
The brilliance of All Gas No Brakes - Balgair
https://bigtechnology.substack.com/p/the-brilliance-of-all-gas-no-brakes
======
erulabs
All Gas No Brakes is fantastic - strongly recommend to anyone remotely
interested in journalism. This article sort of suggests he’s not a journalist
- which I have to take issue with... He asks as few questions as possible and
intentionally doesn’t steer the conversation - which is maybe not the kind of
investigative drilling were used to in modern times - but is exactly what
journalism needs. Every video provides enough context that you don’t feel
silly commenting on it - you aren’t nagged by that “what did they say right
after that clever edit back to the studio...” feeling.

Extremely happy AGNB got signed to AbsoLutley. I want Tim & Eric to do to news
what they did to comedy.

~~~
Taek
I was at Area 51, which he covered. And while his video was very entertaining,
it did not represent at all what it was like to be there.

AGNB is exceptional at finding the crazy people and encouraging them to be
themselves on camera. 98% of the people at area 51 (admittedly a lower
percentage than most events) were completely normal, non-conspiracy
individuals, mostly from the midwest.

~~~
ethanbond
But... they were at Area 51...

It seems that alone would indicate that they are not non-conspiracy
individuals.

~~~
Apocryphon
The Area 51 thing was a viral meme on social media. It hit the mainstream. It
was a little like a flash mob. Even its origin was comedic.

~~~
chrisseaton
> It hit the mainstream.

Mainstream people are not travelling to Area 51 to be part of a flash mob due
to an internet meme. Re-set your expectations of what normal people are doing,
because it's a million miles off.

~~~
Apocryphon
People get bored and take road trips. Prior to this year, it was a common
American pastime. Another unlikely example:

[https://www.ijpr.org/2017-05-09/solar-eclipse-or-bust-
small-...](https://www.ijpr.org/2017-05-09/solar-eclipse-or-bust-small-oregon-
towns-grapple-with-how-to-prepare-for-thousands)

~~~
ethanbond
A once in a lifetime (incredible) celestial event == going to the gates of a
military installation and, depending on who you ask, throwing a party or
attempting a raid.

Totally normal.

~~~
Apocryphon
It's not for everyone, but it's within the boundaries of normality.

My other response has already pointed out your apparent lack of getting the
joke, but it should be noted that if your primary hangup is the fact that
people were partying at a military installation, you should probably know that
specific base is one important to UFO mythos and thus public imagination.
There is precedence for that at multiple locations:

[https://www.newmexico.org/events/summer-events/roswell-
ufo-f...](https://www.newmexico.org/events/summer-events/roswell-ufo-
festival/)

[https://www.travelportland.com/events/ufo-festival-
mcminnvil...](https://www.travelportland.com/events/ufo-festival-mcminnville/)

Area 51, of course, is of higher security than these locations, but there's no
crime to be outside of the restricted zone. Personally, I had no interest in
the Storm Area 51 event but Groom Lake would make one hell of a hiking
expedition. It'd be quite cool to take pictures at the gate, and try to spot
black project aircraft along Route 375.

[https://travelnevada.com/road-trip/extraterrestrial-
highway](https://travelnevada.com/road-trip/extraterrestrial-highway)

------
frakkingcylons
Honestly, I think this is taking AGNB too seriously. It’s a hilarious channel
where a guy finds the weirdest people possible and lets them spew insane stuff
on camera. I love it, but I don’t get the sense that he’s doing it for
journalistic purposes (which is obviously fine!).

~~~
1propionyl
He said himself in an interview that up until the Minneapolis and Portland
videos, he was doing it purely for entertainment value, and didn't consider it
any form of journalism.

His strategy was just to get the weirdest weirdos on camera and let them talk.
With the Minneapolis/Portland videos you can see a significant shift towards a
more journalistic disposition.

~~~
frakkingcylons
Sure, I give him kudos for showing real activists in the protest videos
alongside the usual AGNB characters.

------
briga
The brilliance is how Andrew never mocks or judges his interview subjects, no
matter how outwardly insane or ridiculous they might be. Obviously the videos
are edited for comic effect, but I don't think he could have gotten half his
material if he didn't just allow people be their raw unfiltered selves. The
results are pretty fascinating and funny, you could probably write whole
anthropological dissertations on some of these videos.

~~~
UncleOxidant
I just found out about AGNB here. Watched a couple. It's clear from his facial
expressions that he's reacting to some of the crazy.

------
solarkraft
I'm not sure about that reading. Andrew clearly lets people be themselves, but
the people themselves and the format obviously select for the crazier ones.

I found the h3h3 interview quite interesting:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=lxt6virxkio](https://youtube.com/watch?v=lxt6virxkio)

------
m3kw9
I have a feeling that AGNB has a biased towards more sensational content. But
people saying normal things aren’t that entertaining, just imagine all 10 min
of a episode with people making sense and what you already sort of know.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
He definitely “growth hacked” his channel to grow his audience. I’m glad to
see him make the pivot to serious content after his Patreon could support him
and his crew full time.

------
JMTQp8lwXL
I wouldn't characterize the protestors in Portland as a fringe community, as
the author refers to the topics of 'All Gas No Breaks' reporting. Ideas like
racial justice and economic justice aren't fringe ideas. There is absolutely
nothing fringe about treating all people equal, regardless of the color of
their skin.

~~~
jariel
"There is absolutely nothing fringe about treating all people equal,
regardless of the color of their skin."

Probably most people support the notion, fewer people would protest (I
wouldn't say 'fringe' but nevertheless if you tally up the % of Washington
state that 'did a protest' it's a very, very small number). And then of
course, the burning of police stations, and the eviction of security forces
towards taking over a chunk of the city by violent force ... this is
absolutely 'fringe' and should be not be compared to the nominal ideals they
are supposed to represented.

From the Area 51 video, it seems a lot of these 'crazy folk' are not 'really
crazy', they almost seem like attention seekers, hamming come crazy up for the
camera.

~~~
WarOnPrivacy
> if you tally up the % of Washington state that 'did a protest' it's a very,
> very small number

That seems to describe every non-local protest - or gathering, for that
matter.

------
forinti
It is like low budget Louis Theroux. Very entertaining though.

------
nraynaud
There was this incredible TV show in the French speaking world called “Strip-
tease” it was like a documentary, but with no narrator nor journalist. You
would just see the people live and talk. It was a lot of rural and small town
stuff.

~~~
pedrogpimenta
Of course, the act of being filmed is already a transformation on people's
"real life". You're affecting it somehow, even without a person, there's a
microphone and a camera, they're the "journalist".

~~~
nraynaud
The trick is staying a very long time to re-normalize somewhat the behaviors.
They stayed 8 days in a laundraumat to film people there.

------
anticsapp
Jeff Krulik pioneered this approach in the 80s. Not to diminish what AGNB is
doing, but it's almost like The Office to his Spinal Tap.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_Parking_Lot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_Parking_Lot)

~~~
sukilot
I doubt it was invented in the 1980s

PT Barnum was doing it 100 years ago.

~~~
WarOnPrivacy
I'd totally watch PT Barnum's live videos from 1920.

~~~
anticsapp
Shoot me the YouTube link.

------
bobthechef
Reminds me of a quote from Chesterton: “When men choose not to believe in God,
they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of
believing in anything.”

The quote is deeper than it might appear and presupposes that you understand
that institutions are not the _sources_ of meaning as the article suggests,
but, when legitimate, guard some of the things that _are_ meaningful. Not a
projection of fiction on a dead existence, but actually meaningful and
intelligibly so (i.e., not some kind of mere passing feeling). Ideologies have
attempted to create simulated meaning time and again, silly beliefs that drive
people into madness, great and small. They have always failed because the
"meaning" they provided was bogus, a deception that might animate people for
some time, but is ultimately a fiction that ceases to maintain a lasting grip
precisely because it is false. Only someone crippled by nihilism, stupidity,
or opportunistic vice could latch onto something like that.

The trouble is that we have been sliding into nihilism for some time.
Nietzsche observed this slide during his era. He did not believe in God
himself, but he saw atheism as a dreadful, horrible thing. In his parable of
the madman, the madman frantically asks the people in town where God is. They
are amused at the spectacle, suggesting in jest that perhaps God is hiding
beneath something over here, or other there. The townsfolk represent the
people of his day, the atheists of the 19th century. The madman, of course,
realizes the consequences of God's "death" the horror of which the townsfolk
have not yet come to understand. They are still dwelling in that twilight of
the idols, fragmented and perverted pieces of the whole that was once held
together by God before the earth was unchained from the sun and lost its
orientation (Nietzsche gave the cult of Science some noteworthy attention as
an example of one of these idols). The twilight does, sooner or later, come to
an end, of course, and that's when even the idols can no longer pacify our
fears.

I think most people are like those townsfolk. True nihilism is unbearable.
Anyone who claims otherwise is like the foolish teenager who is merely spiting
his parents in an act of rebellion. Some of us sense the nihilism festering in
our souls and begin to attach ourselves to various causes, fads, fashions,
distractions. Anything to avert our gaze from the horrific void within us and
before us. And America has always been a land of heretics (to borrow a
characterization from Douthat), so perhaps the diversity of bizarre
superstitions should be greater in the US than elsewhere. At the same time The
"mainstream" pop culture is also vacuous, commercial, ideological, and stupid,
itself dripping with hedonistic escapism from nihilism as much as any fringe
movement (you should also expect a ascetic reaction for every hedonistic
indulgence; each excess breeds its corresponding deficiency). Actually, we are
in the throes of a kind of new gnosticism, a new Albigensian movement wherein
the "true meaning" of the world, the "true self", is beyond the world of facts
and can in fact contradict the facts. The facts are an illusion, not the
"really real". They're "socially constructed" much like the material world is
the deceptive construction of the evil creator god of the Old Testament, at
least according to the gnostics. It is a dangerous, noxious amalgamation of
pride and delusion, a slide into self-destruction, something Man has always
excelled at. It is not unreasonable to think that gnosticism is, for many, an
attempt to escape their nihilism into a world of pure imagination, giving
their perverted appetites an inviolable infallibility and sanctity. We don't
need AI and robots to create the Matrix. Many of us are in it now.

~~~
0134340
>When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in
nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

That quote is deceptive though and and it's sometimes used, as in your case,
to push religious propaganda. For every secular view you'll likely find a
theistic view with many commonalities. Theism doesn't stop people from
justifying or believing in many of the things agnostics do because out of
thousands of denominations of thousands of theistic religions of thousands of
gods and thousands of years, theistic belief is just as varied as non-theistic
belief. And often they're just as vague and meaningless while virtue-
signalling as something more meaningful and sometimes the love they espouse is
something committed only for that tribe or out of fear of gods rather secular
motives which may often be for the tribe but not because they feel they have
to. Sorry if I seem course but I'm tired of this meaningless 'life has no
meaning without belief in gods' trope pervade my favorite forum for which I'd
rather view tech news and not be denigrated for not having found any
believable gods yet. Nihilism isn't defined by lack of belief in gods.

~~~
jariel
" and it's sometimes used, as in your case, to push religious propaganda."

A comment is not 'propaganda'.

Unless your comment is 'Atheist Propaganda'.

Seriously.

"Nihilism isn't defined by lack of belief in gods." Fine, but that doesn't
take away anything about what he said about Nihlism.

There is something more mundane about the quote, and that is the psychology of
people who are willing to believe truly crazy stuff, and there is a lot going
on there, probably worth study.

~~~
0134340
>A comment is not 'propaganda'.

If you're going for intellectual honesty, "a comment can be propaganda." But
in this case it has been as propaganda if going by the typical definition of
"the systematic propagation of a doctrine". Of which atheism or agnosticism
have none and more often than not, in the west it's atheistic ideologies that
were more systemically pushed by establishment as propaganda than atheistic by
a large margin. So it's fair to say it's often used as propaganda, this
specific quote I've personally witnessed used as such many times and it reeks
of self-righteousness.

>Fine, but that doesn't take away anything about what he said about Nihlism.

And so what did he say about nihilism? Your criticism of AGNB's interviewees
seems to be that they're nihilistic. If they were truly nihilistic, you could
argue, they'd be at home sulking that there's no point in doing those things
but they all seem truly motivated to do various things. I don't get this
offense at nihilism when it's one of the most benign ideologies to ever exist.
How many people have died from people who had no motive or saw no point in
action? Nihilism is void of motive. It's when you have both motive and
ideologies is when many people get killed. In that case you could just as
easily rail against ideologues.

>and that is the psychology of people who are willing to believe truly crazy
stuff

Maybe they see all the craziness in the world and only become a reflection or
amplification of it. We can't also forget all the craziness in the theistic
religions which cause people to do worse things than coordinating over silly
ideas. I wouldn't condone all the "craziness" but I can't generalize and
denigrate it either. This craziness, as you may see, represents a lot of
creativeness and originality that you can find in man and many good things
come from it, both productive and what you might see as non-productive. And if
it's the "meaningless" fun they're having at harmless conventions, it isn't
meaningless if it's fun. Fun has meaning in giving people reprieve from
stressors, which ultimately helps us be more productive. And if not, oh well.
You wind up with people who've just enjoyed themselves for apparently nothing.
We could get deep into existential philosophy if you like but I think you get
the point. You can look at many things as shallow but often, like with
everything in the world, there is more to it than what's on the surface and
more meaning in it than you may see. Because you don't see meaning in
something doesn't mean it's not there.

~~~
jariel
The intellectual hoops you're leaping through to try and justify a normal
comment as 'propaganda' not only don't help your case - they only serve to
possibly validate that your very own response is is a form of propaganda
itself.

"We can't also forget all the craziness in the theistic religions which cause
people to do worse things than coordinating over silly ideas."

Spirituality is not a 'silly idea', more importantly it doesn't cause us to do
crazy-bad things in general.

'Silly ideas' are things like Imperialism, Communism and Fascism - all of
which are secular ideals and have caused massive, worldwide violence to the
tune of many massive wars (most wars in fact) to the tune of 100's of millions
dead in the last century alone, and continue to hang the existential nuclear
threat over our heads.

~~~
0134340
Maybe I was a bit hyperbolic in calling it propaganda but I'm sometimes
reminded that my state constitution says I can't run for legal office for lack
of belief in a deity nor witness in court. The chances that I'd have big
government sponsoring my view are much less than yours, hence why I used it.

>Spirituality is not a 'silly idea', more importantly it doesn't cause us to
do crazy-bad things in general.

The "silly ideas" I referred to colloquially as those which are the subject of
AGNB's videos, not to spirituality.

And the "ideas" you pointed out as silly, two of which, were and are driven as
much by religious motive as secular.

------
anm89
I think the narrative of people using these subcultures as a way or fill the
void left by the lack of traditional societal structures that people used to
find meaning in life is spot on.

It's interesting how half of the people in these subcultures seem to be in on
the absurdity of it and the other half aren't but it doesn't really seem to
matter to a lot of them.

~~~
0134340
>fill the void left by the lack of traditional societal structures that people
used to find meaning in life

Or maybe they're finding meaning in the void that traditional structures
couldn't fill.

------
trynewideas
Most of AGNB is great, but I wish the protest videos at least included
resources from local jouranlists alongside it for context.

Especially the Minneapolis and Portland protest ones recently put up — they
showed a narrow slice of what was happening to drive home some really salient
points, but if you watch them and think "THAT'S what's it's like in there",
it's off base by quite a bit compared to the less entertaining local
journalists (or even just streamers with a camera on a pole) who've been out
there livestreaming, interviewing, and documenting for months instead of weeks
or days.

Context is important; I can't speak for Minneapolis, but the Portland protests
weren't just (and aren't just, and for most of the nearly 70 straight days of
them haven't ever been) about the federal courthouse or the federal officers.
The BLM-led Justice Center protests weren't the chaotic courthouse protests,
and the 2-3k who came out for a week of feds has been less than 500 for most
of the other 2 months and change. The west-side downtown protests in a 4-block
zone around the center and courthouse aren't the east-side precinct and police
union HQ marches with local police chasing protesters and beating media into
residential neighborhoods.

Or maybe I'm still just pissed about AGNB showing mayor Ted Wheeler in a
sympathetic context, complete with his theatric tear gassing the one time he
came out to a protest, without the other context of how the PPB he runs as
police commissioner beats and gasses media and protesters as soon as cameras
like AGNB's left the fed protest stage - literally, PPB went out threatening
to gas the same crowd he stood with within 45 minutes of Wheeler leaving the
protest.

I guess my feeling is, some things aren't simple or clear enough to be
accurately served by pithy but entertaining 5- or 10-minute videos. It's one
lens, and a good one, but I get real nervous when people say AGNB is the model
for news.

Very few links of people on the ground:

[https://twitter.com/MrOlmos](https://twitter.com/MrOlmos)

[https://twitter.com/TheRealCoryElia](https://twitter.com/TheRealCoryElia)

[https://twitter.com/PDocumentarians](https://twitter.com/PDocumentarians)

[https://twitter.com/Clypian](https://twitter.com/Clypian)

[https://twitter.com/IwriteOK](https://twitter.com/IwriteOK)

[https://twitter.com/hungrybowtie](https://twitter.com/hungrybowtie)

------
d33lio
I absolutely love All Gas No Brakes (no pun intended) however I was a bit
troubled by some of Andrew's comments speaking with Ethan and Hila on the H3H3
podcast.

We need to remember that this is entertainment, plain and simple. This is
meant to be raw, groundbreaking and "fresh" which is why myself and many
others love the cut and dry nature of his content - however his comments
regarding the protests in Portland and Minneapolis were troubling.
Specifically, how he articulated looting, destruction of businesses (including
immigrant and minority owned businesses) as a "logical response to the death
of George Floyd".

AGNB will have a great future, but I think it's critical to remember that this
IS ENTERTAINMENT and not in the slightest form meant to be informative.

That said, godspeed Andrew lets take AGNB to the next level!

~~~
sukilot
Why is it troubling for Andrew to give his opinion? Is it troubling when you
post your opinion on HN? Or only troubling when people you disagree with share
their opinion?

------
rllin
AGNB is the spiritual successor to Louis Theroux

it's what Vice tried to capture but failed. parachute journalism works, only
if you inject very little of yourself into it and have minimal framework.

~~~
daveleebbc
Oh please, AGNB isn't in the same league as Louis Theroux. It's a great
YouTube channel and they do a good job of making fools look foolish, but to
compare it to Theroux's work is absurd.

~~~
rllin
spiritual successor

AGNB needs some time to grow into longer format

they're literally 3 dudes in an RV without a working toilet

if they had BBC money they would live up to Theroux 100%

------
pouta
His patreon exclusive content is definitely worth the $5. Sausage castle
videos are insane.

He also has a porn video as an extra on pornhub.

------
GhostOfLelandJr
Better than hitting the pookie

------
KKKKkkkk1
_In a visit to the Portland protests, for instance, Callaghan shows that the
attendees don 't neatly fit into the narrative you see on TV. Fox News' Tucker
Carlson, for example, calls the protestors "Biden voters," yet many on the
streets disdain Biden. There's something to what he's doing._

I don't know if Tucker Carlson is the gold standard of journalism that you
want to exceed.

~~~
tjr225
That’s exactly the point of what he is doing. I would guess most people who
watch Fox News consider Tucker Carlson to be a reliable source. That’s a
problem because he obviously isn’t.

~~~
sukilot
You don't need AGNB to tell you Ticket Carlsen is a lying demagogue. Everyone
who isn't a fan sees that when they watch Tucker Carlsen himself -- his lies
aren't exactly subtle.

