10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube

December 27, 2007 5:40 PM

Open Culture's "10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube"features "intellectually redeemable" channels from UC Berkeley, @GoogleTalks, TheNobelPrize, TED Talks, FORA.tv, the European Graduate School, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, BBC Worldwide, National Geographic, PBS, UChannel, MIT, Vanderbilt, and USC.
posted by Soup (21 comments total)

Awesome resource. I've stuck mainly with podcasts (iTunesU) and the schools usually didn't have anything in my field; plus I always keep forgetting to check out TEDtalks.
posted by drea at 5:56 PM on December 27, 2007

Just visit YouTube’s so-called Education Section, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything actually educational.

To be fair, this is explainable on the basis of YouTube being badly organized.

But the good news is that we’re seeing some recent signs of intelligent life at YouTube.

There's lots of great stuff at YouTube, but you have to stumble across it. Even (or "especially"?) the Recommended stuff is pretty dumb.

Or you could get a list of great links like in this post.
posted by DU at 6:11 PM on December 27, 2007

on of my favorites is world affairs council of northern california - lots of very very good stuff here - randall robinson and paul krugman were pretty excellent last night on the sometimes good sometimes wet noodle charlie rose - i would be remiss to not link up the only required 2 hours of programming weekly ian masters background briefing coverage of domestic and foreign affairs.
posted by specialk420 at 6:18 PM on December 27, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

A fourteen-link YouTube post? When will the ban begin, oh when?!!?

I kid, I kid! Only joking!
posted by mwhybark at 6:40 PM on December 27, 2007

So, would you search for "Primate Studies" or "Urological Processes" when looking for that video of the orangutan peeing into his mouth?
posted by John of Michigan at 6:41 PM on December 27, 2007

Ow my balls!
posted by loquacious at 6:50 PM on December 27, 2007

I just came across two Badiou lectures in the EGS section. Oh wow oh wow oh wow, I can't wait I can't wait! Couldn't you have posted this a few nights ago, gift-wrapped it, and maybe delivered it via a chimney?
posted by treepour at 7:14 PM on December 27, 2007

The smart stuff will always be enmoroned by the comments. It could be an exquisite documentary on the genius of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the first comment will always read WHO CARZ FOR THIS STUPID GUY HA HA DUMB!
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:28 PM on December 27, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Great - does that mean that we'll be able to watch Yanni, Suze Orman and Andre Rieu on the PBS channel??? Please.
posted by Jazznoisehere at 7:32 PM on December 27, 2007

I haven't been this excited since quite unimportant posted the Google Video of Berkeley's Physics for Future Presidents class. Man, the hours I spent watching those lectures. Thanks, Soup! Who needs primetime TV when you've got all this cools stuff to watch? Beware striking writers.
posted by sdodd at 7:38 PM on December 27, 2007

TED talks are great--really marvelous, even the bad ones.
posted by etaoin at 7:54 PM on December 27, 2007

A shout out! *swells with pride*
posted by quite unimportant at 9:35 PM on December 27, 2007

*Whew* My girlfriend bought me Planet Earth on DVD for Christmas. Glad to see it isn't in the lineup of BBC Worldwide videos.
posted by robtf3 at 11:01 PM on December 27, 2007

Funny to see the snarky snarks offer up their attempts at humor rather than links to alternative media... when was the last time you saw anything on commercial television or cable that match the links above for real value? (pbs and cspan excluded) ... the state of commercial media in amerika is ... well lets face it ... beyond pathetic. and yet we all watch FCC hearing come and go and are happy with john stewart etc....
posted by specialk420 at 11:01 PM on December 27, 2007

YAYY Soup, great find, thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 12:16 AM on December 28, 2007

Here's, uh, Steve Sawin rapping about the Poincare conjecture.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:00 AM on December 28, 2007

Open Culture's "10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube" features "intellectually redeemable" channels from UC Berkeley, @GoogleTalks, TheNobelPrize, TED Talks, FORA.tv, the European Graduate School, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, BBC Worldwide, National Geographic, PBS, UChannel, MIT, Vanderbilt, and USC.

Meh. I'd trade them all for a single Alexyss K. Tylor.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:22 AM on December 28, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

This is an absolute Godsend. YT posts or not, this is what MF is for! Thanks!
posted by fcummins at 3:35 AM on December 28, 2007

when was the last time you saw anything on commercial television or cable that match the links above for real value?

The "real value" of most commercial TV to people in "amerika" is that it's something to help them forget the drudgery of their workaday lives.
posted by smackfu at 6:58 AM on December 28, 2007

I often click on links to TED Talks, but I've never made it past the opening of one.

"Once a year 1000 remarkable people gather in Monterey, California to exchange something of incalculable value: Their ideas. What happens there has never been shared... until now."

The absolute hubris of this statement causes me to click away every time.
posted by rlk at 8:36 AM on December 28, 2007

The absolute hubris of this statement causes me to click away every time.

If only there was a way to fast forward through videos…
posted by schwa at 12:49 PM on December 30, 2007