"How's everyone doing?"

[valvatica]

"..... good, well FUCK YOU!" 

I love that George Carlin line. I'm new here and want to introduce myself (I also have a channel on YouTube by the same name) briefly. As my channel says, I'm here to learn what I can.

I'm an atheist, and I've been lurking on a lot of the goings-on in the YouTube community, as well as the recent MasterGhostKnight/LoR quarrel, and even here at the Bogosity forums to get a taste for what it's about. My primary motivation for finally registering here is from Shane's points in a few of his videos about intelligent people and skeptics "turning it all off and becoming dogmatists in the political arena." Myself, I can't pin down my political affiliation yet because there's a lot I don't know and can't comment about. I officially rank right between Liberal and Libertarian on that smallest political quiz, the last time I took it. Political affiliation is something I've bounced around between for quite some time, my first taste of it in high school being a naive teenager and adoring nuts like Savage, Hannity (not so much Rush...) etc. I was never religious or used God for arguments, I merely identified with them for stupid miscellaneous reasons. Though I hated how there was such a following of religious people. I would find myself grinding my teeth while dumbass callers, forum posters and such would spout their religious bullshit as rationale for their viewpoints, instead of making convincing arguments as to why they supported those viewpoints. Needless to say, I grew out of that.

Later on I grew more liberal, while still questioning things on both sides of the aisle. I knew what Libertarianism was even then, but I knew about people like Boortz (don't know this forum's opinion of him) and how it seemed like the Libertarian party was infested with turncoat Republicans, so I just kept away from it. Later on than that, I joined YouTube and learned all I could about science, evolution, creationism/ID etc. I saw how just about all the "sane" science/evolution people were de facto liberals but it didn't phase me as being strange in any way. Eventually I realized I was atheist (I kinda was all along, but I never really substantiated it until recently). Then recently, I found Shane's videos, and was surprised that I found someone who packed the same punch and impatience for stupid religious and creationist bullshit as Thunderf00t et al, yet was libertarian. I watched all the videos by Shane eventually and started to question in my head a lot of the non-science content of the big YouTubers' videos (the political stuff). Mind you, I haven't dared comment on any political points on the science YouTubers' videos, a) because I don't know enough and b) because it's futile.

So here I am, eager to learn. I will ask questions and contribute where I can, but I realize my own ignorance and wish to do what I can to improve it. I don't want to be a dogmatist in the political arena, and it's real easy to be when assholes like HowTheWorldWorks ruin it for me in terms of letting my frustration over most of his viewpoints get the better of me by remaining completely liberal. It's funny, because his subscriber base is filled with people who adore him simply because they're fundamentalist Christians and Creationist nuts. He makes an explicit effort not to talk about social or scientific matters, which I see as a type of dishonesty because it's obvious his goal is money (YT partnership) and bigger subscriber base. I don't know what he identifies as politically (just conservative, or Libertarian?), but he knows that if he took the shanedk approach and was open about his views on abortion, homosexuality, creationism etc. he wouldn't have the kinds of subscribers he has now, most of whom are mainly subscribed to him because of their belief that he is what he isn't. For all I know most of his viewpoints are the same as shanedk, yet Shane is willing to be open about what he accepts and believes. At least when religious nuts and creationists hate Shane, they can hate him for what he is. With HTWW, that's not the case. Anyway that's too much about HTWW already but I hope it's clear the points I'm trying to make.

I look forward to getting the most out of this forum Don't take what I say as a definitive stance on my part (especially any political views); I want to learn what I can.

[MrBogosity]

Welcome to the forum!

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Haven't seen much from HTWW that I really disliked personally.

Welcome to the forums anyway.