Posted on 04/16/2022 7:52:53 AM PDT by Philo1962
I was running a YouTube channel called "Professor 219" throughout 2021. This was 100% me, sitting at my desk at home, ranting into a webcam much like Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro or Michael Knowles, regarding the stupidity, hypocrisy, corruption and generally unconstitutional behavior of the left, their political party and the media minions who serve them.
I do teach in real life, but I'm not a professor. I teach gifted 13- and 14-year-olds for a Catholic diocese in an after-school enrichment program.
I'm 62 years old, and I have a pretty strong amount of knowledge regarding a lot of different topics. I started reading when I was three years old and in my lifetime, I probably read at least 20,000 books and magazine articles (but not much fiction).
In December, I came down with COVID. In January, I spent almost the entire month in the hospital (3rd-29th). Then I spent two weeks in rehab at my sister's house. She's a nurse practitioner, she worked for 15 years in the ICU, her house is big and beautiful, it's in a fairly large city a mile from the hospital, and she was a great help when I really needed it.
Around February 15, I made it home to my little shack 200 miles to the north in farm country. This was the best I could do after my divorce in 2017, and it offers certain advantages with which I'm quite comfortable.
And my YouTube channel had been deleted somehow. I'm not sure I will ever get an explanation from YouTube, but I do still have all the videos stored on my hard drive.
I'm trying to decide whether to restart the channel on YouTube, move it to Rumble or some other platform, or just give it up altogether. Help me make up my mind.
The channel was very vanilla regarding racial issues. I clearly rejected "racism in all its forms" several times. Mainly, I focused on why the left's policy decisions just aren't going to work out, as a practical matter.
Let's look at "renewable energy," for example. Solar panels, wind turbines and high-capacity batteries contain cadmium, antimony and lead. Cadmium causes cancer. All three are poisonous. When these things burn out after 20 years or so (the service life of a Tesla battery is only 5 years), they go into the landfill. At some point, the weatherproof shell on each of these items gets crushed, then rainwater seeps in and leaches all the heavy metals into the groundwater. So we're going to poison every drop of drinking water in North America to keep the ocean from rising 28 feet? This is monumental stupidity.
Then there's the power grid. To recharge all these cars every night, we'll have to upgrade every residential grid in every city block in America. Each block is capable of recharging only three Teslas at once. If every house on the block is charging a Tesla (or some other electric car) every night, we'll see an epidemic of California-style brownouts all the way from San Diego to Maine.
Finally, there's the issue of the cost of each vehicle. A Tesla costs over $110,000. Even the cheapest, Chevy Volt, is in the $29,000-$34,000 range depending on options. We have a very large part of the population driving used gasoline vehicles that they bought in the $500-$10,000 range. They can't afford it. If the government finances it. just like the student loan debacle, we'll end up with millions of defaults.
The battery is hideously expensive, anywhere from $5000 to $25,000 to replace. Its service life is five years, so if you finance your Tesla for six years, you'll need to replace the battery a year before the car is paid off. It may be the first type of vehicle requiring a "second mortgage." Overall, this is a recipe for rapidly increasing costs and frustrations.
As you can see, simply knowing what I know about physics, chemistry, electrical engineering and human nature allows me to poke holes in leftist theory that are big enough to fly through with a squadron of F-35 fighters, wingtip to wingtip. And I haven't even started the political science and economics.
COVID and its aftermath have left me in "not very good shape," physically or financially. I missed two months of work. I can barely walk, although that's coming back with a lot of hard work. (I'm 62. It's a challenge.) Sitting at a desk making videos isn't hard, but it's very time consuming.
Now here's the complication. I married very late in life and I have a nine-year-old son who really needs his dad. His mother has become very difficult. I met her here at Free Republic when I was 40 and she was 18. Her username was "republican." She's now gone completely gonzo for the Democratic Party and the vogue urban lifestyle. Divorced in 2017. She has custody of my son, and she's moved him out of state with no authorization from the court. I filed for custody; we are awaiting the court's decision on April 22. But before she moved him out of state, that boy was my constant companion.
The YouTube channel turned out to be a major issue of contention in the custody battle. She claimed that I was pushing racism and white supremacy in my videos. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But the battle over this issue, proving that she's a liar, has been exhausting at a time when I have very little surplus time, energy or money to fight her. If I start up my video channel again, it will inevitably lead to another long, drawn-out battle just like this one, even if I win this one.
Your thoughts and comments, please.
Whoa. I ain't judging. I am open minded. But just saying. She has not experienced life yet when she married you. And she's an American. Whatever. Just focus on your son. That's all you can do. Everything else is just noise.
Thinking about it a little more, with the situation with your son... it was likely your ex who managed to delete or get all your videos deleted from YouTube out of spite. Since you are in the middle of legal actions for custody it would probably be just as well to forget the YouTube channel for now, if it might have some type of impact on that situation.
Restart it and rant away but please do it on Rumble.
It depends on the purpose of your channel. If it is just to rant and vent then Rumble or whatever probably works for you. (Option A)
If the purpose is to possibly influence people to become conservatives then you should stand and fight on youtube. Youtube is where the audience is. (Option B)
If a person is smart about it they should be able to influence people without getting banned. I like Option B.
It was actually just a change in their policy on monetization. None of my videos were flagged that I know of, and just a couple have been taken down over the years. I just reuploaded them with a couple of minor edits and they stayed up after that.
The weird thing is that some tribute videos I made for dead friends which were shown at funerals etc.... had music from various artists which I credited in the comments. It still is suppose to be a serious no no. I sometimes got warnings, but YouTube left them up without editing any of them because the copyright holders apparently had no objections and I did not monetize them to begin with. I did put them on separate channels that I created especially for the video tributes. Here is an example, if you are interested... no warnings no nothing after using music from popular artists. This one has been up for 9 years with no maintenance on the channel. One would think that it would have been deleted by now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL_0oz5qTJ8&list=PL5PkQEgsEShwPhFLKUKGVDiTePq2myOpC&index=1
Most of the videos that I made money from were instructional videos on assembling and disassembling various firearms, reloading ammunition and various operations related to that. Nothing that the world can't live without, but some of the info is a little hard to find on the internet. I do not think that YouTube really appreciates that type of video these days.
I’m sorry to see your circumstances. Being with your son and instilling him with logic and morals is the most important things.
That indicates to me, only that you are not the sharpest tool in the shed. While a normal vehicle is still worth something after ten years, often a lot... Teslas are basically disposable. The batteries currently cost more than the car is worth after a few years.
Prayers up for you.
The nation may be in a downward spiral, but smart people can use this situation to propel themselves and their households into an upward spiral. By preparing for it and by avoiding pitfalls, many can at least stabilize themselves. One of the principles that I advocated on my channel was preparation.
The sharing of practical knowledge, between individuals we know and trust, could be the best way to protect ourselves from the disinformation and "pie in the sky" schemes that we see floating around out there. A few of these schemes come from the right, but almost all come from the left.
I was getting a pretty good following on YouTube just before they took the channel down. I am not sure about taking everything off of YouTube just yet. That has a proven audience base and it could get very large, very quickly.
I respect this input. The decision on custody will be made on April 22, which is less than a week. I need to decide soon whether I will continue the channel, and on what platform. If I am successful on April 22 and I win custody, there will be a lot of changes, hard and fast in my life. I do stand a very good chance of winning custody due to the mother's obvious defiance of court orders, in moving the child out of state without authorization.
“Doctor, every time I hit myself with a 2x4 it hurts. What should I do?”
Docktor: “Stop hitting yourself.”
Hmmm. Well the YouTube channel was getting a lot of views just before it disappeared. I'm contemplating the reposting of everything on YouTube, and also posting it on Rumble with future episodes on both platforms. Also, I need to decide whether to start now, or wait until after Friday, April 22 when I will know a lot more about my custody situation.
Go to Rumble, Odysee and Bitchute.
I am starting to lean in this direction. Rumble and YT at the same time.
I’m launching a (non-political) YouTube project in the next month and I’m uploading it to Rumble as well and will probably be doing some Rumble exclusives to get YT subscribers to also subscribe on Rumble.
Sounds like a plan.
It isn’t going to happen overnight, but if YouTube continues down its current path, they are doomed. If you keep pushing your userbase bit by bit to other platforms, one day you’re going to wake up and find that you no longer have much of a userbase.
I haven't explored alternative platforms, other than the two we've mentioned, for this reason.
It will be good for gaining viewers. I could steer them over to Rumble.
Well good way to hedge yourself. You know what the worst case is already so no surprise harm.
I was looking at a lot of stuff when I was in the hospital and in rehab (Jan-Feb), but didn't have access to my equipment to make more videos. Then the month of March was devoted to the trial and the custody battle. This is very hard work, recovering from COVID and I also had an adverse reaction to a medication they prescribed me at the hospital.
Perhaps don’t give it up entirely - perhaps cut way back to one topic you are most knowledgeable and passionate about.
Cutting back is difficult, because there are so many topics to choose from -- we are just being bombarded with left-wing disinformation (and a little bit of right-wing disinformation). Almost all of it can be shot full of holes just with the knowledge that I already have.
For example, the climate change BS is pure BS. At worst, we move to higher ground and/or build seawalls around our big coastal cities. The worst case scenario is that the ocean is going to rise 28 feet. I live at 600 feet elevation and it's not even my problem. I would support a tax increase solely for the purpose of mitigating the effects of purely 100% certain climate change, by building seawalls around a dozen coastal US cities, and with other measures.
For about six weeks, I've taken that approach. I focused on working out, and on working on my court case. The trial was the last week of Feb, first week of March. Closing arguments were presented in writing. I presented my own case from the beginning, researched and wrote my own documents. My closing argument was 30 pages, single spaced. My reply to the closing arguments of my ex-wife's hideously expensive lawyer was seven pages, single spaced. I thoroughly read and researched all the case law that just blows them out of the water. The judge virtually has no choice except to rule in my favor on custody. And that will cause a lot of changes around my house.
After the decision, I'll have to gauge how much time I have to devote to my son.
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