YouTube has a video on just about anything you can think of and some things you might not think of. If you want to know how to polarize a voltage regulator for an old generator system, there's probably a video on how to do it. If you're thinking about a trip to Yakutsk, there's probably a video advising what kind of outerwear you'll need to take. There are lots of people producing videos on subjects that they think they know something about, but they don't. The word “dilettante” comes to mind.
There are a few that I have found to be consistently good and I have watched quite a few of their videos. They are probably not too appealing to wide audiences because they are specialized in areas of interest to me and maybe not a large fraction of the population.
The one with probably the widest appeal is one called The History Guy. I don't know that the HG ever says what his name is, but he is a professorial looking fellow with a bow tie and he speaks pretty fast and sometimes with great expression. I like the fact that he doesn't play music over his commentary. Sometimes some of his subjects have hilarious content, such as The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855. or one about an Englishman who accidentally took off in a fighter jet with no canopy and that he didn't know how to fly.
If you want to learn almost anything in the mechanical arts, Tubalcain is your man, or at least one of them. He started out as tubalcain, but now goes by mrpete222 for some reason. He has over 1000 videos and has a pretty wide variety of topics. Some of the videos are not instructive, but just fun or investigative. He has one where he visits the Vaughn Hammer plant and one where he visits the Rocket Museum at Huntsville, Alabama and the Barber Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham. He also has a series on “what is it?” where he shows various items and asks what they are. Sometimes he doesn't know what they are, but a viewer usually does. There's also a “how does it work?” series that explains how various things work. He is a retired Shop teacher, so he knows how to convey information clearly.
There are lots of gun “experts” blabbering about their opinions – many times stated as fact – and most of them are not worth watching because they don't know what they're talking about. Lots of the gun sites spend time shooting watermelons or plastic bottles of water or other liquid-filled vessels that will display spectacular demonstrations of hydrostatic shock. This is fun, but has no useful purpose. At best it demonstrates how rapidly the projectile is displacing the water. About 40 years ago I shot some liquid filled cans with a .458 Win. Mag. and a .220 Swift. The Swift exploded the cans like a bomb was placed inside, but the .458 just split the can in a very unspectacular way.
This is all by way of saying that I like a channel called Gunblue490 I don't know the man's name, but he's a very knowledgeable guy who doesn't try to be Rambo or James Bond. He talks about various guns and calibers, explains ballistic coefficients, sectional density, bullet selection, cartridge headspace, scope selection, stuck case removal, rifling twist, carry gun selection and how to cure salmon the Norwegian way. The last one doesn't sound too gun related and I don't need to do this, but I might need to at some point. He's another one that doesn't play music over his commentary.
Engineering Explained is another one of the technical sorts that I find interesting. The guy doing the explaining looks young enough to be going for his Eagle Scout designation, but he must be older than he looks since he said that he actually worked as an engineer. Maybe he has a portrait of himself in the attic. He talks about things such as horsepower versus torque, engine braking, differentials, air fuel ratios, turbo lag and other stuff like that that most people find spellbinding. He's good at explaining things. He also does reviews of tires, brakes, shocks and other accessories that the non-buff might find useful.
Stefan Molyneux is one of the few commentators or social observers that can look at a question or event dispassionately even if – maybe especially – it's a supercharged hot potato. He's the kind of guy that you can watch and think “He's wrong about this,” but still see how he arrived at his conclusion.
I haven't watched a huge number of his videos, but I haven't seen him resort to calling his opponents idiots, homophobes, anti-Semites, racists, Nazis, haters or any of the other terms that are used to besmirch someone or silence debate.
He has recently posted a video he shot in Poland that I think is very good, especially for a first effort. The 100 Year March: A Philosopher in Poland Molyneux is/was an atheist or agnostic or some sort of skeptic or former skeptic or something. It's hard to tell, but it seems like he is moving toward theism in this post.
These guys are all gentlemanly and don't use vulgar or obscene language. I think Molyneux might occasionally use some language not suitable for all viewers, but he doesn't make it his regular practice. Some YouTubers and BitChuters have good content, but they lack any kind of professional decorum and turn off viewers by presenting their content as though they are speaking at a convention
of Hell's Angels or Bordello suppliers.
If you have any interest in these fields, check these guys out.
