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Planet of the Humans (2 Viewers)

elkcub

elkcub

Silicon Valley, California
United States
Although Michael Moore's new documentary Planet of the Humans** came out in late 2019, and is now readily available on YouTube, I can't find any BF discussion about it.

So far, all of the criticisms I've seen on-line skirt around what he's pointing out from a Conservation perspective: i.e., a massive sacrifice of the natural environment for questionable ends. The rejoinder that "...technology is improving" — is just kicking the garbage can down the road.

Your thoughts?

Ed

** pls scroll back the video to the beginning.
 
Okay, Planet of the Humans was censored by U-Tube.

Let's try this website HERE.

No one has anything to say so far? Remarkable. :smoke:

Ed
 
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I haven't watched the video so I can't comment about the content. The fact that some people want it taken down suggests that there must be some truth in the criticism of the renewable energy systems.
The really sad bit is that some people want to stop something that they disagree with, instead of allowing freedom of speech etc. The comments against the film that I have seen are very non-specific, such as "the film uses outdated information". I haven't seen a point by point rebuttal in a measured manner. But I might have missed it!
 
gerald762 said:
I haven't watched the video so I can't comment about the content. The fact that some people want it taken down suggests that there must be some truth in the criticism of the renewable energy systems.
The really sad bit is that some people want to stop something that they disagree with, instead of allowing freedom of speech etc. The comments against the film that I have seen are very non-specific, such as "the film uses outdated information". I haven't seen a point by point rebuttal in a measured manner. But I might have missed it!
Click to expand...

I haven't seen it yet either, but please do note the reason that youtube took it down was copyright, not content.

I don't think you can call it censorship when the people who own the rights to the film they produced ask for it to be removed, presumably because folks who didn't own the rights posted the contents illegally.
 
I posted a link to the full movie on #2. Can everyone access it? (Also, make sure to scroll down to FILMMAKER'S RESPONSES.)

Having seen the movie on U-Tube I wasn't a bit surprised that some means would be found to take it down. It's blatant censorship covered with a fig leaf. See HERE. The funny thing to me is that the movie doesn't address global warming per se, but the climate scientists are going ape shit nonetheless. Moore himself remains a fervent AGW believer. The movie addresses his concerns about green energy policy and its environmental effects.

Ed
 
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elkcub said:
I posted a link to the full movie on #2. Can everyone access it? (Also, make sure to scroll down to FILMMAKER'S RESPONSES.)

Having seen the movie on U-Tube I wasn't a bit surprised that some means would be found to take it down. It's blatant censorship covered with a fig leaf. See HERE. The funny thing to me is that the movie doesn't address global warming per se, but the climate scientists are going ape shit nonetheless. Moore himself remains a fervent AGW believer. The movie addresses his concerns about green energy policy and its environmental effects.

Ed
Click to expand...

As someone who spends far far far too much time on youtube, there is nothing nefarious about this. Youtube is incredibly copyright shy...I can't tell you how often I have seen various folks from different channels (especially movie related channels) get videos pulled and demonetized thanks to 30 seconds of music from somewhere else, or a brief clip from a TV show, or whatever. It's random and annoying, and the site is generally speaking so litigation shy that they tend to remove first and ask questions later. Even if the video is being used for fair use purposes or was actually posted by the copyright owners!
 
One of the problems with the film is its inaccuracy: a lot of the nitty-gritty data is just plain out of date. For example it states that the pay back period of PV solar is 25 years, in 2020 it is about 18 months.

A bigger problem with it is the "my enemies enemy is my friend" fallacy. The thesis of the film is that "green" technology and alternative energy in particular are not the solution to climate change, the solution is to reduce economic demand and to reduce the human population that causes that demand. An arguable point that has more in common with the Extinction Rebellion side of the green camp than it does with the mainstream ecoists.

However rather than lead with the "less consumption is better that alternative consumption" line the filmmakers have lead with the "alternative consumption is just as bad, if not worse than, traditional consumption" position. And in order to push that argument they have got into bed with the other purveyor of the alternative energy bad argument, namely the IC vehicle lobby, the oil companies and even the climate change deniers. The filmmakers have then uncritically taken partisan "evidence" from these lobbies and seemingly gone to zero effort to challenge the veracity of these arguments.

The conclusion of all this is a rather sorry state of affairs where the filmmakers intended agenda of anti-consumption and anti-capitalism has produced a film that is being promoted by anti-green conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers.

{The copyright claim is for a few seconds use of a still photograph, it will either get dismissed as de minimis or they will just edit it out.}
 
Calling anything produced by Moore a "documentary" is an ugly insult to all people who make actual documentaries. He doesn't care about facts in the slightest, he chooses an agenda that resonates with people that find reality boring or inconvenient and then makes money off the "controversy".

Implying that YouTube "wanted" it down is equally outrageous, it's a server that hosts literally millions of conspiracy videos and all they care about is views generating money. Copyright takedowns occur on an unimaginably large scale every day, this one just happened to hit something conspiracy nuts care about.
 
opisska said:
Implying that YouTube "wanted" it down is equally outrageous, it's a server that hosts literally millions of conspiracy videos and all they care about is views generating money. Copyright takedowns occur on an unimaginably large scale every day, this one just happened to hit something conspiracy nuts care about.
Click to expand...

That is demonstrably untrue. YouTube is notoriously censorious and has removed or buried a great deal of material from popular content creators following politically-motivated complaints that have nothing to do with copyright. YouTube also shadow-bans videos and rigs the algorithms to favour certain political views or commercial interests over others, and routinely demonetises videos from certain creators that have "problematic" political views. This is literally the number one concern of most of the bigger YouTube content creators right now, and the reason most are diversifying onto alternative platforms.

For example, YouTube routinely takes down videos covering anything to do with Covid-19 if it challenges the orthodoxy, including videos made by hospital doctors treating Covid patients.
 
opisska said:
Calling anything produced by Moore a "documentary" is an ugly insult to all people who make actual documentaries. He doesn't care about facts in the slightest, he chooses an agenda that resonates with people that find reality boring or inconvenient and then makes money off the "controversy".
...
Click to expand...

From the Internet concerning a documentary:
Its purpose is to make you aware and actively participate in a society that can make [or] shape the future of this world. Other purposes of a documentary film are to inform, attack a perspective, to persuade, educate, entertain, defend a perspective, to critique, and to observe real life.
Click to expand...

Within this framework the film is unquestionably spot on. So, rather than attacking the man, why not address the contents of the film?

Ed
 
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elkcub said:
From the Internet concerning a documentary:


In all these regards the film is unquestionably spot on. So, rather than attacking the man, why not address the contents of the film?

Ed
Click to expand...

That would require me to watch it. Why would I give Moore such a deep benefit of a doubt after his previous work? Also, your quote backed by the authoritative source of "the internet" uses a definition that is by no means typical. Compare with wikipedia

"... document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record".

Which is a stark difference. And that's the problem - I want my documentaries to reflect reality, not to push a viewpoint. That later thing is what I call propaganda.

Anyway, this is getting really weird. Why is this forum, which is spawned by the common interest in something as innocent as birds, becoming such a hub of people with, to put it mildly, "alternative" thinking?

I don't know, maybe youtube is actually actively suppressing conspiracy theories. I can imagine that it could be before otherwise every normal person would stop visiting the site, because that's roughly my feeling from BF in the last few weeks. It is just plainly unpleasant to be present in an environment where lunacy is the norm.
 
Mono said:
One of the problems with the film is its inaccuracy: a lot of the nitty-gritty data is just plain out of date. For example it states that the pay back period of PV solar is 25 years, in 2020 it is about 18 months.

A bigger problem with it is the "my enemies enemy is my friend" fallacy. The thesis of the film is that "green" technology and alternative energy in particular are not the solution to climate change, the solution is to reduce economic demand and to reduce the human population that causes that demand. An arguable point that has more in common with the Extinction Rebellion side of the green camp than it does with the mainstream ecoists.

However rather than lead with the "less consumption is better that alternative consumption" line the filmmakers have lead with the "alternative consumption is just as bad, if not worse than, traditional consumption" position. And in order to push that argument they have got into bed with the other purveyor of the alternative energy bad argument, namely the IC vehicle lobby, the oil companies and even the climate change deniers. The filmmakers have then uncritically taken partisan "evidence" from these lobbies and seemingly gone to zero effort to challenge the veracity of these arguments.

The conclusion of all this is a rather sorry state of affairs where the filmmakers intended agenda of anti-consumption and anti-capitalism has produced a film that is being promoted by anti-green conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers.

{The copyright claim is for a few seconds use of a still photograph, it will either get dismissed as de minimis or they will just edit it out.}
Click to expand...

Mono,

Would you mind expanding on the first paragraph, in particular "... the pay back period of PV solar ... in 2020 ... is about 18 months." Having recently installed two home PV solar systems I can assure you that the payback period is nowhere near 18 months, it's more like 7-8 years. Also, could you point out where that statement is made in the film? It's a long film.

Thanks,
Ed
 
DMW said:
That is demonstrably untrue. YouTube is notoriously censorious and has removed or buried a great deal of material from popular content creators following politically-motivated complaints that have nothing to do with copyright. YouTube also shadow-bans videos and rigs the algorithms to favour certain political views or commercial interests over others, and routinely demonetises videos from certain creators that have "problematic" political views. This is literally the number one concern of most of the bigger YouTube content creators right now, and the reason most are diversifying onto alternative platforms.

For example, YouTube routinely takes down videos covering anything to do with Covid-19 if it challenges the orthodoxy, including videos made by hospital doctors treating Covid patients.
Click to expand...

Moderation is performed by low level functionaries, it's not carried out by the folks higher up, other than the occasional high profile story that gets media attention (see Alex Jones). I am always skeptical about claims about people complaining about censorship of social media for political aims. Often a bit of digging is all it needs to show that whatever led to the ban was often justified for various reasons. Just because you think what you said was appropriate, logical, or accurate, doesn't mean it actually is.
 
I just watched it, and I thought it was pretty well done.

It was removed from YouTube due to a copyright strike on four seconds of footage by someone opposed to the message of the film. Al Gore perhaps? When Richard Branson was asked if he considered Gore a prophet, he responded "uh, how do you spell prophet/profit?". See the exchange here.

I think it's a good thing to look at the actions of these environmentalist groups and individuals with a critical eye. Unless you prefer to be lied to, so that you can feel good about green energy.
 
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