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WillowOne's Positions

Recomended YouTube Channels

The channels I would point someone to, and the longer list of channels that might join them. The test is the same one I apply to people in People who be and be not based: does the channel argue rather than perform, show its working, and correct itself in public? A qualified person explaining their own field clearly gets a long way on that test; so does a comedian who has done the research before being funny about it. Agreement with me is not a criterion, and several channels here disagree with me on things I care about.

The first section is channels with their own note, each of which says what the channel is and why it is here. The second is a working list of candidates: channels I have watched enough to think they belong, but have not yet written up, and a few I list only so that I remember why I left them out. The candidate list is a to-do list, not a recommendation; a bare name here is a channel awaiting a verdict.

For the books, see Recomended Books.

Philosophy and religion

  • Alex O'Connor (YouTube) - philosophy of religion done seriously; the channel to send a believer to.
  • Sam Harris (YouTube) - Making Sense episodes and debates; the clearest speaker of the new atheists.
  • Destiny - debates anyone, at any length, and wins by knowing their arguments better than they do. Recommended for the method, not the manners.
  • TJump (YouTube) - debates with apologists in which nothing proceeds until every term is defined.
  • Emma Thorne (YouTube) - Christian and creationist media watched closely, with patience and jokes.
  • Genetically Modified Skeptic - calm essays on apologetics, deconversion and why belief persists.
  • Bart D. Ehrman - the Misquoting Jesus podcast; mainstream New Testament scholarship from its best-known explainer.

Science and mathematics

  • Sean Carroll (YouTube) - Mindscape and the Biggest Ideas in the Universe lectures; the physicist I trust most where physics meets philosophy.
  • PBS Space Time - cosmology and quantum field theory with the equations left in.
  • Veritasium - explanatory films built around a misconception, stated first and then corrected.
  • Kurzgesagt - animated explainers with sources attached, from a studio that retracts its own mistakes.
  • 3Blue1Brown - mathematics shown rather than told.
  • Up and Atom - the foundations of logic, computation and physics in short animated pieces.
  • Steve Mould - tabletop physics: the wrong explanation first, then the right one.
  • NileRed - long chemistry projects, failures included; what doing science actually looks like.
  • Tom Scott - ten years of one checked fact per week; the back catalogue stands.
  • Smarter Every Day - engineering followed through with a high-speed camera and a submarine.
  • Practical Engineering - the infrastructure nobody notices, explained with garage models.
  • Technology Connections - how household technology works, at length, with dishwasher opinions.

Scepticism and fraud

  • Captain Disillusion - how viral fakes are made; scepticism taught by demonstration.
  • Coffeezilla - financial fraud investigated with documents, on-chain records, and the people named.

Law and politics

  • LegalEagle - a litigator explaining American law, in court and on screen.
  • Conversations with Coleman - long interviews on race, free speech and policy, with guests who disagree.
  • CGP Grey - voting systems, the monarchy's money and the rules for rulers, in stick figures.
  • The David Pakman Show - US progressive talk show; an honourable mention, because Pakman argues rather than performs.
  • Brian Tyler Cohen (YouTube) - fast, partisan US political commentary; useful as a partisan source and to be watched as one.

Comedy and film

  • Alasdair Beckett-King - genre parodies that identify exactly what a genre's conventions are.
  • Jay Foreman - Map Men, Unfinished London and Politics Unboringed; research first, then jokes.
  • Jonathan Pie - the reporter who says what he thinks when he believes the camera is off.
  • Joel Haver - rotoscoped improvised comedy and free feature films.
  • Noodle - animated video essays about games and the internet that are actually essays.
  • Ryan George - Pitch Meetings; every plot hole said aloud.
  • RedLetterMedia - film criticism by people who have made films; Best of the Worst and the Plinkett reviews.

Awaiting a write-up

  • final V3 - note exists, summary still to be written.

Candidates

Channels that fit the criteria but have no note yet. Where the person already appears in People who be and be not based I have said so, because that verdict should settle before the channel moves up. URLs were checked in October 2026.

Already on the based list, no channel note yet

Philosophy of religion and atheism

Biblical scholarship and history of religion

Science

Scepticism, conspiracy and fraud

Rhetoric and video essays

History

Law and politics

Economics

Comedy and film

Deliberately not listed

Also see