I have to politely disagree. Sure, one video isn't a big deal -- it's just five or ten minutes. But, if I followed up every silly idea presented online with five or ten minutes of watching kooky videos, then yeah, I'd end up less knowledgeable than if I stuck to the stuff that tends to come from better sources.

Also, I've met enough smart people infected by silly ideas to know that nobody is immune to misinformation. Maybe I'm bored and one of those videos leads me down some YouTube rabbit hole that gets me stuck on some nonsense. I'd probably never see it coming; the people who listened to a little too much Coast to Coast surely didn't.

So while I'm excited by new ideas on just about every subject, I also have something of an immune response to them, a conscious decision that I'd rather be uninformed -- and maybe spend that time reading a book or doing something fun outside -- than misinformed. Since I'm not smart enough to know what's right and what's not when I don't know anything about the subject, I rely on the source as a strong signal of trustworthiness.

HN's just about the only guilty pleasure I've got left, but the S:N here is still better than a lot of other places.