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0:00
in November 2016 kurzazak published a video on the most gruesome parasites it tells the story of devastating diseases that the world governments couldn't solve so the big Pharma stepped in to be the hero of humanity and saved the day it's one of those two good to be true stories so I decided to look it up myself and the real events are nowhere near as glaring for the big Pharma as curses act presents pharmaceutical corporations did donate their medicine to the most affected regions but they
0:28
didn't do it out of their own volition or initiative they did it after Decades of neglecting the diseases because they weren't profitable enough to manufacture fixes for them Bill Gates is actually responsible for much of the neglect his charitable priority is overemphasized big-name diseases such as malaria HIV or tuberculosis but in the process of doing so they drew crucial attention and resources away from more common and structural problems many of which led to
0:55
outbreaks of other diseases after the public pressure was too large to ignore more the drug makers decided to join the plan big Pharma never came up with this initiative it was the World Health Organization who had proposed a road map to eradicate the diseases by 2020 and convinced governments and ngos to join them the pharmaceutical conglomerates never assumed any risk these corporations took home almost nine trillion dollars in profits in 18 years so this little stunt is really just a
1:26
pocket change for them this video was paid for by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and it so happens that the gates are heavily invested in many of the Pharma companies curses are portrays as Heroes they own major Holdings in many of the participating companies and both Bill and Melinda Gates are Trustees of two Pharma firms this video is in positive news it's a positive BR Curtis act admitted they wouldn't have made this video If it wasn't paid for by Gates okay what the hell just happened
2:05
this one video is the perfect culmination of everything that's wrong with billionaires funding media to get the coverage they need it provides a whitewash take on real events it undesirly elevates the role of private entities and gives a marketing boost their agenda and financial interests the ultra wealthy are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into media companies academic Institutions and governing bodies to rig every step of policy making in their favor when billionaires
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want to open up the markets for their trade they'll fund media Outlets that tell the audience how important Investments Innovations and economic growth are they'll donate to research that will give them the argument that whatever they decide to do is science they'll give to political campaigns to get the right candidates elected so that it lost the law before are easier to pass we have identified this to be a problem with all big institutions and this is what it did to our trust in them
3:08
[Applause]
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so if it is a problem when billionaires fund our politicians our journalists and our Academia is it also a problem when they fund our YouTubers because billionaire funding is a lot more prevalent on YouTube than you might think it's far beyond the scope of this one six year old video I didn't realize I was watching a video sponsored by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because critics act didn't reveal this information until the last 20 seconds of the video I actually first found out
3:45
about the sponsorship from curses act medium article on how they treat sponsors here Philip Detmer the owner of the channel admitted that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was their biggest supporter so big in fact it helped transform kurtzad into a Powerhouse but Philip Detmer also told us that curses Act is almost entirely viewer of funded I wanted to know where the truth lies so I went to the foundation's grant database and found this in November 2015 curses Act was
4:15
awarded 570 thousand dollars from the bill and middle of the Gates Foundation for a 49 month long contract I wanted to see the full extent of this contract so I started going through their YouTube videos to see how many were made for the foundation and that's when I entered a rabbit hole I was able to identify at least eight videos curses I've made for the Gates Foundation when they were awarded the gates Grant the patreon was a relatively small yielding less than
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nine thousand dollars per month the money from Gates would cover at least eleven thousand dollars per month or seventy one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars per video so the gates money alone would be at least on par with their patreon but Gates was in loan throughout my research I kept discovering more and more billionaire sponsored videos it's not just one Foundation it's George Soros the templetons and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz they also made a
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sponsored video for this professor from Oxford University William mccaskill who is funded by open philanthropy and Chris had also received money from Bill Gates personal blog and venture capitalist funds from what I was able to find curtisad made at least one video for open Society Foundations at least three videos for Templeton World charity three videos for Bill Gates block and breakthrough energy and one video for William mccaskill we know they were awarded half a million from The Gates
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Foundation and almost 6 million from open philanthropy if they kept the same per video rate since the gates Grand it could be estimated because it's act received at least 7 million from billionaire funds this would be more money than Chris's had received from their supporters on patreon in the entire history of the channel this made me realize that Chris's act never was this small independent almost entirely viewer-funded Channel as soon as the studio Incorporated billionaires began
6:03
lining up they transformed the small munich-based design studio with five employees into a multi-million dollar media Powerhouse with dozens of employees Kurtz's Act was also sponsored by regular commercial businesses such as brilliant or skillshare but neither of these has multi-billion dollar investments in global Industries and they aren't spending millions in political lobbies trying to influence law making and most importantly they don't fund the sources that curtisac
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uses for the research and what the hell is going on with Curtis ad research curtisac told us their research is impartial and fact check by scientists to ensure Integrity but my skepticism alarms were already buzzing under their asses so I started looking at their sources and noticed something odd many of their videos rely primarily on a single publication this publication is a partner of the channel and they help them with research and provide numbers for their scripts this publication
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appears so frequently in their sources their website is quoted up to dozens of times in a single document this research publication is not some independent pandemic group of scientists just sharing their hard science for free it is our role in data heavily funded by Bill Gates and other billionaires many of which have also sponsored Kirk's act videos the publication received at least 4.8 million dollars with the Gates Foundation alone but they were also funded by open philanthropy Templeton
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and William mccaskill all of these entities had their series of sponsored videos at their Kirk's exact Channel their partnership with our role in data was initiated by the Grant from The Gates Foundation through the first video on overpopulation made in collaboration with Max Roser the founder and Lead scientist of our world in data following this money Trail led me to discover that the data in crisis act videos isn't such a rock-solid science as they authoritatively present in their videos
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many of the numbers from our world in data curses that relies on so much are complete garbage in the videos on overpopulation they show this amazing decline in global poverty a trend which they attribute to economic growth but where is this data coming from it's from Max rosergraph at our rolling data but look at how the data points go all the way back to the early 19th century none of these historical numbers are proven real data on poverty for the majority of the world didn't exist until 1981.
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anything before that is a speculation and who defines extreme poverty the World Bank does how by calculating the lowest possible rate as an average from poverty lines of the poorest countries in the world that's living below 1.90 a day Scholars strongly disagree with this raid and suggest at least seven dollars and 40 cents a day with the world Banks rate billions of people that are extremely poor according to their National Poverty lines in the in lower middle income regions which is what
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makes the graph looks like this instead of this if we use the 7.40 line or this if we leave out China so not a dramatic decline at all but an increase actually or a stagnation at best since 1981. there's so half of the world's population suffering from hunger food insecurity and malnutrition more than 40 million modern slaves and the ever widening income gap between the richest and the poor so really hard to come to an optimistic inclusion that poverty is somehow on the decline but it is a
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conclusion touted by Bill Gates who also paid for this video to be made as The Economist Max Roser has said the world has done quite well on this the newspapers could have run a headline the lives of the poor will improve more in the next 15 years than at any other time in history number of people in poverty fell by a hundred and thirty seven thousand since yesterday comes out as a what for many people will be a stunningly positive story many videos made in partnership with our rolling
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data can be dissected like this look at the numbers on historical emissions from the video on who is responsible for climate change where are these numbers coming from our role in Ada of course but there's just one source that conveniently downplays the role of the developed countries in climate change according to the paper from Lancet funded by no one the U.S is possible not for 25 percent of emissions but 40 percent the EU is responsible for 29 instead of 22. G8 emitted 85 percent of
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historical CO2 and the global North is accountable for 92 percent of excess carbon in the atmosphere these numbers draw a much less Equitable share of responsibility than curses that as I was analyzing more and more videos I actually discovered a plot I did not expect to find in a couple of separate videos on climate change criticism briefly mentioned seemingly random selection of Innovations or a new generation of nuclear power plants to new batteries electronics and steel low
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carbon production of cement artificial meat carbon capture carbon capture direct air capture and carbon capture there doesn't seem to be any objective Merit as to why I mentioned these in particular but they do have in common two things Bill Gates has in invested Millions into startups developing low carbon cement steel batteries alternative meat nuclear energy and carbon capture and none of these technologies have proven to be commercially viable or scalable enough
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to make them count the Innovations lack robust scientific backing and experts do not agree relying on them is a valid strategy many videos and topics that align with the interests of Curtis act billionaire sponsors are frequently sprinkled with messaging about how Investments and Innovations will solve a problem or make the world a better place by investing in these things right now investment and Aid and fair investment is investment in massive investment as
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investment pours in it's obnoxious how often this happens we invest in Innovation that lead to Innovation the nature of innovation and Innovation but Innovation the more time we give Innovation and Innovations like artificial meat the standards for equality of such data is profoundly lowered in order to make these hidden injections work in the instance of carbon capture curtisac told the numbers on car straight from a Gates funded magazine who took the number from a
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Gates funded private carbon capture facility but that's the lowest estimate in reality it could be as much as twice as expensive today and still at least twice as expensive as trees are right now than a carbon capture is projected to be in the most optimistic estimates which won't be real until at least the next decade rather than solving the climate crisis many scientists argue such Investments divert attention away from more impactful solutions And Delay
12:41
phasing out of modern industrial methods and fossil fuel dependence critic doesn't tell you which Technologies Bill Gates has invested in and how positive messaging about them is advancing his positions but curses act did take the effort to mention exactly those technologies that Bill Gates and his billionaire friends are most invested in there is a pattern that can explain why Christmas act videos are like this in many videos they're coincide with Bill Gates interest they collaborate with our
13:08
role in data or prioritize their content on these issues in their video on do we need nuclear energy to stop climate change kurtzkazak prominently links to our rolling data species on nuclear energy this video is not sponsored by Gates but the billionaire is betting heavily on his new generation of nuclear reactors Chris's act Source document links to our welding data 27 times or about every third reference Kurtz's Act made videos heavily criticizing organic food this is another topic of major
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investment from Gates who thinks industrialized agriculture with pesticides and GMOs is the best approach to solving world hunger which it hasn't solved so far in all four cases where chrisank draws verdict on organic food our rolling data is cited as reference this video is also not sponsored by Gades the most generous billionaire is one of the earliest backers of alternative Meats owning major positions in vegan and meat-free protein companies criticide has made a series of videos on
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me all with a strong verdict and and how meat is bad for you and the environment all of these videos were advised on by Hannah Richie one of the key lieutenants at our role in data during the production of at least one video Richie was a business manager at a mean free microprotein company whatever your take on meat is these are conflicts of interest that should normally be disclosed by any serious research but Chris's act makes no effort to help you connect the dots curse's Act is terrible
14:35
at disclosing their sponsors I did a poll of my audience to see when they think channels should disclaims sponsorship most people would prefer before the video starts or during intro curses act never reveals their sponsors until the very end of their videos some sponsors were declared in the last few seconds of the video some were only mentioned in the text on screen and in at least one instance the only disclaimer of sponsorship was in the description this is a low bar even for
15:02
YouTube plenty of good educational creators disclose their sponsors up front why should cry be given a pass most people who do not watch videos till the very last second or who cannot read everything that's on the screen would never be aware of the extent to which criticism videos are sponsored by billionaires Chris's act also does a terrible job at explaining who their sponsors actually are this video is part of a series about climate change supported by breakthrough energy in
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their climate change video is sponsored by breakthrough energy you're told it is just a coalition founded by Bill Gates that's working to expand clean energy investment and support the innovations that will lead the world to Net Zero carbon emissions but they don't tell you that breakthrough energy is a bunch of venture capitalist funds where billionaires tend to make huge profits from adoption with Technologies they invest their billions into kurtzka's act left a link in the description that
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leads to Gates book sale but not the fund's official website YouTube has a policy that Flags channels funded by governments with a label that informs viewers of this financial conflict this was enacted with with the aim of combating government misinformation on the platform you can see this on Christmas act German channel that is backed by the government and YouTube labels it as a German PBS this same standard should be applied to private funding too there should be a label that
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cannot be arbitrarily set or removed by the Creator that this closes up front who is finding their videos Media consolidation is a major threat to diversity of views and billionaires including the ones funding curses act are the main driver behind this trend it is not enough to promise editorial Independence because there are multiple ways sponsors can influence content behind the scenes Kurtz gazag maintains their sponsors never have input on their scripts but in practice they routinely
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consult with researchers that come from sponsor-funded institutions or scientists directly on their sponsors payroll the two video scores is that made with Max Roser were sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation but Max rosers are rolled in data received almost 5 million dollars from Bill Gates so what is exactly the degree of separation here in the video on vaccine side effects critic lists six experts they consulted with at least four of which are from Gates funded institutions
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and one scientist is an executive At The Gates Foundation how is that not a sponsor commenting on their script in three videos curtism made for the Temple Town World charity at least four out of six scientists have received direct funding for the research from Templeton in the curses ad video on long-termism the last human sponsored by open philanthropy two out of three scientists are from the Oxford's future of humanity Institute The Institute which received at least 15 million pounds from open
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philanthropy the one LMU Munich scientist was also at Oxford during the open philanthropy grants there is no disclaimer of any of these associations anywhere in kurz Kazakh materials another long term is video the one on the civilizational collapse was sponsored and researched by William mccaskill seemingly a random Professor from Oxford University mccaskill is behind the center of effective altruism and a number of other Charities that have received funding from open
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philanthropy and some have funded our role in data nothing about this relationship is ever disclosed and curses at source materials open philanthropy has given Kurtz's ad more than 5 million euros to expand the channel into foreign languages and to promote long-term its philosophy and effective altruism in their videos do you think money doesn't buy influence so billionaires do political lobbying and campaign financing for the lows and they don't get any laws influenced in
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their favor do billionaires buy newspapers and donate to Media companies to support independent journalism think of what happened to the covid-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford researchers originally planned to release their vaccine pattern for free so that third world countries could manufacture their doses faster instead of waiting for the rich countries to donate the vaccines to them until Bill Gates stepped in and forced the university to partner with a
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manufacturer and not release their patents against the pleas of The Who and the developing world that patents which stifle vaccine access gates used is 750 million dollar leverage to change a University's course and he did this to protect the interests of big pharmaceutical companies he has been investing in for decades which resulted in the global vaccine apartheid and possibly millions of preventable deaths money buys influence it buys it in politics it buys it in science it gets
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you favorable coverage in the media Gates poured 300 million dollars into media companies criticizak being one of them ask yourself when was the last time you read a critical piece on Gates or his foundation if kurtzkuzak wants to maintain they are able to decouple the interests of their funding stores from the content in their videos does this mean that we'll soon get to see a cutely animated character of Bill Gates meeting up with Jeffrey Epstein at his private
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venues after he was convicted sex trafficker science is more than a body of knowledge when Big Money buys big influence science is always the casualty if we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us that something is true to be skeptical of those in Authority it becomes less diverse more engine and more authoritative then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along in the academic Community there is a
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phenomenon called the chilling effect it occurs when scientists self-censor or refuse to speak out against the funding source of their institutions out of fear of losing support or getting sacked with the Gates Foundation they refer to it as the bill chill Gates funding priorities have worried scientists for stifling diversity of use for decades his philanthropic funding made it difficult to find independent reviewers through his multi-billion Dollar Empire of
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donations and Investments Gates amassed enough power to single-handedly influence policies of global and National governing bodies when Gates Foundation pours money into the project they end up having enough power to veto public policies that don't align with their Charities priorities we need to have a serious debate is Big Money lobbying a problem only if it's for issues we don't like or is it a problem on principle this is how Kirsten views the fossil fuel lobbyists as evil
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villains trying to influence our politicians and mislead the public with their money kurzak clearly understands the problem of big money but they don't seem to have a problem with when they are on the receiving end of the big money influencing policies in public opinion billionaires have hacked the system by which we measure the myriads of arguments in science and public disc Wars with the sheer wealth they brute force their ideas into the mainstream by giving their interests more funding for
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research more coverage in the media and higher likelihood of becoming a public policy this system is beyond broken especially for a studio as big as Kurtz's act back in 2017 purses act admitted in their medium article they would actually be able to do away with sponsors altogether and rely on their patreon supporters and revenue and merge they also have a design studio branch that makes commission work for big name clients so why haven't the channel got rid of sponsors yet they are already
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funded by the German State and they sold courses on brilliant and skillshare why not maintain Integrity you can afford to make less make less by the very least criticize should be more transparent in disclosed sponsorship at the beginning of their videos so that people can make the decision before they watch the video and not afterwards but transparency alone would not fix the conflict of interest and perverse incentives journalists Educators and media Outlets
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should not take money from entities they are supposed to be critically covering tobacco advertising has been banned almost universally across the globe it isn't the only Lobby that's been found influencing Academia education and media with their funding billionaires seek to do the same there is no such thing as a free gift did you notice that throughout this entire video there was no segue to a sponsored segment that's because this channel has never taken a single
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sponsorship deal none with my current ad Revenue I can honestly Proclaim that the headed one channel is indeed almost entirely viewer funded without my patreon supporters this video wouldn't happen so if you'd like to support actual independent content please join my patreon today you'll be greatly rewarded with an exclusive podcast and merge thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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