fair to impose the same Ick to another culture that doesn't have the ick.
Ah yes, my partner struggled with this too at first.
Aunt/uncle is so ingrained in my culture that I can’t even separate who in my family is really just a cousin instead off the top of my head unless I specifically cross reference a family tree.
Anyone 5+ years older than me gets called that. Even if they’re not related and a family friend.
My partner learned very quickly that she is to refer to them just as I do, nobody gets called by just their first name in my family 😅
+1 data point: I grew up in the American South and in a regilious family. I am very atheist for the last 25 years (half) of my life and I do not participate in that aspect of my family's life, but I still use sir/ma'am as a sign of friendly respect. It has absolutely zero to do with religion or spirituality for me, but it probably has it's roots in that.
To add another data point, I lived in Mississippi from ages 8-10. It was not uncommon (though not necessarily normal and definitely not always expected) for kids to call adults sir/ma'am. I even remember seeing a newspaper article where the headline was basically "Fewer kids are calling adults sir/ma'am - is this a sign of declining respect for adults?"... so yeah.
During that time, I had friends who always called their parents sir/ma'am, but I never did (having moved there from abroad). I even remember a friend whose parents had a unique whistle melody for each of their kids and would regularly use that to get a kid's attention. They were conservative Christians, so maybe that adds to that side of things as well.
About 15 years later, I helped interview kids applying to a certain university (in California) and one of the people I interviewed was from Mississippi. During the ~45 minute interview, he constantly called me sir, to the point where I paused the interview to clarify that doing so wasn't necessary or expected. So I suppose that the tradition isn't quite gone yet.
Did... did they see this in the Sound of Music and think that was the part to emulate? god that is wild to me.
I'm from Texas originally, and the whole sir/madam thing is more connected to a particular subculture in the south not tied necessarily religion but to families heavily involved with blue-collar work cultures, which also tend to be tied to religion.
Most of the people I know that use sir/madam came from a family that had a family business, heavily tied to blue collar work, or families that generally valued strong work ethics with chores or activities.
They also happened to be religious a lot of the time but not always.
I don't particularly enjoy the Christian undertone of his content, but at least for the most part it's the good bits of Christianity (charity, kindness, respect for fellow man, etc.) rather than more common fake, American style of it. The "sir" thing rubs me the wrong way because my dad tried that shit with me as a teenager and I did not take to it and I resent it. Heck I've kind of flipped it on its head by throwing in a respectful "sir" or "ma'am" when talking to my kids from time to time. I'd probably tell them not to call me that if they tried to return the favor...
But anyway of all the educational YouTubers I've watched over the last decade or so, he's one of the only ones that has stuck to his core mission of education without dumbing it down to appeal to a broader audience. You mention Rober, but my problem with him is less "omg NASA" and more that he has super dumbed his content down to be more appealing and is constantly trying to sell his subscription box. There are no in-depth videos, just "we built a cool thing, here's a sped up montage and some ultra high-level explanation".
Destin on the other hand has focused on becoming a better educator more capable of explaining complex topics. I can't even get into Veritasium's stuff. I watched their "Rods From God" video and they half-assed it so badly that it soured me on the entire channel. So it's basically down to just Destin if I want high-quality educational content.
I don't really know where I'm going with this... I do wish Destin would keep the life stuff on a separate channel (which is what most YouTubers do), but I can easily ignore them if it means he still cranks out high-quality stuff.
Tangential shout out to AlphaPhoenix for really good physical sciences content, and 2swap and Welch Labs for mathematical/computer science - I'm a big fan of all three for extremely clear explanations while absolutely embracing the complexity and depth of their subject matter!
Some other recs from my subscription list:
Practical Engineering is one of my favourites, to add another high quality educator to your list
I like The Thought Emporium as well
Yes, it's great as well, but I feel like it's less in-depth on the actual science, so I put it more in the "maker" category of channels rather than the "educator" category
+1 for technology connections.
I don’t really care for appliances or science-y educational videos but that guy makes me interested in literally every single thing he talks about.
If you are reading this and haven’t heard of him it is a must watch.
Well, I consider myself a Mark Rober almost-hater so I didn't want to dwelve too much on it because I could have turned my post into pure Mark Rober criticism.
But, Yes I agree with you, the "I worked at NASA" is just the cherry on top. And you described the Sunday (subscription box + brainrot for kids) and the sprinkles (fast-forward the science part and keep only the entertainment)
For me his entire content is garbage, so I tried to prevent him living rent free in my mind :) .
It’s so sad that he became the guy inventing things in his garage to show science content to someone who has a diversified business and employs many people who could be building interesting science things but generally avoids it.
He’s “I can’t believe it’s not Mr. Beast!” these days.
Who cares?
Lots of people who have a positive impact on the world hold beliefs or views that don't match mine. One person in a scientific field who's not espousing any of the violent/dangerous views is fine. He's not crossing the line into pseduo science at all and I don't think he's really doing any harm with his nods to religion with solid science. Hell if half the religious people of the world took science as seriously as he did we'd be in a much better place, let alone with his attitude which sure seems to be mostly live and let live.
It's not like he's going to successfully convert anyone, or likely even trying to. Yeah the motor thing probably didn't need the "as a christian" comment but it seems pretty damn harmless. Hell if anything I'd argue he's probably going to be an on ramp towards religious people taking science seriously more than he's going to be for scientific people suddenly going hardcore conservative extremist (on science...as i don't think you really need religion for people to choose hate/violence).
Perhaps more importantly:
Ok given the actual link, i think you're probably being way unfair here?
First he starts the video with (copying from youtube transcript here if anything seems off)
and then the entire section starting and up to your bookmark(your bookmark in bold):
Note: I'm doing quick and dirty web searches on topics I last really delved into more than a decade ago. This is not rock solid work but I think my following point stands.
So....this isn't "stuff that was made up in a book" or mostly. This is just....history? Pompeii was sorta kinda a part of rome, and was wiped out in 79AD. By that point Christians were a recognized thing in Rome (and allowed slavery but were maybe better about it at the time). References I believe start somewhere around 50AD in records? Judaism certainly was around (which did allow for slavery...basically...and was certainly not better about it. A whole thing about indentured servitude vs chattel slavery vs who fucking cares etc goes here...).
It appears that Christianity did not make it to pompeii before it was destroyed (again...very brief searches), so maybe he thinks it did and he's wrong, or maybe he thinks it did and he's read the counterarguments and agrees with them (they seem to exist, i don't care if they're solid or not), or maybe he thinks early christians were much more against slavery (he's almost certainly wrong).
Still...the church in its 2000 year history has also had some very anti slavery views in its time. Popes and what not coming out against it, various figures freeing slaves. Shocker, it's a massive world power spanning the globe and a ton of cultures over this time and as such, isn't always good either, or can be FULL of hypocrisy or all talk no action or whatever.
The point is though that someone going to a moderately decent church who identifies as christian has probably been taught something roughly akin to "slavery is bad and god thinks so". Not sure how much that lines up with their original doctrine, but they let popes and the church do patch notes on the doctrine so whatever.
With all that context, yeah, standing in a destroyed city of the Roman empire in front of a sex slave operation with a more rosy view of the new testament (which if jesus existed or not or any of it is remotely true or not, was certainly being preached at that time), it seems more than fair to relate/bring that up, even if he might technically be wrong on the specifics the message is far from a bad one? Christianity WAS opposed, just probably not for the reasons he was thinking of in that moment.
Like I get it, there's a lot done in the name of religion in the world that is fucking abhorrent. Personally, I don't think religion matters. You could magically wipe it from the world and people would find some other justification to do what they wanted or just invent it again. It's a symptom, in part, of people's desire for control and power (or vector), not a cause in my eyes. Plenty of horrible shit gets done in the name of non religious causes.
Even if you disagree though, I don't see how any of what he's saying crosses a line? This is some bland bland bland stuff.
If you think he's mentioning it because he's going to start proselytizing about how God is real and the earth is only 2000 years old, ok i guess. Don't think he's there yet, don't think it's an issue to wait until he is.
If he does start proselytizing about how God is real but science is still a real thing and the universe is billions of years old and evolution takes millions of years to create insane biological marvels because God exists....eh? I can get why someone would want to get away from that, and again I think waiting until he's actually doing it is fine, but honestly what's the harm at that point?
Like if this just boils down to "I just have enough personal experiences and issues with the church that it's ick" ok. I couldn't get through K Pop Demon Hunters because for some reason it just got under my skin, which is wild considering the shit I will put up with. But if you just think he's crossing some line, I'd say that so far this is all pretty tame.
Finally:
It is wild to me how much of this topic is about that. That is the most "whatever" i've ever seen. I have known plenty of families from all sorts of walks of life who raised their kids to call their parents sir or ma'am. Yes some religious, many often minority (US), and a ton of them military. I get your cultural context makes it a negative red flag, but given he lives in the south there's like a 50% chance they'd be calling him sir anyways, doubly so if he's got any history of military in his or his wife's family.
I listen to his podcast No Dumb Questions far more than I watch SED, purely because I don't watch much YouTube at the moment.
From a comment I made elsewhere about Episode 217 - When Was Peak Comedy?:
The reason I quote myself here is that I think you're onto a something and it's more noticeable in the podcast. Destin and his co-host Matt are pretty open-minded, but have definitely started down the path of "I don't get it so the kids are the problem", Destin far more so than Matt*. I think Destin is ripe for getting dragged into the alt-right sphere. I'm basing this on how upset he seems to be about how people can't get along, but is painfully careful not to blame any one side. Admirable perhaps, but ultimately naive. Disclaimer: I speak from Australia and was last in the US 12 years ago, so I'm probably guilty of being too online in this case...
* Happily, Matt has finally has his faith in Libertarianism shaken. About time.
Grew up in the south, kids calling parents sir/ma'am is reserved for the same types conservative traditionalist groups you mentioned. However, it's seen as normal depending on who you talk to.
I have largely felt the same about his channel over the last few years, however that Pompeii video I just clicked off of. Didn't even finish it. I'm of the opinion that if you dip even one toe into that area, you're definitely just hiding your actual beliefs and it leaks through in his content more recently. Whether or not this has to do with the growing political issues in the US, I don't know. But it's definitely there!
I live in TX and have never considered sir/ma'am as anything other than polite/respectful. I grew up in a very religious home and went to a private Catholic school k-8, but began to doubt around age 8 or so[1], and fully diverged (privately) by the time I was maybe 14 or so. There were plenty of things that were deeply tied to religion that were 'normal' but I never thought this as one of them.
Just a random data point, not meant to say anyone is correct/incorrect over the subject.
[1] - my school invited a "healer" of some kind who sat in our church with my class and many of our parents and told us he was chosen by God to help pray and heal illnesses and ailments. I have a knee issue which causes discomfort among other things and have had it since around age 5 or so. I told the guy this, he said he would help me. He placed his hand on my knee, murmured something, and eventually said "do you feel the warmth of my prayers?" ... I said yes, but I knew what body heat was at that point ... He said he rid me of my issue and praise God and all that. Total whack job and I was just stunned, even at 8 years old, that my teachers and parents believed the crap this guy and others were doing and saying.
P.s. - I still have the knee issue some 30 years later. Must not have prayed hard enough, tough luck.
The polite/respect is the conservative part, though. Generally modern American etiquette is very loose, and you would rarely if ever see that level of politeness required or expected. It would be weird to call your boss “sir”, let alone your parents, which are supposed to be some of the people you’re closest to.
The only exception is that primary school teachers go by title last name, but even then it’s not “sir”.
Having that level of strict hierarchical family unit is mainly something associated with deeply religious families in America as a result.
It's conservative in a sense that is not necessarily correlated with political affiliation. In the same way that referring to older adults as Tia or Tio or something like that is conservative.
There can be overlap because those family structures and expectations being held onto can reflect a more overarching belief system. Or they can reflect ensuring your kid is respectful to authority and less likely to get shot or mistreated by external authority figures and more likely to be protected by intracultural authority figures. IME, many Black families are deeply religious, and expect honorifics be used for example, but their churches generally lead them to vote progressively.
I just think it's complicated when some people mean Conservative (politics) and some people mean conservative (traditional) even as overlap exists. Not sure which one everyone means here for example. ( I'm not disagreeing just trying to provide some deeper context and maybe clarity of the intent )
I call my cat "ma'am" when I'm telling her to stop doing something. But I've also said yes ma'am to my boss, i wasn't raised to say sir/ma'am, but got etiquette via customer service jobs in my head. I actually respect my boss though and it's a little joking because I could say "sure thing NAME" but wouldn't say "yes Mrs Last Name" so idk, we all have a bit of different politeness in us.
Yes, there definitely needs to be some distinction (and outright definition by what they mean) made by people using conservative in this thread. Capital-C Conservative is a political leaning, conservative is... who knows what in here... but I certainly don't see sir/ma'am as having any political leaning or anything beyond politeness. I grew up in Texas, having only left last year, and sir/ma'am is just politeness and I use it constantly for everything from coworkers to random people that might hold the door for me.
Hell, I've coined a gender neutral version I use called th'am for the nonbinary homies in my life because it felt wrong to use sir/ma'am and to not use it at all. It's just politeness and in my head calling it "conservative" (be it with or without a capital C) sounds like saying the "liberal" version is something along the lines of "Thanks, asshole" and from the time I've spent in the northeast, probably wouldn't be far off.
If it's lower case "conservative" then it isn't really opposed by "liberal". It's just more or less traditional or being part of and continuing a particular cultural value.
My students call me by my first name, I discourage them from honorifics or titles. But it happens and I don't fuss much about it. (I appreciate the neutral version in theory but would hate to be called that one. Idk why... Something about the sound of it)
That's probably the closest to contrasting with a hierarchal conservative mode of address. I think your version of it being "thanks asshole" is predicated on valuing the titles, rather than actual good faith assumptions.
I'm a native Spanish speaker, and let me say that there's nothing conservative about calling someone Tia or Tío because it literally means Aunt and Uncle.
So I mean the way folks will call adults they're not related to "Aunt" or "Uncle", regardless of language, out of respect. Or tbh even calling your elders by titles instead of their first name is conservative in the sense I'm talking about.
Maybe that's where it differs, I don't call my mom or dad or boss etc sir or ma'am, I answer questions from the waiter "yes sir" or someone who asks if I know if it's going to rain today "no ma'am" - it's not at all been about any kind of hierarchy for me/my family growing up, just pleasantries. I suppose I'm in the gray a bit on that one.
Same where I grew up. Mom/Dad for parents. Aunt/Uncle Firstname for adults within the family (exception for Grandma/Grandpa). Dr/Mr/Mrs Lastname for adults we knew outside the family, occasionally using Firstname instead of Lastname with the honorific. Sir/ma'am for all other adults (when we didn't know a lastname). All kids, older or younger, family or stranger, were simply Firstname or nickname or lastname (or "hey you") as preferred, no honorifics. Also worth noting that we really only used their names when necessary, like greeting, calling for their attention, or talking about them – an answer to an adult in conversation could just be "yes" instead of "yes, sir".
It's respectful towards strangers, towards parents, it's weird.
I don't have a lot to add, but it's almost eerie how much this sounds like I could've written it myself!
"Humble" is exactly the word that comes to mind when watching him, and it's something I have a lot of respect for in someone as clearly intelligent and successful as he is. The "sir" thing stands out to me too, it's always felt awkwardly formal and hierarchical - both qualities that I do not respect - and the bible references at the end make me faintly uncomfortable.
But I've also always questioned myself on both of those things: am I right to make assumptions based on how he and his family refer to each other? It's clearly a different cultural norm to my own, but perhaps I'd be more naturally open minded about it if it were a radically different culture rather than one that's juuust close enough to be uncomfortable? Am I justified in feeling twitchy about the bible verses, given how often that the same technique is used as a shield for people doing awful things? Or should I be all the more pleased to see someone who actually seems to honestly embody the positive side of the morality that Christians try to lay claim to?
I've never come to a satisfying answer! I'm genuinely ambivalent, sometimes I feel like I'm being a judgmental asshole about someone who seems to be an decent person in pretty much all the ways that matter, other times I think it's only reasonable to at least be wary of patterns I've seen in people doing harm far, far more often than in people doing good.
That's not much of a conclusion, but I wanted to acknowledge how much the line of thinking resonates, at least. For what it's worth I haven't noticed these things particularly ramping up or down, but I also don't watch every single video, and I normally skip the ones that don't have a very specific engineering focus, so maybe I'm not getting the full picture.
This is ultimately the tough nuanced dilemma that some of us wrestle with- there's an entire spectrum and tons of facets and angles to all of this which is why I think one can feel justified and judgmental simultaneously.
There's the idea, the organization, and the individual, and then a million ways those interact.
I think it's great whenever believers have interpreted their faith in such a way that leads them to do what I believe are good things rather than bad, but I also find that moderate belief sometimes provides cover for more extreme beliefs because the conclusions of one can lay a groundwork for the other, even if unintentionally. Or that good actions can still happen even if there's a lot of underlying ideology that can be harmful in other ways. Or someone can simultaneously be doing harm and good.
All that to say, yeah, it's complicated.
I try to now judge the individual by the actions and then focus the rest of the criticism on ideas and organizations and structures of power and so on, but even then it's tough for myriad reasons
I'm curious how many folks in this discussion have friends and/or family who are religious. I'm not religious at all, but I used to be and I do have friends and family who are.
Religion is something that many folks consider to be a part of who they are. Sometimes that comes out in everyday conversation, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it comes out in a way that may feel like too much for the listener. If that happens often, you then need to decide if your relationship is worth tolerating that, or if it can hold up to an honest conversation where you explain how you feel.
One of my favorite YouTubers casually throws the phrase, "The Good Lord's ..." around a few times in almost every video (along with declaring several vegetables the Lord's delivery system for breading, which I think is pretty funny). I feel like asking her to stop would be straight up censorship, and that it would make creating the videos less fun for her.
You do have one option besides walking away, which is to bring up how you feel directly to the creator, obviously in a respectful way. Not anything public like a YouTube comment, he's probably got an email address or some other way to message him directly listed somewhere.
Well said about religion being part of someone’s identity. I really believe it’s the case for Destin, too. But it can be quite jarring, especially in science focused content, to be confronted with God being a thing. It just doesn’t compute for me.
But then again, it’s not that big of a deal. He believes in god, that’s who he is, his content is still great.
I think the Pompeii video stands out as weird because he apparently based it solely on the pop culture history from a tour-guide and ran with it. Usually his videos have much more due diligence applied to them. The "sex menu" theory in particular is basically Victorian silliness and is not related to actual archaeology. It felt more like an off the cuff Sunday School lesson than his normal, very well made videos.
The annoyance is the whitewashing of "obviously Christianity was against this." That's true for modern Christianity, but is absolutely not historically. At best it comes out of the reforms after Martin Luther in the 1500s. Some branches like Southern Baptists took decidedly longer to reach the same conclusion, presumably out altruism or revelation and not because of politics in the 1860s. The church was happy to endorse slavery and rape as a means to conversion for well over a thousand years, and it took hundreds of years to even advise against doing so to fellow Christians. Many that expressed what Destin would probably call "Real Christian Values" were disposed of as Heretics. Christianity didn't spread through Europe via peaceful conversion but as a prelude to how it spread through the Americas.
Ignoring that while talking about how society is generally kinder now, is just a little frustrating.
I listen to his podcast regularly as well and their general response to youtube / reddit comments seemed to be: quoting the story that modern sects use as reasoning for slavery being immoral and waving away all criticism.
I get that all this is getting in the weeds and basically a tangent to what he's talking about. But like OP it comes off as at least vaguely unsavory.
I have had religious family and friends in the past, though much less so now. The connection with friends and family is full of its own nuances and completely different than our relation to a YouTuber, of course. I tolerated it when I had to with the understanding that a close relationship with a person was more important (in certain cases, like my late grandmother), though I can't really say I would extend the same if the rest of my family was as religious. It would depend on the connection I have to them and the severity of their devoutness. I have a friend sadly in a reverse position that is trapped with no choice but to hide his lack of belief because he's in a medical and housing situation where it would be potentially VERY bad for him to admit it because his family would not be able to handle it with any level of proper care or reasonable response or respect. It is such a part of "who they are" that it gets in the way of their ability to love someone even close to them
I have chosen to keep more distance from the parts of my family that lean more strongly religious now, and I retain almost none of the friends I had from those days (which is how I want it to be) with very few exceptions- and only because it's not a topic they ever bring up (or they have followed the same trajectory that I did)
You get at something true though, a lot of religious people have their entire person/identity/etc tied up in being religious, and that does mean it will come out from time to time in what they do, and we can all choose how we react to that. But walking away, cutting ties, having a discussion, leaving it be, etc are all valid approaches, do whatever is best for you in the situation and life that you're in and depending on your connection to said individual and what you can handle of their expressions of belief
These days it's less about me wanting to proactively communicate and change what a Youtuber expresses and more just a disappointment/lamenting that I won't enjoy their content as much (or at all) if I want to maintain a distance from those kinds of expressions and content
I think this is spot on, but want to add to it that the way religious people express their religion can vary and have varying purposes.
For example, you see things like modes of dress being a way of identifying people as part of a group (Orthodox Jews, Amish, Mennonite), but by and large these groups aren't looking to prosyletize.
The flavor of what we see from Destin matches up with my experience of the evangelical protestant movement. I was steeped in it growing up in Texas. The teaching and training we received was geared specifically toward converting people, even for the very young. As children as young as seven, we were given bracelets with beads that represented the "path to salvation" (example) and encouraged to memorize the accompanying Bible verses, then go out and use these tools to convert people.
My experience living in that bubble and having family who still do is that it skews so hard one way, even if you are dialing it down (as I suspect Destin is), it's going to read as unusual or offputting to people outside that culture.
It's strange to me how badly it worked on me while I lived in the South. I grew up Catholic in a northern town and was completely unaware of the evangelical movement outside of the revivals I sometimes saw in movies. So when people would give me the code phrases, I was just confused. If I asked what they meant, the person usually either turned hostile or gave me a dirty look and walked away.
Straight White American Jesus has a podcast series that decodes some phrases that evangelicals commonly use – not just what the phrases mean theologically, but also how they operate practically in different contexts. It might be a good resource for you.
That's awesome, thank you!
In many ways that is being a "papist" in evangelical territory. My hometown was pretty protestant, but not as evangelical then as it is now and I still got "surprise do you accept Jesus as your Lord and personal savior'd" on a regular basis. I knew it wasn't a Catholic thing (and that obviously they were Christians but "wrong" because they weren't Catholic) but it took a while to learn not to say "no" to it.
And here I thought they were trying to recruit me.
Oh they were, I just meant the "not getting it" part.
Re. that in particular, I believe he mentions later (after some criticism) that he was just asking questions, and not defending creationism. Your call to what extent that reflects his intent at the time.
Since you're asking people's opinions: I think that, for many religious people, their faith in the paranormal is the water they're swimming in. Although it's plausible that his content has become more overt about proselytizing in the meantime, it's always going to be in the backdrop, either through unasked questions or focuses on particular subjects. C'est la vie -- it's the same for many people who are heavily invested in a subculture. I've never found it terribly annoying, but I'd acknowledge that there are absolutely moral arguments to be made about e.g. indoctrinating children, creating theocracies, suppressing competing beliefs, etc.
That said, imo the by far less defensible position is his unabashed support of the US military industrial complex. You don't get invited onto a nuclear submarine if anyone has even the slightest sense that you'll critique them, or their behaviour. Same as with all the military colabs he's done since then. I'm of the mindset that militaries are inevitable and necessary, but we should never be actively promoting them, or discussing them without underlining that wholesale murder is their explicit goal. It's a necessary evil, but (imo again) we should understand it as such, and keep that uncomfortable sensation close at hand for the next time a politician suggests bombing your country's problems away.
Disclaimer: I am a Christian.
To be perfectly candid, I sometimes feel this way about other topics / channels /cultures / people: I wish they were just like me. It's fine they're not, but I'd like interacting with them more when the different thing isn't in my face. Which is usually an opportunity for me to do some self reflection: I claim that I respect everyone when they're good people doing good things, but the truth of it is that good people doing good things differently from me can still make me feel all squiggly inside.
I say the same to you as I do myself: evaluate them as individual people first and foremost. Then evaluate myself based on (what I think of as) mistaken ideologies second, then affiliation last: how come they're mistaken but they're better people than I am? Do they do good work and are charitable to others? I may not imitate their differences, but I should work harder to imitate them being good people doing good things.
Another thing I try to do is to ask them outright if they also believe in [thing their group sometimes has people believe that's bad]. A lot of the times, they actually don't. And then I feel bad assuming they did.
I grew up in the South (primarily Atlanta, but with early childhood in east Tennessee). I'm a second-generation atheist, raised in a very leftwing/hippy family who strongly eschew prescriptive gender norms and social hierarchies, but I have absolutely no qualms saying "sir" or "ma'am". I definitely don't say them where I live now (Australia) because I've never heard a single other person here use these terms, but whenever I'm visiting back home, I slip right back into saying "sir" and "ma'am" all over the place. I don't even think about it; it's just a dialect thing, like slipping back into your childhood accent.
However, there are very specific contexts where I use these terms. I would never address a friend or a family member with "sir" or "ma'am". I grew up using honorifics strictly for people I don't know well, and almost always in contexts where I want to demonstrate appreciation or admiration — for example, when addressing a waiter or a cashier who's serving me, or when speaking to a kind stranger. In these contexts, we're both calling each other by these honorifics (assuming they speak with the same dialect), and there's absolutely no implication of social hierarchy.
Where I live now, I've noticed that a lot of the locals (especially older women) say "darl" in the same contexts where I would say "sir" or "ma'am". I can't bring myself to say "darl" (it's just not a part of my lexicon at all), but I think it's sweet.
I would think that we would celebrate people with religious backgrounds embracing science. There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone of faith also being into science and bridging that divide. As someone who fits that description, I get hassled by some people in the church for my beliefs about science and evolution. Getting hassled by the other side is not something new, but I'm a firm believer that you can believe in God and also science. The two are not mutually exclusive and it sucks that some people want to make it so they are.
Also, calling someone's father sir or mother maam is definitely a cultural thing in America and not weird at all.
I essentially agree with you on most points, but having been both raised in conservative evangelical Christianity in America and stayed in that for 20+ years before undergoing a long journey and becoming an atheist for the past 15-20 years, it doesn't surprise me that it's turned out this way.
The "sir" thing was a feature of how I was raised too. There's a very patriarchal / traditional / antiquated "language of respect" kind of attitude I think that comes out of (it's so normalized that even now it doesn't always immediately sound odd to me)
This is a kind of discussion that could go into some very deep rabbit holes about the psychology, mental gymnastics, cultural/familial aspects, indoctrination, America's unique baggage, etc but i will digress from digging into those other than to say it's unsurprising and at least for me personally disappointing (especially when it's someone talking science-y) but i have been on the other side of things so i get it. Speaking for myself I was in a bubble of religious worldview and that was all I knew for decades and I know what it's like to be inside that and have your entire architecture of life built to keep you there and give you whatever tools are necessary to workaround any questions or problems or whatever. I am just so glad to be free of it all now, but I very deeply understand what it is like to be on the other end- to be the believer. While that perspective has given me some anti-religious fervor at times (aimed at ideas and claims and organizations and political activity, not quiet everyday believers), i try to always remember how that was me at one point
A couple of creators I have enjoyed have turned out to have some religious connections/backgrounds. It definitely depends on how much it directly bleeds into their content as far as if it affects my decision to watch.
I even might have some qualms with the "made in the USA" stuff, not because I think it's bad for us to do more manufacturing and production and such in the US (that's all fine and good) but because of the weird isolationism, patriotism, nationalism, etc those conversations and supporters often fall into which I refuse to even remotely be associated with. There's a certain kind of blanket "China makes low quality things" sentiment that has a xenophobic bent to it that rubs me the wrong way (many of your quality electronics are also made there, etc, nuance is required) and so on. Not all made in the US products are good either... I am okay with buying things made elsewhere or made here with materials sourced elsewhere. I am a global citizen more than I am a citizen of any nation (certainly have no problem wanting things to be better for us here, including opportunities and trades and capabilities, as long as it's done mindfully)
But yeah- i totally get how you feel about this but it's so commonplace in America that to me it's almost more surprising when someone turns out NOT to be religious
Ultimately a while back I did decide to unsubscribe from SmarterEveryDay as a personal decision, actually more related to the made in the USA thing than religion (I actually hadn't noticed the verses or the references/implications made but those might have done it for me too). To be completely fair- I felt like he was relatively respectful and honest and avoided going too weird with that USA episode but something still just felt iffy to me. Maybe it's more of a personal thing for me of the vibes I get from those kinds of sentiments anymore
That's interesting, because this part of your comments helps me understand other comments saying I might be over-reading into Destin.
I totally hear you. And I know exactly what you're talking about. But I didn't read Destin's video this way, but I could see how it could be also interpreted the way you describe. What I saw was "look, if we want to support local skills and good working conditions, we have to bring back labour and skills back here. And when we look around, most people claiming to 'make stuff here' actually don't."
Of course, I'm biased because I'm one of these people vocal about "bringing back manufacturing to Europe." I think stuff made in China and India are a disaster for workers and is ripe for exploitation from horrendous safety to forced labour, and I'm not even talking about the environmental standards of these factories.
And you're right, stuff made in Europe isn't perfect either. For example, some Polish factories have polluted entire rivers, the meat industry in Germany has exploited eastern-european posted workers (for non EU folks, more information and what are posted workers). Damn, even the regulation about how factory should handle chemicals is named after an Italian chemical disaster!
But that's the thing, when H&M sells shirts made by slaves, they can just go "I didn't know! It was my supplier, they never told me!" and the supplier is some shell company out of Singapore for which the EU can't do anything about it. If it was made from Hemp cultivated here, if forced labour was used, we could stop the operation and put people in Prison. (I could even see the state or authority temporarily taking over the operation in order to avoid supply chain disruption.)
Also I wanted to add, AFAIK, a lot of the high quality electronics are not made in China. If I'm not mistaken, chips (CPUs and GPUs) are mostly manufactured in Taiwan (if you consider that to be outside of China), and RAM as well as NAND (= Flash) are mostly manufactured in South Korea. This is because the skills are only there. While the working conditions are not stellar, my understanding is that the labour law of these countries is superior to mainland China. Unless I'm wrong, the rest of the electronic manufacturing is just putting high quality components on a board, while has been done in China for cost cutting reason, I understood that a lot of it has moved to South East Asia (Vietnam and Malaysia) because Chinese workers were becoming too expensive. AFAICT, very little skill is needed there, it's basically European pick-and-place machines putting components on a PCB and local humans putting the PCB in an injection-molded plastic part.
All I'm trying to say is that I'm not so sure about "China makes a lot of quality products", China couldn't make a ballpoint pen until 2017! I know that they have massively caught up since then on metal manufacturing and other manufacturing technologies, but for example while catching up, they're still far behind on chips.
Anyway, I agree with you that it's much more nuanced. And as of today, Shenzhen in China is one of the best place to assemble complexly layered PCBs with reflow ovens But I think we could catch up if we wanted to. And yes, Trump is right, China is definitely the top manufacturer when it comes to magnets.
My main point is, if you take my country (France) and oversimplify, you have two jobs, skilled workers work in offices, and unskilled workers clean offices. That's it. The manufacturing is mostly gone, and a few semi-skilled people will open a shop. (Retailer, hair dresser, ...) I think bringing manufacturing back will help alleviating the rise of the far right. If people have meaningful job and can afford things, they'll start not caring about immigrants and "the burden of regulations."
And yes, you're right, I'm sad to see that a good chunk of people who agree with me are a bunch of racist nut jobs. But I didn't take Destin as one of them. I could be wrong though.
Yeah and i am not saying those problems don't exist in China, just more about the nuance of the situation (and the US has plenty of its own labor problems etc too)
I am, without reservation, for workers' rights and solidarity across the globe
And i did specifically say Destin was mostly reasonable in the video but that just in general I got a vibe that didn't sit well with me. I might have gotten most of that vibe from a large portion of the comments on the video at the time and maybe just felt that environment was (even unintentionally) fostered by the video.
More opportunities and jobs and capabilities are a good thing. Though I will say that I think so-called "unskilled" labor should be well-paid and people in those positions should be able to afford to live comfortably as a baseline and that they should not need to feel like it is a necessity to switch to some particular trade or new job to achieve that.
So practically yes the more opportunities the better, but I do think we're hoping that solves a problem we should already be trying to improve other ways too. It won't solve the disastrous views of immigrants that are rampant, though. It may take away one of the angles by which they are scapegoated (jobs) but the anti-immigrant sentiment is fear-based irrationality to begin with and fascists will find, and already have found, plenty of other things to blame them for. I don't think giving scared Americans manufacturing jobs magically solves their fear-based hate but maybe it chips away at one piece of that fear at least
Yup. You have a point, some comments on that video were borderline.
I felt a little iffy about the made in USA episode as well, but I do respect that he actually put his money where his mouth was and tried to manufacture a product in the USA with 100% USA materials as an educational experiment to see how feasible it is.
He didn’t go on a xenophobic rant about USA good/China bad, he actually learned firsthand about the challenges facing manufacturing in the USA and has a more nuanced view of what may need to happen to make bringing manufacturing to the USA possible than the armchair industrial policy experts on the internet.
Destin definitely appears to be conservative, but I respect his flavor of conservatism. He (publicly) preaches love above all else and takes an intellectual approach to back up his beliefs instead of spouting knee jerk talking points. It feels like the politics of the past where people wanted to make the country a better place for everyone and the disagreements were about how we would get there instead of trying to screw over people who you don’t like.
You might be interested in his 2015 talk at atheist conference Skepticon (write-up) discussing his relationship with science and faith.
Thank you. I just watched it. It was interesting. As always, he is a great speaker and great entertainer. However I disagree with his point.
Two things comes to my mind:
I'm not a believer, but the sentiment that one must turn off one's brain to have a belief in a religion is a rough one for me to swallow. There are a lot of very thoughtful and brilliant people who have belief in something, and I do not think it requires turning off any part of one's brain to have belief. That "I'm smarter than you" feel of atheism is one of the big things that make people dislike atheists.
It reads to me sometimes like a discussion-terminating endpoint of "i am firm enough in my belief that it's pointless to bother challenging the claims my worldview makes, so let's move on", which is unfortunate but maybe also true and as honest an approach someone devout can have if they must stick to the dogma regardless.
I think trying to find common ground can be a good thing, a noble effort, and with Destin that may be more possible than with some others- depending on where that is focused.
But I agree sometimes that isn't possible, and I sometimes feel like it's an attempt to elevate religious claims about the world to the same playing field as science when it hasn't earned that position. There can be value to "let us understand each other" but that middle way only goes so far until it falls apart
Like, at some point it's true- if (hypothetically) someone tells me they don't think evolution is factual and explain why but that they're not willing to budge on that view- then about the only thing we can do, on a personal level, is agree to disagree- but in doing so i am only acknowledging that there is personally no place for this to go- they must understand that the idea and the organizations that uphold it should still be challenged.
Sometimes I feel like it's a "can't we all just get along and not worry about this" kind of plea for a type of "respect" for the ideas themselves that desires to make them "disrespectful" to challenge- and that's a hard no from me
"Soft on people, hard on ideas" (but also set your boundaries etc etc)
Also yeah it's an odd flex- some early thinkers also did some incredible thinking work and discovery work and still filled god into the gaps. It doesn't make their god of the gaps any more real, and those gaps have shrunk significantly as we've continued filling them with actual factual information, so it's not really substantive to point back at that as some kind of win for Christians. If it's a defense of "look Christians can be smart and make discoveries and do science and thinking too" then that's valid up to a point. Humans compartmentalize well sometimes. But it's also fair to point out that it will inevitably come into conflict at some point if there's a dogma that must be adhered to that demands to override an observation with faith (and the early thinkers' approach to god may have been far different than modern ones- which admittedly are extremely varied)
My interpretation is that his mission isn't to convince anyone to be religious and has no interest in debating his religion with anyone, but is happy to explain the best he can. Basically as a person he has nothing to prove to anyone.
I'll start by saying I'm not religious and in a lot of ways pretty against the pantheon of organized religions, so I'm not defending religion, just trying to provide a different perspective.
And this is definitely not the case by any means for all religious people, TRUST ME I get that. haha But this is what I've gotten out of some people I know who are religious but are also very logical and scientific and what I would consider rational, which I always thought is contradictory.
At least some of these people I know are somewhat aware that religion to them is a structured system that regulates their overall life. While they certainly could have a moral compass without religion, religion is just a framework to help them stay aligned with that. Prayer acts as affirmations to achieve personal goals or practicing regular gratitude, the concept of God acts as a comfort that sometimes you have to simply accept life events, Church acts as a community and support system, psalms act as inspirational quotes that represent guiding principles, etc. Like remove religion from a lot of these things and you've got psychiatrists trying to tell their patients to do these things to be happier. And because those systems are already in place and they were raised on that system, they continue to use it and genuinely have no interest in trying to over-think a different system.
One of them mentioned how Douglas Adams' created a similar concept about flying, how the key to staying afloat is to not think too hard about it or how impossible flying is.
Personally, I think that's a very privileged way to look at it, and I told them that, because at that point it stops being about the logic of religious beliefs, and more about the harm that organized religion has caused to many people, how it's used as a tool for control, and how predatory people use religion to shield themselves. Great that religion hasn't harmed them personally, but man take a look at a history book or the current state of the world.
But at the end of the day at least these particular people I'm referring to, and probably Destin too, embody the positive aspects of religion and not the mindless obedience, projection of massive unresolved trauma, delusionally literal interpretations of the bible, and puritanical insecurity.
I mostly watch Destin because he's the most positive human I can imagine. He's basically a Golden Retriever in human form. I believe he could walk up to almost any stranger in any part of the world and become friends. He always seems genuinely interested in every person he meets, even if it's some grumpy old redneck dipshit with a gun. It's always a joy to watch him meet new people.
It is so impressive and inspiring to see people like this. If you're interested in checking out other folks like this, my favorite is Beau Miles. He's more outdoor adventure/environmental champion, but man there is no one more positive that I can think of that I've ever met.
Yes! I think "the Golden Retriever of science channels" is actually the best description of Destin, which matches the humbleness mentioned by @Greg in their comment.
But if your golden retriever started to pull the leash in the direction of your nearby church, wouldn't you be a little bit disappointed?
Depends on the church. I know there are a lot of religious people who spread hate and fear, but I don't get any of those vibes from Destin. I think he geniuinely loves humans, with all their freakiness and faults. I'd be surprised if he believed in a vengeful god who likes to punish humans.
I'm not religious at all, but I don't mind meeting lovely people, and I know there are a lot of religious people full of love. Nobody has yet converted me, but I'm not going to tell people to fuck off if they want to share that kind of message with me. In my book, that would put me in the same category as those hateful preachers everyone associates religions with.
I like Destin a lot. I am an atheist, always have been, always will be. But I really don't care where someone gets the juice that helps them be a good person; just that they do so. And Destin clearly walks the walk and tries to be the kind of human who makes the world a better place. That's enough. We need as many of those people as possible, and I am happy to support him on Patreon because of it.
Honestly, in a world where evangelicals are so often science deniers, I appreciate someone being sincerely science positive and also open about their faith, since maybe he can open the minds of people who would not otherwise be persuaded.
I will personally always be grateful becuse it was Destin's video about eclipses that convinced me it was worth the planning to travel to be in the path of the totality for the 2024 eclipse. I was very busy at the time, and I had almost talked myself out of it. I'm so glad I went. It's really one of the neatest things I have experienced, and video or pictures or descriptions don't really do it justice.
I had honestly never noticed the bible verse at the end of the video, but that doesn't seem to be over any line to me.
I skimmed through the most recent video about the nuclear power reactor, and I didn't see any overt references to religion. So even if some of his content skews that way, it appears not all of it does.
This is a great point. We need more people who are part of two or more (seemingly) conflicting groups. I want more evangelical LGBTQ bikers who teach astrophysics and love monster trucks, crotchet and guns, and they host a local prepper book club, but twice a year they read a young adult romantic novel. I can't even imagine how interesting a person like that would be.
It is so sad to me that many people seem to be surprised that someone who believes in science can also believe in god. If you see something you didn't expect, it usually means you found an opportunity to learn something!
My uncle, now deceased, was a particle physicist who believed in God and was a loyal member of a local church.
Anything interesting you would like to share about him? Maybe something about his early life as a drag queen and sleazy gangster?
He was eccentric/ not typical in social conversations. (possibly undiagnosed autistic/ possibly just a math physics expert). But his hobbies included standard things like swimming, camping, hiking, dogs, playing flute. He had a small apartment house where he did all the maintenance and repairs himself and a garage full of tools. He made the best cheesecake I've ever eaten. He patented some inventions that are still in use today. When I knew him, he always wore suspenders and sometimes bow ties. He maintained the old furnace and the organ at the church.
Sounds like he was the best uncle one can hope to have.
For me, it was not just that I was starting to see his Christianity sometimes fully motivating the points he was making in videos, but also that there was this weird egotistical vibe. When he did his big talk at NASA about the next mission to the moon being way over-engineered - things seemed to be presented in a very one-sided and self-congratulatory way that made me uncomfortable.
I pretty much stopped watching at that point - I have plenty of other educational and entertaining stuff to watch, some of which might have their own issues, but at least don't make me feel like I'm being subtly preached at.
Others have mentioned plenty of great channels, but I'll toss in:
Thanks for the recommendations!
General Apathy has a very cute mole video, a shrewd one, and a mouse one among the bug ones
This topic was a weird mix of reactions for me. My initial reaction based on the title was « yep, but it happened quite a while ago ». I personally bounced off Destin’s content when he tried to advertise an app on his podcast. He wasn’t clear that he was financially invested in the project, and didn’t seem to do the research to see that it was a poorly made app. But I’m not here to discuss this.
Then I read the content of the topic and realized it was about religion. Look, I am about as atheistic as they come, but nobody should be surprised about religious overtones in Destin’s content. Religion has always been an undertone of his content. Even back when I watched every bit of content he made, I was always prepared to roll my eyes and zone out when the jesuses per minute got too high (listeners of his podcast will recognize jesuses per minute, or JPM, as a metric of how religious a conversation is getting). It surprises me that anyone could watch his content and be surprised about his religion. He has never hidden it.
I grew up in Alabama in a non-religious household about an hour away from where Destin lives. I was raised to address any adult in a respectful tone as either sir or mam, there is not necessarily any religious connotation behind it. I called my parents Mom and Dad, but if the topic was serious or we were around guests/strangers it was Sir or Mam. I didn't realize other people found it odd until I moved out of the deep south years ago.
The Deep South of the US is culturally an excessively, albeit often performatively, polite place.
In S3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Captain Pike prays to god to save his girlfriend's life.
The Prime Directive/General Order 1 would require him to walk away from an entire civilization that was embroiled in religious war. But when his girlfriend is sick, he switches to prayer. This man has seen more of the universe than any other human, with other species, bi-peds, and god-like-entities, and he decides to start spreading Christianity through the cosmos, because his girlfriend is sick.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, until it's convenient.
Destin can probably expand his audience, make more money, and become a good Christian by spreading the word. It will push his average audience closer to the top of the bell-curve. And unfortunately, that 100 IQ sweet spot, isn't very intelligent.
I don't understand your last paragraph. I've not heard of an 100 IQ sweet spot or how it relates to YouTube content? My brain isn't able to come up with a reasonable interpretation when "intelligence" and "bell curve" appear in the same paragraph as religion and YouTube algorithms.
In my mind at least, Destin is already a very good Christian: he loves learning, he doesn't pretend to know everything, he encourages others to be curious, he is charitable, he supports other smaller YouTube channels, and he's a good father + husband.
A 100 IQ is considered average. The average is also the top of the bellcurve, where the most people reside.
So I'm just just paraphrasing that the average person is an idiot, and half of them are worse than that.
I can see where you're coming from as I've mostly enjoyed the videos he's come up with as well. That said I feel you can always separate the artist from the art and even in certain situations where the artist has a weird take, it doesn't necessarily have to mean that the entire artist is now spoiled.
One example where this did go the other way was with What I've Learned. Joseph used to heavily focus on nutrition and the relationship to the brain. There were a lot of sources mentioned and it was very concise and informative. Until a few years ago when I noticed him leaning into getting to interview good ol' Jordan Peterson which at that time already became somewhat of a questionable figure in his field.
I think Destin is free to belief what he wants, he can make the content that he wants, but will realize that if his views on ideology and/or theology also get a bigger role in it, he will lose viewers. It's up to him how to deal with that realization. Be it blaming non-creationists for being wrong or accepting that this doesn't help his content. Mostlikely it'll end up being something in between.