Suspicious0bservers is a Pseudoscientific Doomsday Cult
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- čas přidán 22. 12. 2020
- Of all the characters propagating space-related scams on the internet, by far the most damaging is Ben Davidson and his channel Suspicious0bservers. Beyond his status as a lawyer-turned-grifter selling apocalypse-flavored pseudoscience for cash, he regularly charges up and mobilizes a cult-like group of drones who are easily swayed by his confident word salads, and take his ramblings as ultimate truth without exercising any independent thought. Despite zero training, Ben and his "observers" consider themselves on the cutting edge of half a dozen fields, which of course culminate in doom coming from the sky in 2046, because science. It is genuinely not much of a stretch to call Ben a cult leader, and cults are bad, so I decided to expose this one top to bottom. From the daily barrage of lies on CZcams to the inner workings of his Kickstarter scams, let's see exactly what Ben is, shall we?
Research and writing assistance for portions of this video provided by David Hyde. For similar content check out: realitychallengedblog.wordpre...
December 9th Paper: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/...
December 12th Paper 1: arxiv.org/pdf/2012.05252.pdf
December 12th Paper 2: arxiv.org/pdf/2012.04889.pdf
December 7th Paper: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.c...
December 6th Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s4155...
My first video about Ben: • Response to Ben Davidson
Watch my other debunks: bit.ly/ProfDaveDebunk
EMAIL► ProfessorDaveExplains@gmail.com
PATREON► / professordaveexplains
Check out "Is This Wi-Fi Organic?", my book on disarming pseudoscience!
Amazon: amzn.to/2HtNpVH
Bookshop: bit.ly/39cKADM
Barnes and Noble: bit.ly/3pUjmrn
Book Depository: bit.ly/3aOVDlT
I am the second author of the paper you talked about at 7:10. When this was brought to my attention, I was shocked. We scientists tend to ignore all the pseudoscience stuff, but maybe we should pay more attention in the future. We work so hard to educate the public, but these conspiracy pseudoscientists are undoing our work. Thank you, Professor Dave, for taking your time to debunk the conspiracy theories. And just in case there is any confusion, our paper is about clouds in the interstellar medium, and has nothing to do with any of the doomsday BS.
Yup--ignoring it is a good idea in theory (it takes valuable time + effort), but Benny and others do real damage. Damage control is needed; ignoring it causes a lack of damage control.
Yeah, we're probably going to have to pay more attention to this kind of garbage in the future.
There's no way government will do anything about it, so it is up to us to fight it.
Yet another thing researchers will have to do that gets them nothing in return. (And I thought reviewing was bad. 😃)
Good for you! You were sorely used.
You really hate to see it. This kind of thing ruins a reputation. Paper is a fascinating read by the way! It covers a very interesting topic even if I don't understand half of what's in there. :)
Just keep in mind, Dave is not a real professor.
I fell for his schtick for 5 years... I turned my brain off for 5 years because his rhetoric sounded good. Thank you for this video, Dave. I dropped his channel immediately and started to get back into my love of weather and climate with legit sources.
Congrats!
This is the point.
I watched his stuff for a bit in 2019. I struggle with staying interested in stuff. So I stopped watching them after a couple months. But I always remember wondering to myself while watching them thinking "I should read these papers he's flashing the titles of myself". I never did. If any of us had just read a couple of those we would have realized sooner rather than later. Watchyagunnado.
@@Shkronkle People do read them and point out the lies. They get blocked. The blocking of dissent has always been the key to maintaining his group of key supporters.
@@penguinuprighter6231 Well put.
I subscribed to Ben’s channel and found it interesting. As for being a minion or a dooms day prepper…no. I live in the PNW where a 9.0 earthquake is “past due” according to “scientists”. This quake will destroy everything west of Interstate 5 and take out the infrastructure for Washington, Oregon and Northern California according to “scientists”. A friend assigned to FEMA told me it would take at least three months for them to establish any kind of rescue after that happened since it would take out the ports, passes, rails and roads. I asked about the construction battalion at Ft. Lewis. He told me “All their equipment is overseas, they just have the broken stuff there.”
I have read the congressional report on what an EMP or CME would do to our grid which states a prediction of a 90% fatality rate in one year. Given the current administration’s actions which seem to be increasing the risk of the EMP possibility why wouldn’t one try to prepare for all of the above?
Look, Ben just might be a narcissistic whack job. I agree that people shouldn’t belong to a cult but as the saying goes “Even a broken clock is correct twice a day”. Auroras are being observed at lower latitudes and there is a history of the earth’s magnetic poles shifting in the past. When it will happen again? Who knows? But big earthquakes and CME’s (or God forbid a EMP) will happen and the government isn’t going to save you. As for the chem trails? There are discussions on messing with the atmosphere to cool things down. Why? When a volcano goes off and dumps trillions of tons of things like carbon and water into the atmosphere does man actually think we can change things? Is bro g told what to do by a teenage Dutch girl any diff than what Ben is doing? Look at all the “minions” that believe her. How about all the politicians that tax the shit out of us over “Climate change” only to skim funds off like Al Gore did when he started the Carbon Credit scheme in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange?
Bottom line is people are easily controlled by fear and always have been. Red Pilled, Blue Pilled or Black Pilled, everyone wants a new drug and no one has a patent on bullshit. Be it pseudo scientist or politicians people are going to fall for something and as Lincoln said “It’s a lot easier to fool someone than it is to convince them they have been fooled.”
Thanks for your video, I will be more skeptical of what “scientists” (real or pretend ones) present in the future.
I have to go and call my son who recommended your video to me and thank him. It shows I did a good job raising him and for that I am proud.
Criminally underrated comment
This needs more likes.
@@RealDonatus Way more, yes.
I just subscribed to Ben on Sunday and took the bait hook, line and sinker. Finally today I came up for air and decided to look for some of his critics. Thankful to have found this. I was in a very dark headspace for the majority of the week until now.
This is accurate. Both sides are way to sure of themselves and yet claim the other is narcissistic and deluded. I am very distrustful of certain segments of mainstream science when they too closely align themselves with political, governmental, and corporate interests. I am very distrustful of fringe science that makes bewildering claims which strain credulity and come completely out of left field, and claims decades of established science is fundamentally incorrect. These are not mutually exclusive positions.
Not even in my 30's yet but lived though atleast a dozen of these predicted "end times". Can't wait for the day when I tell my kids their dad was tough enough to survive 20 apocalypses.
Lol
"Walked through a worldwide pandemic to get to school..." -me, later
@@will3971 and except for uphill both ways in the snow it’ll be uphill in the snow in the morning and uphill in blistering heat on the way home… in a pandemic… right after an apocalypse… in July
@@Fetidaf
*Starts speaking broken english with Asian accent*
"Look at your uncle Timmy, he walk through worlwide pan-demic, uphill both ways, snow in da mornin', heatwave in da evening. And then look at you,... what a F- FF- FAILURE!"
*Limboes under a passing can of Beijing Corn*
(I hope you'll get it)
😂
Wow, a lawyer who twists the truth to suit his own ends. Who'd've thunk it.
Whomst'd've'ly'yaint'nt'ed'ies's'y'es'nt'ed'ies's'y'es'nt't're'ing'able'ric'ive'al'nt'ne'm'll'ble'al thunk it?
@@theoneandonlyhooda If you find my use of multiple apostrophes to be unpalatable, I suggest you avoid use of the word "forecastle". 😃
@No Drama Lama Yeah, it takes all kinds, I guess. But of course the bad ones are the easiest to remember.
@@groaningmole4338 I never said that it's unpalatable, but the meme came into mind when you used multiple apostrophes so I decided to post it here.
@@theoneandonlyhooda Oh, okay. Cheers.
I have been following him for so long, and this video helped a lot. You donno how it feels to watch someone daily, think about the things he say all the time, literally just like a cult, and the relief that you feel when someone takes you out and shows you the way. Thank you.
I think you should also give yourself credit for being intellectually honest. Seriously, you deserve it.
@@godless-clump-of-cells Thanks man, i believe thats the key to progress, im happy i never donated him stuff, i was just listening his videos
Congrats on getting out, it takes courage!
@@San_Vito no offense but getting out of religions and politics are harder and important imo, i am glad i did that both too
@@coltonsffalenn1061 he attempted to monetize a disaster prediction system which was unsurprisingly ineffective because the model he used is based on a false paper, which he refuses to get peer reviewed
Update:
It looks like Ben's little empire is imploding and he's looking for ways to keep the corpse alive by making some big changes.
He put out a video on June 1st 'The Coming Changes to Suspicious Observers'. Here are some of the "Changes":
Starting his own Trailer Park for his 'observers' to meet, rent campers and do "science". It's going to be called 'Observer Ranch, probably because his acolytes can watch each other getting fleeced, that's if any are dumb enough to go there.
Getting rid of the App because:
1. It doesn't make money!
2. The 'Developer' is unresponsive and unwilling to continue working on it as:
(a) The App is so specialized it requires adjustments for every new model of phone that comes on the market.
(b) The App is so specialized that it's like having a hundred Apps that all require monitoring and updating.
3. He hates the App.
4. The App wasn't something he wanted to do in the first place and he blames Onio Saiyan for making him do it, then for leaving him all the work to do and going back to Thailand.
5. He's looking to offload the App and from the sound of it and looking for a sucker to buy it.
The SusObs.org website is going away along with his minion's subscriptions to it.
His Amazon store is also going bye-bye on June 15th. Dismal or no sales.
The last 10 minutes are a rambling monologue referencing his phantom 'Peer-reviewed' papers. Some babel about Neptune and Pluto, Earth magnetic Excursion, solar micronova, and a general rant about how the Universe is going to get you.
He also goes into full David Miscavage and David Koresh mode about surrounding yourself with like-minded lemmings who truly understand you.
Pass the cool-aid, please!
Interesting. Thanks!
Thought he didn't take any days off tho?
@@realitychallenged4488 I guess all those nights without sleep and all those "friends" and Hobbies" he had are finally catching up to him.
Surprises me he's shutting down his website though. Not that surprised about the "Scientology, but with the sun" nonsense though. Ben's channel very much comes off like a low-rent version of Hubbard's church of batshittery. Observer Ranch is old news though, still not at all surprised he's going through with that., was more wondering when we'd get another update of that Jonestown Jr. encampment
@@PM-si3yj the updates of that RV Observer Ranch, unfortunately, will come in the form of police reports that'll likely never get reported on beyond the local news level. Have been saying for years that Ben Davidson is a murder-suicide waiting to happen. His "website" was bogus nonsense that didn't even have a search function built into it. Just another way to overcharge the elderly and tech illiterate for a monthly subscription fee to pay for his dismal lifestyle.
Wonder if the laced Flavor-Aid will be free.
Imagine rolling a die, predicting you're about to roll a 6, and screaming "I WAS RIGHT, I WAS RIGHT!!!!!" at the top of your lungs when you do after 9 attempts.
hey, don't do DnD dirty like that!
/j
welcome to Las Vegas
Nah its more like saying you're going to roll a seven then carving a seventh dot into the six face after screaming at the six sided die and threatening its safety and well being for an hour.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
@@BoxPossum96
_Bruh_
You're not wrong, though, lol.
“Suing people is how lawyers do science” has to be one of the greatest quotes of all times, well done sir!
Right after “Your app will save lives, right, it saved your family from starvation”. 😅🤣
Really prescient now given the mifepristone debacle.
This guy is "My dad is a DELTA force operator! I can have his elite team dispatched anywhere in the WORLD in less than 24 hours!!!" tier. My god
Media literacy should be a required subject in all schools
Manufacturing consent being a good intro
Idk how it is where you're from, but I had "Psychology and Logic" as a mandatory subject. Idk if it helps though since I see tons of people falling for this kind of thing.
@@boianko tnmrr. .. r
R. .
@PhantomStranger Bulgaria. I was lucky though, most times these classes get ignored and teachers for them don't give a shit. The one I had was very strict and diligent.
My English class this year was basically that. Teacher didn't want to spend our last year before going out into the world focusing on grammar, so we focused on research and critical thinking and making an argument, along with the rhetorical situation
I watched a couple Suspicious Observers videos and was intrigued, but then Ben came on and showed his face -- and I immediately distrusted him. Something about his eyes. I may not know all there is to know about science, but I DO know people. So I started researching and found what you outlined: He cites papers but the papers often don't say what he claims. Further research then led me here. Well done, thanks.
I agree, and his n az! Politics are pretty scary. I still believe a lot of what he say though, you can clearly see where the ocean covered Africa from the west coast
Same, definitely something about his eyes that immediately put me off, but i still occasionally watched a video here and there. Then the q/a videos started and his narcisism began to show. Seen this a couple of times before.
@@karlopopovic810all large yt are narcissists so not surprised
I guess that why people have amulet from people giving you a evil eye
phrenology is not a pseudo science ;)
Glad I found your channel before I fell down the rabbit hole too far. Thank you.
Lesson learned.
Honestly makes me happy to see so many people who was helped by Dave! It shows you that most people aren’t cult like but mostly just mislead by someone who is good at pretending to be smart
Comments like these give me some hope for the future
People kept suggesting him and I looked. Wasn't impressed. Something seemed off but I couldn't put my finger on it so I just left. I forgot he existed. He got recommended the other day (by Y. T. ) so I clicked. Thought well maybe I should actually watch and actually do my homework instead of blindly dismissing it like most people would. So I did. Between the blatant BS, his absolute *DOGSHT* attitude, something about his eyes/the look on his face...it all screams, "Danger, Will Robinson!" Some of it seems legit buuuuut idk man...
What really confuses me are all the Bible-thumping followers who don't take issue with 12K or longer cycles, Neanderthals, etc. Most every Christian I've ever met says 6K years. End of story. Most***
My favorite thing about your videos is that the more severe someone threatens you, the more you mock them 😂
And rightfully so
Same! Despite being an education based channel, he is phenomenal at debunking.
@@pyrophantom5150 Debunking is educating.
@@lakeparkhotelresortpograde7982 You created your account less than a week ago and are already using it already for this?
@@San_Vito might be a bot specifically for this video
You are wrong. You said none of his minions would even listen to your video…. I was one of them. Subscribed back in 2011 and I have been following since. WAS. All I can say is THANK YOU!! I was sucked into his bull like he says the sun is going to suck the life out of most of us. This video is over a year old and I would love to hear an update video from you in what has happened since then. My husband was a surgeon and a smart man. He was easily turned by Ben, which is sad because he went in a prepping spree… spent all of our retirement setting up our home and lives to survive the doomsday predictions then took his life. People like Ben can be very dangerous to even learned men and women. He talks so fast, and since none of us are physicists and can even follow what he is saying, we buy in. THANK YOU for slowing his speak down and explaining it. Sad… so very sad. You HAVE turned a minion away. I suspect I’m not the only one.
This is important. Peddling these lies created a situation in which entire lives were ruined and ended. This is the real harm that can and does result from these cults.
So sorry about your husband. Doomsday cults are dangerous. I know someone who almost quit his job due to a doomsday prophecy.
wow, this might be the most important message in the comment sections.
just.. wow.
I cannot believe any well-educated individuals with multiple academic quals could be sucked into all of this, it's insane. None of Ben's BS stands up to the lightest scrutiny. Its, just people being incredibly lazy and probably underneath it all has a deep-seated fear of big government, corporations, state sponsored institutions etc. People buy into the big lie that everyone and everything is controlled by some singular entity like the federal government, the truth is most people in a western, democratic, capitalistic society has more freedom than they know what to do with.
Imagine living in a Marxist-Leninist so-called socialist haven? You are restricted in a big way, your rights are restricted, but you're still not completely controlled by the state, have to go to North Korea I would say for that.
This is awesome! Thank you for sharing!
This isn't the only wacky "theory" out there claiming that the Sun is going to blow up soon. Two things that do interest me though are the weakening magnetic field and coronal mass ejections. The magnetic field has weakened by 10% in the last century and a half, and this weakening is accelerating. I am curious about your thoughts on a scenario where a powerful flare/CME (similar in strength to the Carrington Event) hits Earth while it has a weakened magnetic field
I agree @@user-ck1nh5hr7x if u watch his video he's just saying that a reversal may be coming backed. To what he uses on actual satellite and forecast centers. I believe he means well is just being slandered
Right now most nations and electric grids are kinda just gambling that it wont be an issue. There have been slow movements towards solar storm resilience, but it's glacial. Problem is that there isn't a lot of money in "1 in 1 million disaster" proofing your entire electric grid. Now there is a lot of debate to be had in whether or not that's a good attitude, but it is the reality of it right now.
There is a fair bit of dissent among opinions as to what would happen. We do have early warning mechanisms. We have a few minutes warning (and potentially seconds/milliseconds via satellites) and theoretically could cut the grid as best as possible. There are [rather bad] movies about this scenario lol, where the workers wanna cut the grid but the big evil government ceo bossman won't let them because he doesn't believe it or some garbage lol. I'm aware of at least two.
Anyway reality is often boring. I suspect that a few grids will successfully cut off or power down in time, while many (possibly even most) will suffer catastrophic damage. Even if powered down, the transmission lines will act like giant antennae. It's more a question of how long it will take to rebuild and how people will fare in the meantime.
That's just my own guess and opinion though. Perhaps a century or two in the future the electric grids will be sufficiently protected/prepared that the most likely boring scenario would be as if a tropical storm hit the entire country at once. Ie, bad, but not particularly debilitating in the long run. Who knows. It's all conjecture.
There is a body of literature out there about this stuff. Just be careful, a lot of it is also doomsday onboarding rather than actual scientific curiosity.
Are you enjoying watching auroras? Seems there have been a multitude of problems with power outages, phone and gaming. Wake up.. czcams.com/video/6p_39-m8K3M/video.html
@@nexaentertainment2764 - but it's not a 1 in 1 million event potential... We had the Carrington event and telegraph lines lit on fire even with a stronger magnetic field back then.
Look, now we are seeing auroras in the south, so basically it's weakening so fast and a Carrington event is very likely to happen soon..
This is just a question I've wondered after seeing so many of your videos, Dave:
How do you have the mental endurance to deal with all of this? Not only debunking a new cult leader every month, but responding to comments on tens of videos every single day. I am just shocked and impressed that you can mentally withstand all this.
I would probably implode from stress or something else just because of how much there is and how idiotic they all are.
Regardless, thank you for doing this. I don't know many people with your level of stamina to be able to do this day after day for years and that is definitely to be commended. Amazing job, and I hope your career only prospers further.
It is indeed irritating but it is much more invigorating!
@@ProfessorDaveExplains that's interesting, I never thought of it like that. I guess bringing people over to the right way of thinking would be pretty enlighting, huh?
@@ProfessorDaveExplains I would like your reply but i never add a like to a comment with 69 likes
@@ProfessorDaveExplains just doing my due diligence here.. a thread from HistoriesMysteries which i follow.. but.. ive learned to be cautious too of channels titling "Proffessor".. seems in your channel.. legit 👍 thanks for the enlightenment
My older brother peddeled this crap to me a few times, as I have no formal training in physics or any major science field I dismissed it. But I was born into a science family, my old man loved the science field, mainly astronomy and engineering ( probably what gives me my love of Architecture) and would always teach and show me different scientific breakthroughs made in these fields. Sometimes we step outside and watch satellites fly past, tracking them with star watching programs we had back in the 2000s.
So when my older brother tells me that my father, who has worked in a science institute for his whole life, doesn't understand science better than this one guy on the internet...
I'm a little skeptical.
And this channel, Suspicious Observers is a name I remember him showing me content from, way back to almost 4-5 years ago after I left high school. So it's been kicking around for quite some time, and not only in the US, we get this all the way down in Australia.
This shit not only makes people less educated by creating a false foundation of 'irrefutable' knowledge...
But it rips families apart.
It destroys relationships.
Decresses mental aptitude
And makes you a laughing stock to anyone who actually knows what they are talking about.
You hear stories about this shit. It happened to my family...
My old man doesn't talk about it, but I know. My older brother gave him about 3-4 full length pages of wacked conspiracy theorist crap, listing off almost every single one you could think of. Solar flares creating earthquakes, Jets spraying the sky with chem trails, secret oligarchs... ( he wasn't stupid enough for flat earth... I think...) just pages and pages of crap from the internet that he looked up while stoned out of his fucking mind.
My old man cried that night, something I've only ever seen him do once before when grandpa passed...
Like he had failed as a father.
Yeah, cults and conman suck ...
Very sad to read this. I know how you feel - I have many people in my family who’ve fallen for conspiracies and it absolutely warps their worldview. I’m truly sorry.
Sounds like my brother too. Hes into the alt right/conspiracy bubble deep.
:( That hurt to read. I'm sorry for your old man.
Solar weather does no cause earthquake however it is undetermined of its affects to the earth and underground charging or something like that. Idk
What I think is interesting is that he claims to work with NASA, while NASA is usually the go-to villain of conspiracies
Yep. All science is dumb and corrupt unless it brings him prestige by association, in which case it's amazing.
@@ProfessorDaveExplains
#sarcasm
What I find funnier is that Ben himself has called out both NASA and the NOAA for being "behind the times" yet still decides to use them as sources anyway. It astounds me the double standards the man is capable of.
@@PM-ey4si the best way to win is to use the enemies own biased sources against them because then they can't say "BUt That Is fAke ScIenCE". how are you this blind?
@@yes-vy6bn we can still say that you are the epitome of double standards. It isnt fake science, but it is misrepresented science, which is arguably just as worse as fake science. So in default, you are spreading lies for some personal or monetart gain.
Glad I found this after only wasting about 2 hours of my life listening to Ben. This has been eye opening, thank you.
"thank god that we were able to save you in time"
That's relieving to hear
😂😂😂
Just found this also, after watching for a few months and purchasing a $35 book that was 99 pages of reprinted charts. Wondered why he just used a last name. There's actually no info on him on Wiki anymore. Anyway, I'm glad I got away as well as I did, was actually thinking of moving or volunteering at the ranch. Now going to undo the damage I did to friends and family, telling them about this misinfo🤐
I orginally found your channel while trying to understand the concepts of general and organic chemistry. You are a gentleman and a scholar!
I have been doing geology at a professional level for years and only recenlty become "hip" to some of the science quacks on youtube - I've made efforts at combatting the disinformation, but here's one of my favorite science educators doing uncomfortable thing of bringing down a quack (with science) while enduring the heat of their followers. Thank you.
By the way, I recently came across the channel of Bryon Cook, Geologist. He presents odd features found out in the field and explains, step-by-step, how a geologist describes "what happened" using Geology, Physics, and Chemistry as the guideposts of his thinking. He doesn't say it, but he is also providing the scientific alternative the unscientific quacks. It is a labor of love, and most scientists are too busy to deal with the so-called "peanut gallery".
Thanks again, Dave!
Part of the problem is that the credibility of science has been ruined by a handful of political hacks in a handful of fields using the "scientist" label to push their personal activist agendas. I'm thinking mostly of the global warming alarmists ("New York will be underwater by the year 2000"), COVID cultists like Anthony Fauci (who throughout the pandemic constantly contradicted the actual scientists at the CDC), and the gender ideologues who say that biological sex is a "spectrum" and that sex has nothing to do with gender. There are other examples, but these are the most salient.
The lies of these hacks are obvious to anyone who is not completely brainwashed, and many people have taken their skepticism of these charlatans and applied it to science as a whole. NASA has been full of shit for the last 20 years when it comes to global warming, so they assume that NASA is full of shit on every thing.
If scientists want to regain the public trust, they need to collectively take a stand against these kinds of political hacks using the label "science." They need to be vocal, public, and loud in saying, "these people do not speak for all scientists."
Ive been following Ben and his videos for a few years now. Lately he's got me so spun up about the upcoming magnetic flip that i started to cruise amazon for things to prepare me for the "Big Event." After watching your video, i unsubscribed from his channel and subscribed to yours :). Thank you sir.
Yeah, a lot of people like to overexaggerate the actual dangers of the Magnetic Pole Flip. It doesn't help that Ben cribbed most of his theory from a biblical scholar who claims the world will end by it.
Props to you for understanding where you were misinformed and seeking an opportunity to learn. Many people just turn to denial in that situation.
@@grayson0916 Oh I knew from the offset I needed to keep my eye out on Ben, I got referred to him when I asked about the "Great Solar Flash" the 5D practitioners and Qanon followers claim will happen. Just like how Ben claims the end is near (even though anyone with half a brain will tell you that no one knows when the end will come).
@@PM-si3yj yeah I will say personally, the second someone talks about “the end” I stop listening immediately lol
@@grayson0916 I mean his most recent book is literally called "The Next End of the World". And that title alone reads like some Y2K/2012-inspired doomongering right there.
Well. Shit. I got caught up in that. Definitely my fault for never pulling those scientific papers to verify... Thanks for these videos.
Let Ben know you're out.
I agree with the above
Being able to get out of pseudoscience channels let alone cults is suprising, not a lot of people realize that they are believing absolute bogus
Happy to see that you're out of it. 👏
Good for you for recognizing you were caught in the web. All we can do is learn from it and try to prevent it happening again in the future. Good luck my friend.
This may be a long comment as I reacting as I watch!
Damn.. So I have been watching Suspicious Observers for over a year now. I do think that solar activity has the greatest impact on earth next to the moon due to its proximity. I'm about 2 minutes into your video, and the manner in which Davidson communicated with you via email is extremely immature and beyond uncalled for. It is one thing to speak immaturely such as in his "salt streams," which I view as humor more than anything. It is another to communicate directly with an individual that way. I fully acknowledge that I am prone to cults because I was raised in one (Pentecostal Christian) and later fell for vegan propaganda in my early 20s which has taken me over a year to heal from. I at least never donated or spent money on Davidson, but I do feel like I have wasted a lot of time.
5 minutes in, and I am disappointed to see that Davidson completely misrepresented the paper concerning radiation prior to earthquakes... I also appreciate the point you made about physics and how one can only extrapolate so far.
I remember as a child in the Pentecostal cult, which is a doomsday cult faction within Christianity, I used to be terrified of the Rapture. I would have nightmares of the world coming to an end. The pastor swore up and down every year that we were close to the end and that Jesus was returning, but we were still alive every year. And yet this pastor had nice cars and guilted the congregation into giving him more money.
I'm 16 minutes into this video now. I just wanted to say thank you. I've unsubscribed from Suspicious Observers and will not entertain that man anymore.
We should be educating our children to be careful to maintain healthy skepticism, equally, both towards the things that seem dubious... And, more importantly, also towards the things that seem to reinforce our worldview and comfort us.
We're already suspect of words we disagree with... We need to remember how easy it is to be deceived by things we don't think to be suspicious of.
Exactly, I was looking to see if someone was going to post this. Thank you!
exactly
Agreed, and on both sides. I see tons of people who believe the "mainstream" theory on everything, but who have no understanding of it, and for whom it is functionally a dogma. Dogmatism is the great enemy of rational understanding and the advancement of knowledge. A thinking person should be able to both question and entertain any idea.
@@whitemakesright2177🎯🎯🎯
his channel legitimately made me get anxiety attacks for months so thank you for this.
Damn, that's crazy. I'm glad you found something that could help. Sucks that people like Ben do this shit
Well done for challenging your beliefs
Oh no! I hope your anxiety attacks have been getting better, that stuff sucks.
Hope you've found a more stable world view since then, I'd say you deserve it after that.
As someone with heart problems and axiety attacks Im really sorry you went through this shit because of this pseudoscientist
Thank you Prof Dave! About a year ago Ben's channel came up in my feed and I started watching in the mornings. When the fearmongering got deep, I became a Suspicious Observer of HIM prompting me to do my due diligence that I, in retrospect, I should have done initially. Found you and you confirmed my suspicions! Thank you!
ben is right!!!! www.researchgate.net/publication/349448597_A_global_environmental_crisis_42000_years_ago
@@traitretrudeau2367 no he's not
@@traitretrudeau2367 "ben is right!!!!"
You are posting support for Ben below a video that proves what a complete liar, scammer and fraudster he is. Just watch Dave's video. I truly hope you didn't support any of Ben's kickstarters.
@@traitretrudeau2367 even if the "eletric universe" turns out to be true, Ben is still a liar. He misquote the papers on and on and fundraised something that doesn't exist and put the money in his pocket
Man I could use a re up on this. Just had someone talk at me for 30 minutes about stuff peddled by them.
Tell that moron to watch this video.
I started watching Ben about a month ago, but was glad I came across this video before I wanted to share his videos with friends. Feel a little silly for believing all that BS for a month. Really appreciate the clear eyed take on Ben's shenanigans Dave.
Spread the word!
I found him around 1 month ago too!
@@ProfessorDaveExplains
Ben slipped up in one of his videos and called his self a physicist he has recently been doing a lot of these so-called Q&A videos so I have repeatedly asked him "are you a physicist what are your credentials?" I have been kicked out of the chat he is clearly a con artist thank you so much Professor Dave
Been follwing Ben for a year, I find truth in lots of the articles he shares.
@@thestonecanoe3159 I agree that there’s a lot of truth in what he shares, and I definitely don’t disagree with peer-reviewed papers that are far outside of my expertise. I’m especially intrigued by his take on electro-magnetism’s affects on the planet, and the effects he describes from micro-nova’s to electricity’s effects on water seem very accurate to me (and I’m someone who’s been an astronomy / science nerd for my whole life).
What got me was his certainty, it blinded me to applying my own BS filter, which is searching out compelling counter-arguments. Having done that, I feel far more confident that we won’t go through his described cataclysm, especially in his timeline of the next 10-15 years.
It was just so detrimental to my mental health that I’m glad I only spent a month watching basically every video he had. An intriguing theory, but one I no longer hold stock in.
"Snakeoil slinging sociopath"...
Nail-on-head!
Yeah, I was muttering _snakeoil salesman_ all through Prof. Dave's video, and he saved it for the end.
I can't believe he bragged about getting 1490 out of 1600 on the SAT. If you're going to brag about your SAT scores to an actual scientist as a way of trying to boost your own credibility, they should damn well be perfect.
The SAT is out of 2400
@@smallpeople172 Used to be out of 1600.
@@smallpeople172 it used to be out of 1600, and even still, today many colleges only care about the reading and math sections, not the writing section. If you pay attention to the video, you'll note that he mentions he got this score when the SAT was out of 1600.
My friend got a 1550/1600 and he hasn't made a cult yet. Still waiting.
Hmm. I went to school for science. A lot of my peers did... ok... on the SAT or ACT. They were the ones I admired most. They would work their asses off and study constantly, often desperate to meet the GPA standards of medical school. That’s the main reason I think it’s pointless to brag about it-it doesn’t reflect work put in.
Jeez I need my sunglasses, cause the roasting is insane.
Wow alot of testimonials in the chat about Prof. Dave helping them to see the charade. Awesome. It's not easy to admit you've been tricked, but it happens to everyone in one way or another. Especially since honest folks tend to think that others are honest, like them. Be wary of people who tell you everyone else is lying, in my experience, they think that because they have no remorse for lying.
*"I don't have friends. I don't have hobbies."*
Wow. What a shocker, we are all so surprised by that magnificent revelation...
his last couple of paragraphs read like he was about to open up into a rap song about his life
Maybe no friends, but he clearly has 1 hobby, and a singular focus.
Leading his cult.
Hey, for real thanks for making this. In hopes of not heaping shame upon myself I will come out and say I needed to see this. I feel extremely foolish and embarrassed for letting that particular brand of fear grab me. Anyone else who was on the edge of that rabbit hole, it’s ok to step back, we all let ourselves slip and get caught up.
Congrats!
Glad you got out.
I’m truly proud of you, thank you for your nice message for the others. There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re getting out. Good luck my friend
I watch SO with a grain of salt. Imo, however, he does not fear monger.
"Eyes open, NO FEAR"
@@akplayz1154 I always found that kind of funny, because of all the people I've stumbled across on CZcams, he and his doomsday talk has definitely put the most fear in me. This video randomly came up in my recommendations today and I clicked hella fast, hoping it was going to be good enough to alleviate that fear. It was. Bye, Ben!
Thanks for organizing all this together. I first heard him speak on Bright Insight's (Jimmy Corsetti, who I am now questioning what his motives are for having Ben Davidson on his show) livestream and thought he was *trying* to sound scientific/credible & even making things up. Your video is a good reminder not to blindly trust what you see/read online, even if they cite sources. If it's important to you, read the sources and see if they corroborate w/ what speaker is saying.
It's possible this is merely a case of their audiences overlapping with each other, and Jimmy's audience wanting Ben on his show. Or maybe Jimmy is a fan of Ben's, or simply took interest. Which itself would be concerning.
I know there's a massive overlap between Davidson's subscribers and their interest in conspiracy-type channels. And there are plenty of them who actively sub to Joe Rogan's channel. Odds are, it likely boiled down to someone - either Ben, Jimmy or their subscribers - requested it to happen.
A buddy of mine married someone who was really into this channel. She tried to turn me on to him, and when I pointed out the lies in her choice of video, we had a huge fight. She wouldn't talk to me, and almost a week later, my buddy started talking about her deteriorating mental health. She apparantly tried to go and read his referenced papers to prove me wrong, and had a complete mental breakdown as she was unable to connect reality to his lies.
Suspicious0berservs is an evil person who exploits people. Clearly, my buddy's wife needed serious help, and this is a special case.. but not adequately crticizing hacks like S0 and just allowing these kinds of people to peddle their lies with no recourse is dangerous. She tried to kill herself on two separate occassions after our fight. The more people are aware of how terrible this person is, the better. I am deeply concerned for any remaining in his audience.
Ben Davidson is a lousy asshole who deserves to be exposed for the conman that he is.
Ben (and people like him, including RealPBEarth Watch, Ice Age Farmer and Oppenheimer Ranch Project) really should be held responsible for their actions, but they never will be unless the authorities are called.
But alas, manipulating people over the internet is as legal as it is evil, so that probably won't happen.
wow, so one suicide and now an attempted suicide because of S0. can this be reported to the authorities? or do we have to wait till he brings out the poisoned flavor-aid before something gets done?
Wow. I’m so sorry to hear that! These people really are cult leaders on some level. I hope she’s doing better!
@@SpydrXIII really? What suicide? That’s horrible!
"I don't have friends. I don't have hobbies."
I don't think it was necessary to include that. We could have extrapolated that on our own.
I mean how else would he claim to be the "Number 1 name in science" if he didn't?
The "beta male" bullshit made it obvious he doesn't even go outside.
@@Acidfunkish as soon as that "beta male" stuff comes out, you know with 100% certainty that the person you're dealing with is just a sad little twerp, and you can safely stop regarding them with any sort of respect and move on to pity instead.
Along with "cuck", it's kind of like a medieval cannon -- it's far more damaging to its wielder than its target.
@@jamesblackburn8110 Haha, too true. 👌🏻 Those are some of the things that make me go, "Soooo... Nice to know you're not worth an iota of my time. Thanks for letting me know ASAP!" 😅
@@Acidfunkish 😭 lmao
Wait, let me get this straight...
You help me pass Human A&P Exams AND tar and feather frauds on the internet??
You just became a real badass in my book
You are what I consider a Champion of Science.
Well I dunno about tar and feathering... He wouldn't step that low. But it's kinda soothing in a weird way seeing him pick apart their arguments
@Drumslav Czechisenko Not that I need to defend anyone, especially as I don't know them, but even if they were a homosexual, what would that have to do with anything?
Just got caught up into all this 3 days ago, I’ve been stressing and my mental health deteriorated very quickly. Thankfully a friend showed me this video and I actually felt a weight lifted off of me. I hope to others stressing and panicking they find hope and solace.
About 10 years ago , I used to listen to Ben's daily reports, I was a bed ridden, captive audience, extremely sick and looking for causes for my fluctuating symptoms. There did seem to be a correlation between how bad I felt on a particular day and the activity of the sun, but when you are desperate for answers, when there aren't any, you will grab on to anything that provides a sense of order in the chaos. But I was never part of his cult, and drifted away when I recovered. It was his recent appearance on a podcast I currently watch which brought me here, looking for alternative information. I always did find his doomy, gloomy predictions unsettling, wondering how much truth was in them. Thanks, now I know. The thing about these kinds of personalities is that it doesn't matter how intelligent or educated you are, they are very good at reaching a person's core vulnerabilities, and using what they find in a self serving, manipulative way.
Ben is getting ready for another kick starter. Observer ranch. Basically he is going to make his followers pay to build him a survival bunker.
@@earthdweller5136 Check the end of his daily news today. He is going to pitch it as a place for the observers to get together for workshops, etc. But if it goes anything like how the app went we can make some guesses about where the majority of the funds are going to go.
Holy fuck. It's a literal cult. Something has to be done.
@@ProfessorDaveExplains But _what_ should we do?
I'm gonna look into it. Kickstarter needs to be aware of what he's using their platform to do.
I searched Kickstarter and it didn't come up.
I wish to say, at the outset, that I am NOT a scientist (although many people in my field have been). I hold several degrees in philosophy, including a PhD from Princeton University. And yes, I subscribed years ago to SO, primarily because I liked the graphics Ben uses in his videos. Recently, since he started the "next-end-of-the-world" business, i.e., the micronova that he predicts is coming "soon", I've started looking at him, well, "suspiciously". A great deal of the people in his comment section are obviously frightened to death of that "future", and want detailed information as to when, exactly, that is going to happen. Ben never pins it down, except to say it will be somewhere in the near-future. I do not like being part of a doomsday cult. Thankfully, I've never contributed a cent to him.
Right now, he is starting what can only be described as a "compound", in the desert southwest. Of course, many people have contributed great amounts of money to this effort. Based upon what I've seen, I believe that he knew that getting a law degree was a mistake, on his part. He needs to purchase multicolored robes and build a "Church of Ben" ... using other peoples' money, of course.
Thank you for this video, Professor Dave. I have unsubscribed from his website, for when I asked him for the scientific data supporting his hypotheses, he merely suggested I watch his videos. I suspect that many of the downvotes on this video came from Observers. As an official "heretic", you can readily understand why I will continue to keep my location and true name secret.
Im curious if the graphics played with the same hypnotic music every day, at the end of his videos, had anything to do with hooking you in?
@@penguinuprighter6231 It's possible. However, I listen to classical music, primarily.
@@steffenritter7497 Okay..thanks.
I was thinking the samething! He makes his videos overly complicated and when people ask for details he either refers them to his Playlist or gives a smart-ass answer. Of course people want to know every detail...you're scaring them to death and they want to protect their families.
I'd love to know how much money people are throwing at the ugliest piece of land in North America.
Thank you Dave for pulling me out of cynicism and helping me to maintain skepticism in a healthy manner. 🙏
YT diehold Foundation
skepticism is what leads to stupid ideas like the Earth is flat
Appreciate the video. I was one of those individuals that happened to catch a video here and there but haven't had the time to do a deep dive into his claims due to being consumed with many other areas which are backed by actual facts and truth. Thanks for taking the time inform the public. You are greatly needed, especially these days. An insurmountable amount of information to sift thru. Happened to find you from your debate (lol more like elimination of ideas) with flatearthdave on Shaun's channel! Flat earthers are incredible. Contradiction and "that makes no sense" masters! 😂
I know this video is a few months old now, but I've watched a couple of your debunks of pseudoscience tonight, and hadn't realised how bad some of these scammers are. While I love your astronomy and cosmology videos the most (loved space since I was about 5yo), please, please keep exposing these "snake oil slinging scammers" (too nice a phrase, but it does have a nice ring to it). It needs to be done, and you do it exceptionally well.
@Shimmy Shai the problem is that is that it is that tought pattern that validates them, the more they are attacked the more they feel like they have a point, its very hard to fight them since if fought off they feel validated, if ignored they fester
Never too late to respond to this sort of video! I'm responding to you 7 months after your comment, and a full year after the video was published, and hadn't seen it yet either. I have been subscribed to other pseudo-science debunkers for a lot longer than Professor Dave, and since I already knew (didn't need help) that "The electric universe" was absolute bullshit, I skipped over a lot of bullshit I already knew was bunk in going through Daves catalog, but tonight this one popped up in my feed and caught my eye because it wasn't just labeled "Pseudoscience", but also "Doomsday Cult" so double whammy! (
I agree, cause I just started watching out of boredom but it seemed interesting. Glad I found this video before getting to caught up. We definitely don’t need any more crazy conspiracies in this world. It’s hard enough out here already !
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 Honestly, if they're in that deep then there's no hope for them anyway. The best that can be done is to debunk the snake oil salesman, put their lies on full display, and hope that it's enough to keep any more people from falling for it.
There was an earthquake off Alaska Ben seemed to have predicted the day before it happened a couple months ago (I was in awe), but then I saw that Alaska has had 972 earthquakes this year, so I guess that it would be a pretty safe bet, that there may indeed be an earthquake somewhere near Alaska tomorrow.
Yep, it's pretty easy stuff if you understand the statistics, and make things as vague as possible. We had somebody pushing this nonsense on a forum I frequent, a few years ago. I told him the above, and made my own prediction. It came true! I think I tied it in to whether or not I had had bacon sandwiches for breakfast or not! Bacon sandwiches are probably a more accurate indicator than Ben's app!
Joel, you should start a channel. You are prophetic, sir. Just tie in some pseudo-biblical interpretation and you’ll appeal to both sides of the doomer cult. 😵
Check out Dutchsinse. He never misses. Explains the process as he goes. Remarkable. Doesn't do eruptions. There is a pattern. Enjoy!
@@timbush8544 _"Check out Dutchsinse."_
I think Potholer 54 debunked his sorry arse.
@@CrazyFunnyCats _"Michael is legit"_
No he isn't.
If he was a smart lawyer he would not have said anything to the effect of "it only took me 4 minutes to find where you live" this is a vague threat and can still be tried under the law. In addition, he always seems bad shit insane and should probably be disbarred for malpractice.
Professor Dave, I find myself almost too embarrassed to drop a comment, but you deserve to know that the time you spent on this helps some people. My brother sent me down the rabbit hole that was S.O. a few months back. He even gave me the book lol. I was skeptical as I seem to be about most things, and looked for a good counter argument. Found this video, spent a few hours checking other opinions and sources on him. Not a lot out there and non of it was good. Then I gave some of your other debunks a view. And that's why I owe you a thanks. I can fully accept that I have become very distrusting of the federal government, and I don't see how that isn't deserved honestly, but i had not realized just how much BS I was starting to listen to. Your right, conspiracy does become addictive or reflexive at least. "I'm not mainstream" was really all any of these crackpots had to say to get me to at least hear them out. And sometimes a question or two would stick that I was smart enough to conceive of, but not to answer....or at least I wasn't going to invest the time and effort to do so. I never bought in very far, but apparently far enough to cast a shadow of suspicion on everything I had to take on faith. Looking through your debunk list I was embarrassed to see how many I had wasted consideration on. It was really the Nikola Tesla Dynamic Theory of Gravity that started my brother and I down a road of stupidity a good 10 yrs back. And today I learned my final lesson from that, being completely illiterate is safer than being slightly intelligent lol. The whole road started with "magnetic magic", "Dielectric Universe", "Plasma Universe" and somewhere along the way I was questioning if moonlight was cold. Keep up the good work sir, some students need a nudge back out of wanting to believe it is all much more simple than it really is. Thanks!
Wow he really took adavantage of my add and anxiety. I’m 15 and suffer big anxiety so I watch most of his videos thinking he is filling me in but I’ve always felt that the stuff he says sounds just so unbelievable. L thank you for showing me this video. Honestly I haven’t watchhed his videos for at least a week and I’ve felt much better. I can’t thank you enough I can finally focus more on my basketball and my life
Spread the word!
“Wow he really took advantage of my add and anxiety.”
This is one of the main reasons why people watch Ben’s stuff. The problem is that he sounds smart to people who are not well versed in the relevant sciences, with all the technical jargon he uses. But after learning a little bit about the relevant sciences and doing some research, you will find out that he is just lying and talking nonsense. He is a scam artist, lying is what he does for a living.
Wishing you the best!
Good for you! Kudos!
Heh. You're already leagues ahead of that guy if you realized his bullshit this early. Good on you!
I got sucked into pseudo science stuff at one point. I think the problem is that everyone wants to be an explorer, but the frontier of science is so utterly inaccessible to the everyday layman. I'm talking about where the real discovery is happening. You need a doctorate and to dedicate your life to a subject. So when these con-men come out the wood-work and propose that there's a new frontier, a new adventure, something you can be a part of, you want so badly to believe it, that you forego sound reasoning for anything that sounds like reason. I don't blame people for falling for it, but I thank the stars for people like you who shine a light in the valley of snakes to help guide people out of it. My advice to anyone is this: if you want to believe in magic, then get involved in some fantasy stuff, like D&D or Star Wars or something. I promise you its just as satisfying, there's much to explore, things to discover, communities to be a part of, and a way to escape... but most importantly, you know that its fiction.
This. Keep Facts, Beliefs and Fantasy separate. They are 3 separate things no matter where you look there are no scientific way of proving something moral or imoral. No matter how much you want or believe something to be true doesn't mean it is true.
How about we start D&D against Pseudoscience? :D
@@marcrahn4307oooo pseudoscience D&D, we could bullshit together an electric universe that works
And since it's pure fiction, we can just have perfect spiral galaxies that never move or merge, and make black holes a magic that only the god beings can use
@@marcrahn4307 Oof a flumph could one hit pseudoscience.....
👏👏👏👏
Ben is unhinged in his live casts, chastising the viewer for asking questions (in a Q and A, mind you)
Hes angry and egotistical to such an extent hes like a living meme at this point.
Used to love the guy. He lost it
It makes one wonder why he even hosts Q&As when he complains about people asking him questions. Is it so he can get his dick virtually sucked without those pesky questions interfering?
Yup, he yelled at me just the other day lol "You clearly showed all of us that you haven't done the homework!" Um dude I was literally asking you to walk me through a specific point I learned from one of your other videos. Then people in the comments telling him he's so brave and patient for dealing with losers who haven't done the homework.
I unsubscribed from him because he was arrogant and rude to me in comments, and he was being that way to other commentors.
@@nhorvath4 Yeah idk who's worse, him or his followers.
I haven't watched either of these people yet but I love how this guy is like "the science papers i found disprove this guy". $cience can never be wrong, stop having any additional thoughts. Because we obviously have such a great grasp on reality.. we just can't figure out why everything is going the wrong direction. Better keep doing the same thing
You are admitting you haven't watched a single second of this video, yet you somehow claim to know what it says, while pretending you aren't a pathetic Ben drone. Do you know how fucking dumb you look, dipshit?
The entire history of science disproves Ben's bullshit, not just a few papers. Watch the bloody video and don't be a dumbass.
The more often i watch your different debunk videos the more i can clearly tell that the first video usually is you patiently trying to explain why the con man is wrong while the more often they challenge you to debunk them the more you literally wipe the floor not with their head but with everything they have including their soul 😂
Someone has to do push the liar back to reality and i am glad you’re doing a good job at it 👍🏼
Yep. Ben and James Tour are the only ones to have gotten the double treatment specifically as a result of their retaliation. Perhaps others will make wiser decisions in the future.
@@ProfessorDaveExplains James is probably worse he got the 2 parter treatment
If someone has to push back the liars, then why is joe biden in office, especially in his current capacity? Just sayin, maybe the good doctor can debunk that fool
@@kennyleroy5960 An old dish rag could have been elected president, considering the previous one was a disgraceful narcissistic cretin. No one in living memory lied as much as 45.
@@kennyleroy5960 45 is the most prolific fraud in history. While Dave won't cover the 2020 election because it isn't science, it would take so much video to debunk every lie you have swallowed that it would break the internet. It takes only trivial critical thinking to recognize that there is no anomaly for which to demand an explanation. Your god-king never once reached 50% approval. If a majority of voters didn't approve of him, then a majority of voters would not vote for him. I can't begin to fathom why this is so difficult for you to comprehend.
If you were paying attention to these debunks, you would be able to identify many parallels between the frauds in pseudoscience and the frauds supporting the GOP from 2016-2022 and ongoing. Pathological narcissism, responding to any legitimate critique by issuing personal attacks and threats, misrepresentation of primary sources, outright denial of any fact that doesn't fit the narrative, shifting the burden of proof, moving the goalposts, using proxies with conflicts of interest to feign legitimacy, collecting and pocketing money from his followers, railing against what he portrays as an orthodox establishment to create a David-vs-Goliath narrative, dismissing universal consensus based on evidence and reason by portraying himself as smarter than everyone with actual credibility, appealing to largely ignorant people by telling them what they want to believe already.... and on and on.
That said, Biden sucks. No one is happy with him outside of MSNBC. He is an unapologetic sentinel of the political status quo, an ineffective leader, a rapidly decaying intellect, and a disingenuous corporate puppet. But Trump was also all of those things, and in addition a career fraud and an unstable narcissist with no personal investment in reality, morality, or the best interests of his country, including his own followers. So most Americans, in historic numbers, chose the lesser of two evils. Deal with it. It's time to move on.
He's not dumb. He's a con artist, and you'd better believe he knows it. He's a grifter.
Oh indubitably.
It's an open secret at this point. Most of his followers are either likeminded Trumpards/anti-establishment morons, or likeminded end of days doomsayers (which makes me laugh given how Ben's claimed that he hates such scenarios despite having one himself).
Agreed, I would love to see you debate this guy like you did with Kent, Dave. That would be some real comedy right there
@@ProfessorDaveExplains naaaa he really said indubitably
@@lemonroaster2475 oh, more like his debate with DIRTH, LOL! That was a _glorious bloodbath,_ and SO enjoyable to watch! I'd suggest to anyone to find it! It was originally on FTFE's channel, but has been shortened a bit for time length and shown on a few other channels, too. It's amazing to watch!
Thank you Professor Dave. I was a fan of SO, and became skeptical when he suddenly started going nuts on the exact events of his doomsday, and going seriously in depth to the point I asked, "wait, he's concluded everything, why isn't anyone else concluding the same?" And then... Yeah... Total BS haha.
Great analysis as always! I hate to nitpick, but you slightly misinterpreted one of the papers at hand. The sentence highlighted at 11:33 is actually saying that there would still have been a downward trend WITHOUT anthropogenic effects (just a smaller downward trend), NOT drawing a distinction between TYPES of anthropogenic effects.
Im one if the mupppets that bought his pdf of the book because even though i have a science degree i found his pace too fast and i needed to digest the info. Thank you for your work. I feel soooo stupid now.
Be sure to let him know.
That's clearly one of his tactics. A bunch of really big words strung together and thrown at you really fast. A skill I'm sure he learned about in law school.
It's mixing gish-gallop with confidence in his voice. He throws large terms into the mix with confidence and speed that, if someone is taking him seriously, he sounds like he actually knows a lot. It's okay, you're human and we're not immune to snake oil salesmen regardless how much we'd like to feel we are. I've fallen for it too. It's important to have some amount of skepticism and learn not when someone is pushing an agenda, but *what* agenda they are pushing along with exposing new ideas to critical thought, regardless if it is your own or others.
So make videos going through it and debunking it, claim by claim.
Then you'll have bought it for a good reason.
Can you send me a copy of the PDF?
I watched Suspicious0bservers channel because I was like, "Oh cool! It's like the weather channel but for the Sun!" Didn't realize there was more to this than just sunspots. Yikes.
Edit: Never knew about 95% of what this guy was claiming. I just watched him be like, "Here are some sunspots. Yesterday we had a CME." And I was like, "Huh, neat. Seems like a cool channel."
I'll admit that any crazy crap I did manage to hear I likely blew off entirely, or maybe entertained as an interesting what if. I never actually bothered to fact check this guy. Or even have the time to slog through his 'sources' much less the background to debunk it.
You're doing a good deed my guy. Thank you.
Is there a debunk of his imagined geomagnetic field swap end-of-the-world scenario? He correctly predicted the networks shutting down during the solar flares, and I got into his material from there.
He has never "predicted" anything. He either regurgitates complete common knowledge or lies out of his ass. The poles have flipped many times in geological history. Nothing significant will happen the next time they do that.
As a kid i believed this is what would end the world in 2012 until i saw a comment saying if the planet was real and on a collision course with us, we'd have seen it in the sky with the naked eye about that time.
I still thought the world was gonna end but I didn't believe in nibru anymore lol. I was a silly child
I have literally never heard of most of the people on this channel that prof Dave debunks cuz I live under a rock but reading the comments I see a lot of people who fell for it and have been awakened by content like this and I just wanna say to those people, thank you for keeping an open mind. Theres nothing wrong with exploring a topic especially if it interests you and it seems like there might be ground breaking information contained. You're not just some idiot, because you have the capacity to adjust your mindset when presented with better or more accurate information. And it takes a lot of courage to admit that you were wrong, especially on the internet. Lord knows I'm not exactly an authority on scientific advancement in any field myself yk? But welcome back to reality, with much love and support, and I refuse to ridicule anyone who comes out the other side. You can join us in laughing at those who are Aggressively Dumb. If you actually read this, love ya and have a great day :)
I agree. Its one thing to mock those who refuse to change and make the scams, but it's another to mock someone who realized the truth. Thats like mocking a former drug addict for being addicted to drugs.
@@Meow-vi9jb And in their defense, too, the narrative is extremely compelling to humans with even a scrap of imagination. I've been peering all over the pseudoscience theories and while they're usually really silly to me because I vaguely know the sciences the snakeoil salesmen try to co-opt, the conspiracies make *really good* story prompts/worldbuilding prompts.
I don't blame the people who fall for it, the fraudsters definitely know how to spin their tales. I just wish said fraudsters made ARGs or wrote fiction books or movies or RPG settings or something constructive like that instead of peddling the woo.
I’d rather be under a rock. I’m getting tired of CZcamsrs. We live in such narcissistic times.
You've heard of "Better Call Saul" now get ready for "Bend the truth ben"!
lol nice
I really like your art style.
Bens reply:
My balls are so massive that they actually disturb fabric of logic and bend truth
The saddest part is the failed disaster app, since even if it worked, it couldn’t. Plenty of people stay in the flight paths of hurricanes and other more readily predictable natural disasters because they don’t have options available to them. Can’t afford to leave work, and possibly waste a tank or two of gas, not too mention motel/hotel costs to safely ride out a storm. You just board up the windows and pray for the best.
"You think this is a game? 🤬" He sounds like an angry 12 year old.🤣
Add me to the list of people who quite literally stayed with his channel for months trying to decipher his baffling bullshit. Boy he can talk. Thank you.
He can really talk. He's a true lawyer.
@@thirtythreeflavors and an angry one, at that.
“Because suing people is how lawyers do science.” Lol!
That's how lawyers do everything......well, most of them anyway. Someone wronged you, sue them. Someone insulted you, sue them. Wanna make a change in a town, sue somebody. Wanna bring about world peace, sue everybody.
Well ben worked in analytics he was a lawyer but also a mathematician his job as a lawyer was was in analytics.. he was a fact checker checking mainly numbers. No one has anything right but he has nailed many things and also gives a great pressure reading for our planet helping predict earthquakes
@@ptravers9077 I saw Ben at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
He is not a good person just in it to scam and take money.
@@Thatonedude917 Are you sure It was Ben Davidson? I thought he lives in Denver CO. Why would he be in LA? Just wondering.
I have always had a hard time with the 6000-12000 years "clock" stuff, but poles moving, magnetic shield weakening, and the cross-cultural references to ancient floods are definitely interesting and there are many threads he pulls on that I have always wanted to know more about. So at least he got me interested in things I never would've discovered otherwise.
Damn thats a lot of ellipses in 1 email, trying really hard on that anime villian monologue.
"if you don't know how to establish the statistical significance of your predictions, then you might read up on such matters in a textbook"
He fucking killed him
the most direct burn one can possibly get from an actually qualified and high ranked professional
You know that shit hurt lol. To be called incompetent in such a way gave me second hand embarrassment 😅.
“The app saved his family from starvation, I suppose.” Classic! 😂
I just went to their channel and asked “Is this a cult?”
Some by the name ‘Nebulosity’ replied: “Define cult. Definitions vary”
😂
Yep, typical Sus0bs fan. They are open about that over there. And that's if they're not RPing as weatherman, bitching about Biden and demanding Trump back, or praising God and hoping he goes through with the kind of micronova Ben describes.
Nebulosity is a pseudoscientific dipsh*t
I mean, definitions _do_ vary.
academically, cults aren't even negative; they're just specialized religions, often part of a larger system of belief, and focused on one entity from said larger system.
I like how you not only expose these clowns, you obliterate them 😁 Keep up the good and valuable work.
gotta love how youtube doesn't show dislikes on videos like his anymore :)
I hate that too - YT doesn't show dislikes on comments either. Far too much snowflaking going on these days.
@@ShizukuSeiji more like CZcamss corporate interests.
@@SawtoothWaves Well... They allow all kinds of hate and stuff on here and only delete some of it. The dislikes is hardly a corporate interest thing I'm thinking, but it is sucky that you can only like something now and not dislike it. It was probably a pointless measure of anything anyway but it was fun to come across some crackpot conspiracy theory video with waaay more thumbs down than thumbs up. A kind of vote of common sense from the anonymous masses. :D
@@ShizukuSeiji you can get dislikes back (for now) using the 'Return CZcams Dislike' Chrome extension.
@@virtuallyreal3055 Fantastic Sir! Thank you!
Wait, the lawyer sent threatening emails that are clear evidence of him intimidating you? Huh, guy sucks at physics and law.
Yes
So glad I came upon your channel instead of the one my neighbor asked me to watch. He gave me a book by Ben Davidson and began telling me all that you're outlining here. I read about 1/4 and decided to watch the video....but you popped up! Thank you for the thorough debunking. The neighbor is no idiot, so it just shows you how people can be pulled into these, even if they seem to be level-headed.
It's more about attitude than intelligence for those that fall for Ben's crap.
@@penguinuprighter6231 Sometimes it is both, given how many share Ben's lack of knowlege and his alt-right ways of thinking.
thank you for not lashing out in anger and calling people names when you get disproven! (this is more common than you would think)
How do you explain family guy cutaway gags for shock value
Thank you for your research and analysis. 👍 CZcams started to suggest Ben's videos to me, perhabs because of my interest in real footage of volcanic and seismic activity. I became suspicious of his flashy presentaion of papers and diagrams. Now I got a better understanding of how easy it might be to fall into the rabbit hole by a slight push of CZcamss algorithm. Makes your work in science communication even more valuable.
Geology Hub is a great channel for info on volcanos around the world.
Yeah definitely. I've already been subscribed. 👍
I'm a lifelong photographer, I was a Suspicious Observer follower earlier on, interested in the "Electric Universe" videos until I realized the earthquake predictor app was very suspicious. Never renewed my membership. I have a high school level education of science awareness and love science in general, I have worked in electronics and computer science. I consider myself a believer in empirical science and education.
I showed some friends of mine that love suspicious observers this video and they're incredibly disillusioned by them. Although, there will be some people that are incredibly hard headed and not change their minds.
I mean, there's people who believe that the planet is a pancake. An "end of days" prophet getting popular shouldn't surprise any of us at this point! Hell, one of the more popular ones predicted the end of times on my literal wedding day. What a limp-jawed booming hoser :/
@All Terrain Canadian It begs the question with many of these doomsday cults. Do they genuinely believe that all of these days are the end of the world at the same time? Or do they fight with each other going "You're wrong, THIS is the date the world ends!" "NUH-UH! It's this day?" You ever think Rapture believers, Nibiru cultists, Asteroid doomers, WWIII enablers, and Suspicious0bservers... well, 0bservers ever fight with one another over this?
There's really something is about to happen that no one believing it and we all know that there's a lot of things happening around so how they can explain those things
@Adwerstone whoever that guy is, does he teach actual science or is it pseudoscience yet again?
@@denjidenji9162 Definitely pseudoscience. The giveaway is this language from dungeons and dragons above you: "if you really want to be informed on the truth."
You mean I'm not going to die in an earthquake caused by a ball of plasma fueled by nuclear reactions almost 100 million miles away? Whew. Dodged a bullet there.
In quote: "28 years" according to tonight's video.
No YOU will, no one else will though. The sun just really hates you specifically
Damn. I've never seen a half hour long CZcams burn before. Ha. 👏 👏
If you havent yet, check out his hour long complete destruction of flat earth, namely globe busters
I can’t help but feel bad for people without scientific backgrounds who fall for these scams. This illustrates why science literacy among non-scientists is so important. I think people who find genuine science to be difficult tend to gravitate to pseudoscience because it gives them a false sense of understanding while simultaneously fulfilling their urge to be defiant. I can only hope more people will be honest with themselves and understand that it’s ok to not know something. Don’t take the shortcut to pseudoscience, but put in the work to understand how we’ve come to know so much about our world. Trust me, you’ll be happier for it.
Thanks for the great content, Dave.
Ben and Wall are performing a great service to people like me. Having realized how naive I can be due to lack of good education. I am now determined to fix this problem. Thank you Professor Dave.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 that’s fantastic! :)
@@DocBree13
Indeed ✊🏾
It's good for people that's about as sharp as a marble
I really, really, REALLY hope this is right. I’m not a scientific thinker-more of an artist and a philosopher-so I kinda have to go by other people’s word when it comes to complicated data. It’s difficult to know who to trust, especially when “official” sources are often as unreliable as the conspiracy theorists. 😔
Edit: Okay, so he’s also a shameless scammer… that’s news to me. Huh. I never imagined I’d feel so relieved just from finding out that someone is completely untrustworthy 😅
Who is also a scammer?
@@cyril-499-thijs3 The guy who runs suspicious0bservers-he discusses it later in the video
Yes the omnipotent professor Dave knows all... His word, final.
I liked what I was hearing from Professor Dave till he started belittling climate change deniers. That is definitely political, not science. Not sure what to believe.
@@ppachura I definitely disagree with Dave on some things, especially since I’m a fairly religious person. Still, it’s hard to deny that the guy behind suspicious0bservers is a shameless grifter, so he doesn’t have much credibility in this particular case.
The fact that you can anger people this easily by just disagreeing stil gives me questions how are we still alive today. Also Ben straight up acts like a man child.
"The fact that you can anger people this easily by just disagreeing stil gives me questions how are we still alive today."
Same here, but that's what sells on CZcams these days. Everyone has an opinion and they only want their own validated by their legion of sheep. Especially in topics of science and politics. Ben is no different, and arguably even worse given he's using science to promote the endtimes (all while denying it).
I'd say he acts like a child-child.
@@ShizukuSeiji Yea that too.
Because showing private communications on a public platform and plastering it with emojis is so mature.
@@HG-sx5xz Well, accusing a lawyer of making physical threats, sounds like slander and an easy opening to get sued for real. And putting the proof on public record basically disarms him.
Then having some fun with it is basically hoisting Ben by his own Piccard.
Thank you ! ♥️you saved me from being bamboozled !!!
Dave is not about real science. Sorry. What degrees does Dave have? That's all you need to know.
You obviously are bucco
@@stuligin ben is a lawyer lol
@@stuligin Dave has two very real degrees in actual science.
@@stuligin Dave has never once claimed to be an all knowing hyper genius, or even to be an expert in the fields, in fact he has stated multiple times that all he does is use evidence that is readily available to prove his point.
I hadn't heard of SO in a long time. I actually use to follow him years ago, not necessarily because I bought what he was saying, but because I found his stuff mildly interesting. I watched many different YT channels with varying forms of doomsday type content. I found it all very interesting, but I never really bought into any of it. I do remember him being very eager to be taken seriously, or at least presenting himself as legitimate, but I always found his predictions to be more like guesses, and him having to walk himself backwards frequently, or having to twist things to fit his narrative. He did have a lot of links to legitimate sites like USGS, and satellites that I did link myself to, because I found them very interesting, and I still to this day occasionally go to them just to look around. To be fair, he was far from the only YT channel I followed out of pure curiosity, and many of those channels I realized later, had a lot of influence on what would later become the RW nutjob Qanon types. I have no idea where his political views lie, but I know many of the other channels I followed at the time would later expose themselves as trumper/ Qanon morons. All this was well before the trump era, and at the time all this was just interesting, and kind of fun for me, but I always placed SO on the same level as the Nibiru, flat earth, prepper types, which is why I was ever interested in him in the first place. I was looking for interesting content, and these were the people presenting it. I just never realized how many were taking the stuff seriously.
As a Trump voter, I only look at things that have legitimate evidence to back it up. So far Ben does not fit that description.
@@brodiegolemon4354 And Ben never has. Man's one step removed from committing a shooting with how unhinged he is.
So you think Biden is actually running the country ? You are senile. Trump tried to steer us away from the globalist liars. Too bad he bought into the vax bs. Nobody is perfect.
12,000 year cycle that also supposedly caused the Younger Dryas according to him yet that was what, 12,900 years ago? Seems it's almost a thousand years late for this 'cycle' to start again. 😂
I know 🤣
It's amazing how easily one can fall for this type of bamboozle. I came across SusObs by chance, it looked interesting, and soon I was watching daily. When I mentioned the disaster cycles to a work colleague he googled it and the first hit was about the pseudo science cult like aspect, and my bubble burst. Now I have to question my lazy assumptions to the point of realising that I am gullible and really should know better. Thank you for exposing a charlatan that deserves to be called out.
Good on you for both being curious and for changing your mind when confronted with evidence.
getting fooled is easy, happens to us all - admitting to have been wrong is not.
Having done a fair amount of research about how cults get people, one of the things I have been told is that psychologists have found no personality types uniquely vulnerable to cults --- which, of course, means we are all *commonly* vulnerable. So don't worry about it, just stay informed about how cults work and how to identify them, and with any luck you'll be fine.
*Or, alternatively, I can protect you from the cults! Just pay me 1k a month and stay in this compound I run in Germany. We'll take away all your phones and tell you to shun your family and friends and colleagues and quit your job and hobbies and that way, you'll never be exposed to any cults to begin with! Muahahahahahahaha!*
@@peppermintgal4302 Be careful with that, you're cheaper on rent than a lot of apartments in bigger US cities and you might actually get people who want into your german compound!
Now apply this to the capitalist system and voila
How epic is it that Yuan Li, one of the authors of the papers cited here, happened to watch this video and then state in the comments that Suspicious0bservers is full of shit? (I'm paraphrasing Yuan Li, of course.)
That should happen everytime some pseudoscience nonsense channel misrepresents papers
@@XraynPR Yuan really should have posted it on one of Ben's videos too. Just to put the 30-something "science" baby in his place.
Never understood the logic of people like Ben. "Mainstream scientists are wrong so you should listen to me". Meanwhile: "Hey look guys, my shitty non-peer reviewed psuedopaper has been cited by this NASA spinoff, I'm so cool!". You cannot win with these people.
What an eye-opener!! Many thanks. I was a subscriber but started having doubts when I tried to find my own evidence of the 12,000 year crustal displacement cycle post geo magnetic shift. Afterall, 12k years is nothing in geological time span. Very hard to find anything to prove his case! As I now have real doubts - Goodbye BD & suspicious observers!!
Welcome to the club. I too was a subscriber of suspicious0bservers but his talks of the 12,000 year cycle and how it will happen 2 decades from now gave me anxiety to the point it feels like a heart attack. When I told my Frends about Ben, they said that it's a bunch of BS I unsubscribed and have been better off ever since.
@@brodiegolemon4354 I mean Ben is a narcissistic drug peddler who is so far up his own ass that you're better off not believing in him.
And be thankful you didn't take the deep dive. All those remarks from him and his goons about "Trump was Robbed" or "scientists must die!" and other similar shit would have driven you mad.
A big issue with manipulative people is that they often feel like they are very great or smart for knowing how to take advantage of people and their biases. People who have massive egos and like to do those things like to gloat about it in front of you by using ambiguous sayings and metaphors. It is really crass and played out and not very original. The book being named "The Weatherman's Guide To The Sun" actually means a manipulators guide to information. A big issue is explaining these things to people and having them understand, or not being made to look manipulative your self for the information you give off, or hoping that the person you are trying to help won't turn out to be corrupt themself. People will always seem to do what is easiest, so when it comes to doing mental work or looking into themself and taking a second look, they will tend not to and most likely resist with the force of the amount of time that they have spent being that way. I hope you read this and know that I appreciate you being a person of truth. Thank you.
I don't understand, if you have such a talent for sales pitch, then why not make money with marketing and sales? He can even use that same talen in the court and make more as a lawyer than a faux science communicator. So why do this? Or put it differently, how inept a lawyer someone has to be to pretend to be a scientist instead?
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 more freedom, much easier, and maybe more money. Lawyers lie just as much as these pseudoscience folk. The successful ones are mostly void of any moral compass. Both require fooling ignorant individuals to be successful. The two paths are pretty similar.
You know, there’s a trick to see through pseudoscience that works the majority of the time. What would disprove it? If the explanation is so broad and vague any observation or experimental result could be used to support it and nothing could disprove it, it’s probably pseudoscience. This isn’t perfect since it can be hard for some very complex, cutting-edge physics, but for the typical pseudoscience peddler they deal in phenomena at least somewhat comprehensible to an informed layman who can understand fairly simple things like Newton’s Laws.
You're correct, if something is not falsifiable (even in paper, maybe the technology required to make such an experiment is out of our reach now) is not science.
@@anthonypolonkay2681 pilot wave theory isn't accepted, though. It's mostly seen as an unfalsifiable fringe theory.
This is the same of all truth. It's closest too okkams razor. The more assumptions and idea has the less likely it's a truth.
@@anthonypolonkay2681 pilot wave theory is not a scientific theory - at most its a hypothesis. Lets be careful what terms we use as the clowns and pseudo people will jump on us if we use terms loosely.
The CZcams algorithm had been suggesting "suspicious observers" over and over so I started to watch one.
I didn't know that my eyes could smell things up until that moment but smell they did!
What a GIANT PILE OF QUACK!
I feel like I'm offending most of the other quacks when I say that. Oh well.
Great video Dave!
One of his arguments I heard him say was priceless: "many at NASA agree with him and covertly exchange with him but they won't come out because they're worried for their careers." So the world is about to end and the guys are worried about their careers 😂
@@onhumannature1087 That's just code for "I am running on baseless logic because I got nothing left." I'd argue if Ben is this concerned about the supposed end of the world, he'd have revealed who he was talking to already. Otherwise, it'd make an 0bserver suspicious, so to speak.
I had a big LOL hearing Prof. Daves comments about Ben's "Textbook" on Space Weather:
"Nobody uses his book in an official curriculum. If anyone actually did you'd better believe that he'd never shut up about it and there would be screenshots and interviews and a FREAKING PARADE." 😂😂😂
It's true though. If people did use the book, Ben wouldn't be shutting up about it. Granted, he doesn't shut up about it as is, but notice how he keeps who uses them vague - "Scientists at NASA", "courses at collages", etc. and never namedrops anyone in particular as having used his books. I don't think it'd be an NDA clause since again, Ben would be namedropping left right and center if they WERE using his books, so I suspect (lol) he's talking out his ass.
Well done, you destroyed that charlatan, there are many reasons to prepare but that sort of disinfo peddling is disgusting.
Unfortunately, uneducated woo peddlers like this one never consider themselves schooled, he'll just double down on it
@@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095 Climate disaster, Nuclear War, Civil Wars. Etc. You think history never repeats itself? LMFAO
@@TheSchilleD no one cares lame 🤣
@@olivierm2888 i do :)
@@TheSchilleD k
What I like best about your channel is the fact you genuinely educate people with a “no, not this, it’s this and here’s why” and you never shame someone who listens to the incorrect information, unless they start something with you. I appreciate that, especially since math and science are areas that I’m not strong in, but I do enjoy learning about them. Thank you for educating all of us and giving us good information and foundational science to look to.
Dave, you are making the flying spagetti monster's work, it's just insane the ammount of time and effort you put into these videos and still find time to respond to comments on your older videos, I would say you are a bit mean to some of these plp, but then again it's not me who has to deal with their bullshit every day.
My father has been watching Suspicious0bservers for years now and I've always felt the guy sounded off, like a conspiracy theorist or something. After overhearing him insult some of the people that tuned into his live stream about asking questions, it rubbed me the wrong way. I then looked him up and found this video. That "eyes open, no fear" thing always screamed conspiracy nut to me.