What's Interesting on the (Video) Internet this Week
What's Interesting on the (Video) Internet this Week
The fall of Kabul, two years on
What is this?
Every week we’ll bring you videos from around the internet that we find interesting. These selections - as one might note on the platform formerly known as Twitter - are not necessarily endorsement, but rather items we find noteworthy for one reason or another. They’ll (usually) fall into a few categories: politics, culture, tech, war, and finance.
Politics
The Wall Street Journal breaks down the four criminal indictments against Donald Trump. Politico also has an excellent summary, here. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/@wsj, Politico)
Polling website FiveThirtyEight on the “kinda arbitrary” criteria established by the Republican National Committee for the Republican debates. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/@fivethirtyeight)
Culture
The evolution of the protest anthem, from Woody Guthrie (an actual antifascist) to Oliver Anthony (“a smash hit among conservatives,” according to Variety). Haven’t heard of him? Well, his latest song had over 20 million views and north of 90,000 comments in nine days. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/@radiowv)
How Modelo ended Bud Light’s 22 year run at the top. CNBC has a very practical take. But a quick scan of the 3,000 comments on the story seem to sum up as: People tried other beers in protest and realized that Bud Light actually tastes terrible. We don’t endorse or oppose beers at Civil, but the latter part of this assessment is just fact. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/@CNBC)
War
Remember Snake Island in the Black Sea? This was where Ukrainian soldiers told a Russian warship - the Moskva - to “Go f*ck yourself” on the first day of the war. Shortly after, the Moskva bombarded and captured the island. A few weeks after that, the ship was sunk by Ukrainian forces. This is how. (Source: The Economist)
Two years ago this week was the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan. Today, the plight of women in the city is “unbelievably terrible.” For those of us who still have text messages* from Afghans long since killed by the Taliban, we know the situation is yet far worse outside the capital. (Source: Fox News, CBC News, The New York Times)
*This is an older video, but well worth the time if you missed it.
Also on Afghanistan: If you missed the PBS Frontline Series released earlier this year - America and the Taliban - it is exceptional.
Science and Tech
A story in the Washington Post this week reports that researchers have found ChatGPT has a “significant and systematic political bias toward the Democrats in the U.S." Here, lead author Dr. Fabio Motoki discusses the study with the UK based Times Radio. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/@ListenToTimesRadio)
Emily Chang with Bloomberg Originals sits down with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to discuss the future of AI. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/@business)
Editors Choice
Watching pirated Barbie in Siberia, courtesy of Radio Free Europe. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/@rfe-rl)
Clickbait, YouTube, and Strange Applications of the Magnus Effect (or, why Basketball Dropped from Dam got more clicks).
This isn’t a video, but well it’s worth including on this anniversary of the fall of Afghanistan: Malcolm Gladwell explores the case of a reformed terrorist and how he was ultimately betrayed.
See you next week.