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Added 2025-09-24 14:54:19 +0000 UTCDiscover the explosive story of Alfred Nobel.
Comments
With wars and the Peace Prize in the news, this is very timely. I’ve learned a little more history and physics with each viewing. This would have been good to see in Junior High, when I was trying to get the right ratio of soda and vinegar, for my “bombs”. I could have ruined a hand!
Timothy-Douglas Alvey
2025-10-11 17:33:07 +0000 UTCShift enter for future reference :) - Matt
Veritasium
2025-09-26 06:33:35 +0000 UTCHi Paul, thanks for raising this, some commenters on the YT video also made the same points. When discussing this one of the researchers for the video had this to say - 'These anarchists specifically were throwing bombs though to help achieve their goal, and watching it again I don't think we make the claim that all anarchists throw bombs, just that these guys did. We even separate them out as the dynamite club and say they were part of the anarchist movement.' I (Matt, publishing lead) agree with this. The point of adding this section to the video was to show how dynamite led to some of the worst attacks in US history. To show how far Nobel's invention went beyond his control rather than to provide an analysis on the political movement behind these attacks. To me it didn't come across that 'anarchists blew things up, therefore all anarchists are terrorists,' but rather that this specific branch of anarchy was involved in acts of terror which provided context for the indirect damage that Nobel caused. I say this as a huge fan of David Graeber but understand where you're coming from and how it might be interpreted in the way you have highlighted. - Thanks, Matt
Veritasium
2025-09-26 06:32:57 +0000 UTCI have now tried three different ways of breaking my posting into paragraphs, none of which work.
Paul Weiss
2025-09-24 20:37:55 +0000 UTCMy only problem with the video is the implicit equivalence of anarchy and violence. It's a difference between strategy and tactics. The strategy is (to break the word down in terms of its etymology) is "without a king." The fundamental goal is not to return to some "good old days" of a pre-industrial lifestyle, but to solve the problems of living together in groups by using the mechanism of voluntary associations of individuals in the absence of hierarchical, authoritarian coercion. Anarchist tactics have indeed included attempts to destroy the current structure of that authoritarian coercion by means of actions like sabotage and terrorist attacks on non-combatant civilian populations. [New paragraph] However, to establish an equivalence of that set of tactics with the overall objective of anarchism is not only historically inaccurate, but it also plays directly into the repeated (and current) societal tendencies to support even greater authoritarian pressure to eliminate the internal threats from that segment of the population who employ those tactics. [New paragraph] But there is an equally ancient and valid tradition of using non-violent tactics to achieve the same strategic end. There is such a thing as anarcho-pacifism, for instance, with Peter Kropotkin being one of the earliest coherent theorists of that tactic to realize the strategic goal of reducing the power of authoritarian control. The Occupy movements are another, as was the non-violent resistance to wars waged on behalf of and for the benefit of what Eisenhower called a "military-industrial complex," wars brazenly violating the autonomy of impoverished societies simply trying to effect various economic experiments to let more of their citizens to simply eat every day. [New paragraph] To ignore that, and to strengthen the misconceived identity of violent tactics sometimes employed by self-styled anarchists to the fundamental strategic goal, one of creating less violent and less authoritarian societies, is an error with enormous consequences. It plays directly into the current attempts to guarantee stability by supporting strong-man authoritarian rulers (in many countries across the globe), instead of encouraging the examination of the true goals of those authoritarian leaders.
Paul Weiss
2025-09-24 16:55:22 +0000 UTC
