I got some bad news this week. I received three community strikes within 24 hours and the Limitless Mindset Youtube channel with 600 videos and 13,000 subscribers was deleted.
In this vlog on D.Tube I explain why and my plans going forward...
Youtube is NOT a free speech platform.
In fact it seems to be really quite opposed to free speech. For the longest time I didn't really think this would be that big of a problem because my channel is about mindset and health but the censors at Youtube don't draw a distinction between videos of promoting the use and abuse of narcotics and people like me making educational videos about science and responsible usage of legal supplements.
I may have got the strikes because I spoke honestly about Kratom, a lot of people who use Kratom are recovering heroin and opioid addicts. They are justifiably paranoid that the federal government is going to ban Kratom. I personally don't have anything against Kratom, I'd like it to stay legal so that Opioid addicts can use it to taper off worse drugs and so that people with PTSD or chronic pain can use it. I made some videos explaining what the Kratom community should do to try to keep Kratom legal and the American Kratom Association totally ignored my suggestions. They seem to be slowly losing the fight to keep Kratom legal.
These fairly hysterical Kratom activists have been quite rude to me for years on the internet but I'm really not certain that they targetted my channel and if my being kicked off Youtube is because of my stance on Kratom.
The good news...
Is that I'm going to continue to make videos and podcasts about Nootropics and Biohacking. I may even make some videos about Kratom BUT I'm not going to distribute them on Youtube, at least not for a while.
Why this should matter to YOU
Someone a bit cynical might respond to my misfortune
You got kicked off Youtube... So what? Go cry me a river. You make money by promoting Nootropics. You call yourself a "Smart Drug Dealer". You were always taking a risk with having an edgy brand and Youtube has the right to kick anyone off their platform. There's plenty of other people on Youtube that I can learn about Nootropics and Biohacking from...
Well, you should know that this same week Youtube also kicked off at least two other major Biohacking channels
Steve Cronin
and
Ryan Michael Ballow of Cortex Labs
So there appears to be a pattern here. Someone more conspiratorial minded would say...
Youtube (a property of Google) is just trying to protect their advertisers in the pharmaceutical industrial complex! Big pharma wants people sick so they can be sold a pound of cure, they don't want the competition from Biohackers selling an ounce of prevention! That's why Youtube banned you!
Hard to say if that's really the case...
What's clear though is that Youtube is going in this weirdly puritanical direction of trying to thought police everybody. In a digital book burning, the 600 videos on my channel were deleted because I talked about smart drugs and I did so in a witty, entertaining fashion with some personality. I never talked about or encouraged using narcotics recreationally.
Yet on Youtube you can find a vast number of vlogs, documentaries and music videos glorifying the most degenerate use of narcotics. And the most debased and gratuitous content is often what gets featured by Youtube.
Youtube is extremely inconsistent in the enforcement of their community guidelines.
If I was more conspiratorial minded I would agree with the people who say that Youtube is secretly satanic; promoting content that encourages all the worst aspects of human nature and suppressing content that might make people healthier, happier and more virtuous.
But I'll resist the temptation to attribute malice when incompetence will suffice.
The high price of convenience
The free speech social media platforms are slightly less convenient than using Youtube, Youtube really is marvelously convenient, but the price of that convenience is very high... The price is the truth.
Youtube creators like me work very hard to research and make videos for you but to be honest we're not totally honest all the time because we're in constant fear that Youtube might randomly kick us off their platform. We have a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads that can fall at any moment.
There might be a certain biohacking supplement, technology or strategy that could really help you, that you might really want to know about that might help you or someone close to you to overcome some debilitating health condition but you're NOT going to hear about it if it could possibly, somehow be misconstrued as something edgy to a totally ignorant censor at Youtube or offensive to some easily triggered person out there on the internet that hits that flag and report button on a video.
Youtube's algorithms encourage creators to prioritize qauntity over qaulity. The economic incentive Youtube creates for creators is not to educate you but to spam you!
If truth matters to you I urge you to get off Youtube!
The high price of boundless amusement
Youtube and the mainstream social media apps and websites are psychologically engineered to be very addictive and encourage your impulsive usage of them. They hack your psychology and human biases to entrap your attention with snipets of content that appeal to you. They encourage this frenetic, frenzied lower consciousness state of mind.
Checkout my podcast reviewing the book The Shallows where I explain that chronic internet use has a similar effect on our minds as chronic heroin use does. The high price of boundless amusement is our sanity.
The free speech platforms on the internet are not quite as addictive and intuitive. They work pretty good but are not something that's going to suck you in for hours at a time.
My fault
But at the same time I need to take some responsibility. This is probably not soley the fault of Youtube's bad policies or some hysterical activists. It's also probably my fault. In some of my videos I could have been more explicit about advocating for conservative usage and dosage of Nootropics.
I'm sorry about the inconvenience. I'm sorry to everyone who enjoyed my channel. I'm sorry about all the Youtube videos embedded on my website and articles that are now broken. I'm especially sorry to everyone out there who suffers from crippling depression or lack of focus or cognitive decline who could really be helped by my videos about Piracetam or no fap or whatever.
Ads vs Freedom
Several brilliant philosophers and technologist have said that nearly all of the problems that the internet has now with free speech are because of the online advertising business model which is how Youtube, Facebook and Google actually make money.
Checkout the TEDx video We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads
The free speech platforms don't have ads! They are either membership supported or they have very clever schemes where creators get paid a tiny bit of cryptocurrency every time someone views their article or video. These are much less perverse economic incentives that actually encourage meritocracy and truth as opposed scandal, hysteria and exageration.
I have appealed Youtube's decision to suspend my channel, because I can demonstrate that an error was a factor in one of the community strikes I recieved. But I really don't know if they are going to restore it and if they do restore it I really don't know how long it's going to be before some how something I say offends someone out there on the internet and then my channel goes down again.
What should you do about this?
- Follow me on at least one of those free speech platforms.
- Please bookmark the frontpage of my website LimitlessMindset.com and just check back there from time to time. You'll always be able to find my latest content there.
- All signs are indicating that that our health freedom is being constrict by the powers that be. Stock up now on the health supplements and biohacking tools that you think could improve your life.
- Get off Youtube, do some read some books, read articles on websites and read scientific papers listed on Pubmed.
I was talking to my girlfriend about my channel being deleted and she was a bit surprised that I wasn't like super enraged and more upset that my channel with 13,000 subscribers that I worked on for 5 years was just flippantly deleted. I'm honestly NOT that bothered because, I know that my audience that actually matters will follow me to whatever platform I go to. I'm honestly kind of relieved and excited about the future because I was increasingly unhappy with Youtube and now I have an excuse to just devote all my energies to the free speech platforms on the Internet.
Edited by jroseland, 01 May 2018 - 08:18 AM.
