this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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[–] Harriet_Porber@lemmy.world 125 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I absolutely loved mythbusters, but honestly I think it ran it's course. They were kind of running out of things to test towards the end.

Also search for Streamlined Mythbusters - they're fan-edits that remove fluff (lots of fluff in the later seasons) and rearranges the shows so each myth is played straight through before going to the next myth in the episode; instead of showing pieces of 3 different myths at a time bouncing between them.

[–] asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 35 points 2 years ago

I've tried to rewatch the shows but the TV format mostly just kills it for me now. Thanks that sounds perfect for modern audiences tastes.

[–] thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

the only reason they ran out of ideas back then is because social media wasn't as big yet.

in the world of TikTok they'd never run out.

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[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 78 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Mythbusters is one of my favorite series of all time, but for the love of God, please don't revive it

[–] half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world 56 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Jman prob wouldn't come back anyway.

Savage has a YouTube channel if anyone is feeling nostalgic. He takes questions about making and mythbusters. Sometimes it's fun to hear him reminisce. I personally like his new builds more than when he's looking back into the past.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 40 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I don't think any amount of money in the world could bring Jamie back to a revival.

I believe Adam's already said he's no longer interested in filming television.

Plus, Grant has since passed away, Kari is a big oil sell-out, and Tory has been floundering around on Amazon's streaming service for a while now

[–] CosmicTurtle@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah it's been sad seeing some influential people go into really questionable areas. I think reddit shit a brick when Aubrey Plaza went shilling for milk producers of America.

Terry Crews did a commercial for Amazon, right around the time that unionization was lifting off.

I get that you got to eat but these people aren't without choices.

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[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Kari is a big oil sell-out,

I watched the video and a behind the scenes how an off shore rig works isn't much of a sell out. Showing the behind the scenes complexity of drilling makes solar even more appealing.

Mythbusters regularly featured weapons but they weren't shilling for the US Military Industrial Complex.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

No, but getting a respected "science person" to go on camera and repeat their clean-sounding PR "Deepwater Energy" name is just one of the ways that Big Oil legitimizes their actions to the public, and I'd have hoped someone who spent a decade plus in both the entertainment and soft-science industries could've seen through it. It would be like if Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson made a multi-part webseries about Clean Coal.

Regardless, it wasn't the first time the MB cast was tricked into shilling for fossil fuels, but an episode about clean-burning diesel in 2009 is a lot less aggregious than an episode about underwater oil drilling in 2023, in my opinion.

Mythbusters regularly featured weapons but they weren't shilling for the US Military Industrial Complex.

Not the MIC, but I have no doubt that the NRA or other gun lobbyists helped produce those episodes.

[–] Zehzin@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The U-2 Bomber episode was a little shilling, there wasn't even a myth. But what were they gonna do, not take a cool ass ride to the edge of space?

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[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

Hearing that about Kari is super disappointing. I thought she would go into something like joining an advocacy group to fight against climate change. Anything but shilling for oil

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[–] negativenull@startrek.website 74 points 2 years ago (28 children)
[–] morriscox@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

I prefer https://explainxkcd.com/397/ because it adds explanations, references, and comments.

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[–] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 71 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social 28 points 2 years ago

It was so shocking, he was only 49 years old. aneurysms are crazy... :'(

[–] Endorkend@kbin.social 65 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Instilling the "Oh, I was wrong, THAT'S SO COOL" mindset in people is one of the best things science education can do.

And it translates to all walks of life.

There's so much misery in the world simply from people who know nothing convinced they know everything.

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[–] binary45@lemmy.world 49 points 2 years ago

“Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.” -Adam Savage

That single quote is the core of Mythbusters, and only the original Mythbuster team truly had that chemistry to pull it off on national television.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 43 points 2 years ago (3 children)

My favorite episode is the one where they tried to turn a city bus at 50 mph to test a scene from a movie called "Speed".

It didn't matter how the passengers were arranged in the bus, the bus just wouldn't turn over. In fact, the bus was more stable in a corner when ghe weight was evenly distrubuted, to the surprise of nobody with a mechanical engineering degree.

The most instructive part for me was what they did have to do to make the bus barely tip over. They had to fasten a big piece of steel plate to the roof, disable the air shocks on one side, and put all the "passengers" (barrels of water) on one side.

Thus reminding everyone that engineers know more about how to build a bus than movie writers do. Which shouldn't be a surprise.

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[–] Zatore@lemm.ee 33 points 2 years ago

RIP Grant, you are missed

[–] runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 2 years ago

Mythbusters is the reason I went into STEM. On year my parents even bought me tickets to see the tour, as a Christmas present. I also still watch Adam's YouTube channel weekly (Tested).

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 25 points 2 years ago

Love it. RIP Grant.

[–] dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 23 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I still remember the cement truck explosion but I don't remember what myth they were testing lol

[–] Bianca_0089@lemmy.today 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Explosives to clean a cement truck. At first they tested it practically(empty-drum with just a layer of dried cement leftovers) but eventually went with the overkill scenario at the end: full-drum and real dynamite. Pretty fun episode

[–] cashew@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

I believe the myth was that you could use dynamite to clean dried cement from the inside of the drum. Of course they decided to go all the way with it :P

[–] peto@lemm.ee 22 points 2 years ago (4 children)

It was revived in 2017. I think that's all that needs to be said on the matter.

If you like this kind of content, there are loads of YouTube channels doing these kinds of 'experiments' they tend to be more specialised, but that's a good thing and they often interact with each other to share expertise.

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[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 20 points 2 years ago (3 children)

See, this is why I don't like debunking shows in general, and I find the skeptic movement to be overrated and simply draws less criticism that it deserves.

MythBusters avoided the one mistake that all debunkers make. First off, they didn't come off as thinking that they were smarter than anyone else, they don't mock people for believing false information, and they never bring religion into it.

They just talked about whatever misconception, then they tested to see if it worked or not

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[–] MudMan@kbin.social 17 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Yeeeeah, no, that's weird. Discovery rebooting it with different people would almost certainly suck, if you just want to hang out with that sort of engineery-makery-SFXy content there's tons of ways to do it now and Savage is a successful youtuber in that space. Pair it with Imahara's hearbreaking passing and that just sounds all kinds of depressing.

I'd sure love it if Discovery wasn't actively burying the old episodes, though. That'd be nice.

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[–] chitak166@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Mythbusters is good just because of how down-to-Earth and raw it is.

They show the audience what they want to see. They ask the questions the audience wants asked. They give rationales that make sense, most of them.

It's a very human show, even if it requires a lot of science and engineering to make it work.

The producers did a fine job with it. I'm glad it's not over-edited or following a checklist of what a show needs to be in order to be successful.

Its format and presentation fit the content like a glove.

[–] Philharmonic3@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think of it like this: imagine if one day you tested the classic Newton experiment and dropped an apple, but it DIDN'T fall down. Imagine how exciting that would be!

[–] Sway_Chameleon@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I feel like that would be exciting in the same way finding out your brakes have ceased working in your car would be exciting.....

Edit: wording/spelling.

[–] Million@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Adam Savages one day builds are relly neat videos about building props and other things and Adam is such a nice person to listen to IMO

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[–] dynamojoe@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Naah, they'd never recapture the magic. Bring back similar shows like junkyard wars and battlebots.

[–] LesbianSweater@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Battle bots is still going on. They have new seasons every year. There is a large break in between for rebuilds and try outs.

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[–] RavenFellBlade@startrek.website 9 points 2 years ago

Mythbusters really was the best TV has ever had to offer in its heyday.

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The elephants and mice episode is also my favorite non-explosion myth. I can't believe it's actually true.

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[–] ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

"Holy shit, we were wrong! Oh my god! This is great! We were so wrong!"

This is the essence of science. Being wrong is exciting because it means that you're on to something. The way scientific theories are made is by challenging what you believe -- trying to prove your idea wrong. If you repeatedly can't prove it wrong then you're probably approaching something that is true which continually adds to the certainty that you're onto something. That's what the sigma certainty means in scientific discoveries. It refers to the possible margin of error in a discovery.

The sigma certainty is essentially, 1 sigma is about 85% certain - or a 1 in 7 chance you're wrong, 2 sigma is about 97.75% certainty - or a 1 in 45 chance you're wrong, 3 sigma is about 99.98% certain - or about 1 in 5000 chance of being wrong, etc. It depends on which scientific field you're in as to which level of sigma is considered enough for something to officially become an accepted theory, in Astronomy a 6 sigma is where the line is drawn which is about 1 in 500 million chance of being wrong (~99.9999998% certain).

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