He's pretty upfront about where he gets his knives, actually. He certainly never denies that he got certain knives for free, and in many videos, he specifically says that he was sent the knife for free, for example the video he did recently on the Kuma knife. He also made a whole Q&A video recently where he explained how he gets a lot of knives sent to him for free.
As I said, it's definitly not clear in all of the videos, and when the resulting movie is a glowing review of a knife that obviously has some issues, it calls into question either the objectivity or the qualifications of the reviewer. That means it's not a review, it's essentially a paid advertisement, that he profits from.
I know this happens a lot on youtube, but that's not an excuse... it's just a bigger problem.
I only wrote a short essay explaining my position. But you didn't take notes, so you "can't be bothered to" distill your high level thesis into a mere one or two paragraphs of reasoning with examples to convey your opinion without all the generalization or conjecture. Why would anyone ever expect reciprocity in a conversation, of all things?
No I meant that I didn't take notes when I went through his movies when I saw them. But that was the general impression I got. If you want to watch all of his stuff, fine go ahead. I have no intention to re-watch it just to fuel this discussion. I did not start this thread. Someone made an observation, I agreed with it, and summed up my feelings on the matter. Nothing more.
You're more than welcome to disagree and idolize the man and his channel if you want. I'm just explaining why I have some problems with it.
I don't know why you'd be jealous either. But like I said, despite there being other channels giving incomplete or inadequate advice for sharpening knives, you seem to have singled out only this one to crucify. I'm just trying to understand, and since you haven't offered evidence to support your position, I don't have much to work with.
Oh I agree there is lots more bad stuff, a lot even worse. I only responded here because it came up and I shared the sentiment. Same thing in another thread... someone brought up this dude and I gave my thoughts on why I wouldn't necessarily put too much value in his advice. Just like I usually hazard people not to put too much stock in mine.
And as I said one of the reasons I did is because the higher production values unconsciously lead people to overestimate the expertise level of the creator. People usually don't make that mistake when they're watching the usual shaky webcam footage.
So don't watch his videos then. Why is this such a difficult concept for you? Nobody's forcing you to watch them or agonize about all the things he's doing wrong.
Which is why I didn't want to go back and watching them just to fuel this discussion. I'm just giving my opinion on them after it came up. Again, I was never the one who started any threads about him.
Point to where, in the post you're replying to or anywhere else, I said that it's OK to make money by hurting other people or doing anything else that's illegal.
I'll wait.
You were argueing about how I was in no position to say how he could or couldn't feed his family just because I didn't approve of how he was doing this. I just think that's a non-argument. Lot's of people do lots of morally questionable things 'to feed their family' and 'pay the rent'. Just because it's how they choose their money doesn't mean we're allowed to critize them? Again, I'm sorry, but drug smugglers, slave traders and whatnot do what they do to feed their family and pay their bills as well. I'm not saying you condone those things, I'm just saying it's a non-argument. Legality does not guarantee morality.
Just to give a personal example. I worked for a callcenter for a while. I made a conscious decision to work at the helpdesk instead of at sales (which would have earned more money) because I found what they were doing doing business - mostly trying to sell people stuff they absolutely did not want or need - morally questionable. Even at customer support I actually lost my job after half a year when they had to cut employees because I was doing too good a job at 'trying to help people' while it was more profitable for the company just to 'get rid of them in the quickest way possible'. I could never go along with that as it was morally questionable and frankly insulting to the consumers. It hurt my finances a lot but I still stand by it.
I just don't buy into the general argument that 'you're not allowed to critique how someone makes their money'. There are more than enough questionable business practises in this world to go around and I don't buy into the capitalist idealism that you cannot fault a businessman for trying to make money. That's the kind of attitude that got sugar and corn syrup producers to bury research on the unhealthyness of their product, got tobacco producers to deliberately mislead the public about how their products caused cancer, and has fossile fuel companies ruining the environment while financing bogus climate deniers just so they can make a buck to the detriment of everyone.
While I'm quite willing to admit his intentions might be entirely benign and innocent, that does not good guarantee results. A lot of very questionable things in this world are done by entirely selfless idealists. But I guess that's my thesis speaking.
He's criticized burrfection in at least one other thread in the same superficial, generic way. I'm still waiting for him to give any specifics whatsoever. The fact that he's more willing to insinuate that I can rationalize slavery than give examples backing up what he says tells me that he's probably unable to defend his position.
Again, I did not start either discussion about the channel... I was only responding to them when I came up and shared my doubts about them. The insinuation about rationalizing slavery was about the argument you were giving.
For the record... I can rationalize slavery just as well myself... it wasn't meant as an insult.
