On any topic....entertainment, history, travel, news, politics, religion. With the 51+ million YouTube channels that exist and the 2 billion websites on the internet, there's no way for any of us to come across all that is out there. And with the way human nature and the algorithms work on these social media sites, we all remain "in our own bubble" to a large extent, making it difficult to discover other viewpoints, philosophies, information, experiences, etc.
This isn't earth-shattering, but for the first post I'll add one of the coolest videos I've ever seen on YouTube, that my YouTube algorithm recommended to me last night -- a video posted a month ago of the POV of a wingsuit diver flying down from the very top of Mount Taschhorn (elevation 14,734 ft) in Switzerland.
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." - John 15:19
Nothing too special here either....but the above video reminded me of the following video I first watched several years ago of locals filming U.S. Air Force F-15s flying by them just a few hundred yards away through the mountains in Wales. Like Switzerland, another place I wish I could visit in person.
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." - John 15:19
Related to travel...I'm sure there are many other better YouTube travel channels out there, but one of the ones I stumbled upon a few years ago was Kurt Caz. He's a South African who travels to many of the underdeveloped areas of the world (Egypt, Morocco, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Pakistan, Kenya, Brazil). The unique thing about his videos is that he deliberately goes into a lot of semi-dangerous areas, and usually by himself (or sometimes with a local), or travels around with local girls.
He doesn't have a cameraman filming him, but is doing all the filming himself, and the typical video is him walking around a town or area (or catching a taxi) and doing a lot of interacting with the local people. And he learns the languages of the places he goes (he's fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and other languages besides English), which makes it interesting watching him interacting with locals.
Here's a newer video from Kurt in a coastal town in Venezuela:
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." - John 15:19
I'm now getting a ton of wingsuit flight videos in my recommendations. This one is incredible…3 guys from a helicopter over Mt Blanc in the Alps, filming so that you see the others in flight.
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." - John 15:19
This is a really cool channel on history, "Voices of the Past", that narrates first-hand accounts of historical events. One of the first videos on the channel I watched was this compelling one of an 17th century Icelandic man giving his account of the Barbary (Arab) pirates invading his town in Iceland, murdering many of his neighbors and taking dozens as slaves. He also describes his time on the slave ship sailing back to North Africa and being sold in a slave market in Algiers.
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." - John 15:19
Now my YouTube recommendations are being flooded with history videos. I watched one on the Dutch East India company a few days ago, and then the following excellent documentary on Magellan's 1519-1522 voyage that "circumnavigated the earth".
I learned about this in school, but had forgotten a lot of the basic history. The primary motivation of virtually all of this early exploration in the late 1400s and early 1500s (Columbus, Magellan) was to secure routes directly to the "spice islands" of Southeast Asia in the area of modern-day Indonesia, for the financial objective of trading in the lucrative spices and other goods, bringing them back to Europe where they could be sold for great profits.
One thing I had never heard before (in this video) was how many Europeans believed that many of these spices from Asia could be used to prevent and cure the bubonic plague. So in addition to spices just being desirable to improve the taste of food, a big reason that the spices could be sold for astronomical profits in Europe was this belief that they could cure the plague.
The Ottoman Empire had conquered the Byzantine Empire at the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Following this, the Muslims controlled the land trade routes from Europe to India and Southeast Asia ("Silk Road"), imposing hefty taxes, making the spices and other goods from Asia much more expensive. This created the initial motivation for the European nations to search for a sea route to Southeast Asia.
The Portuguese were the first to discover a sea route, with Bartolomeu Dias becoming the first to sail around the southern tip of Africa in 1488 and into the Indian Ocean. With this, Portugal laid "claim" to the southern Atlantic Ocean, and required heavy taxes for other European nations to sail on this route.
Spain and Portugal were enemies/rivals and the two major sea-faring European nations at this time. Columbus was commissioned by Spain to discover a sea route to the Indies by sailing West (because the Portuguese controlled the sea route sailing east around Africa). Obviously he didn't find it, in 1492.
Magellan was Portuguese, and at first tried to get the Portuguese government to commission his voyage to discover a western route (by trying to find a sea route by sailing around the southern tip of South America), but they weren't interested (as they already controlled the eastern route, the only known route). Therefore, Magellan successfully petitioned the government of Spain to commission his voyage.
On the voyage, they embarked with 5 ships and a total of 270 men, including a majority of them Spaniards, with many Portuguese as well and a much smaller number of other nationalities including Italians, French, and English. There would be several mutinies on the voyage, largely initiated by the Spaniards among the crew (due to animosity and distrust of Magellan since he was Portuguese).
Only 35 of the original 270 men and one ship returned to Spain/Europe. Almost 90% died on the 3-year voyage, mostly due to disease, but some also to battle (with natives). This was common in long sea voyages in the time period of the early 1500s until the late 1700s, with around 50% or more of all sailors on these long voyages dying from scurvy/disease. It was not until the early 1800s when it was finally discovered and widely understood that citrus fruits and vitamin C prevented and cured scurvy.
From 1602 to 1799, the Dutch East India company (which became the richest company in world history by far, even to this day) was founded and operated, and the Dutch came to dominate the trade to the spice islands in the Indies. This company sent around 1 million Europeans on ships to the Indies over that ~200 year period, and only about 350,000 of them survived to return to Europe. Most were thrown overboard after dying from disease.
It's interesting that a huge part of Western capitalism and amassing of wealth to this day involves utilizing resources (including labor) in Asia to produce goods sold in the Western world for great profit.
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." - John 15:19
Months ago I got on a kick of watching YouTube videos of police body-cam footage of DUI stops. Haven't been getting those recommended much over the last few months though after I stopped watching them. Then, suddenly in the past few days I started getting flooded with YouTube recommendations of police video of chases involving fatal crashes when people flee the police.
A lot of these chases end with the police doing a "pit maneuver" where they clip the back end of the vehicle causing it to spin out and crash. I've seen several, where the crash from the pit maneuver ends up killing the person fleeing. You really have to question whether this should be used as standard procedure by the police. It's effectively using lethal force, just for someone who could be fleeing for a minor traffic violation (in many cases).
Also, it becomes obvious why many police departments have a policy of calling off chases. Because these chases usually involve extreme speeds (90-100+ mph), endangering the lives of the general public at large.
While I've seen several of the videos with "graphic" views of crashes, this one that I saw today was particularly sobering. A woman stole a cop car in Florida a few months ago, with speeds over 100 mph in the chase and she head-on collided with a pick-up truck killing herself and the 3 people in the truck. Police car camera and cop body-cam footage captures the whole ordeal.
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." - John 15:19
I found him through the YT algorithm/recommendations and have watched several of his videos over the past year or so. One of the very best "travel" and "human strory" TouTubers. Really like his interview style and the places/people he visits.
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." - John 15:19
