Creating a place to debate and think

Notes before we start:

My integrity and the integrity of my channel is very important to me. I always do my very best to present things with as much balance and nuance as I am able; to never quote-mine or misrepresent; to always provide links and encourage people to check out the original source; to always act in a manner which allows the arguments to rest and fall on their strengths not on biased presentation. These standards are standards I hope never to let slip.

If these are your standards then, pledged or otherwise, I trust my channel will be of value to you.

If these are your standards then, if you ever see me fall below them, I ask that you let me know, in no uncertain terms.

Who am I?

...is a question I quite often find myself asking. What I do know is that in everyday life I work as a firefighter and since 2008 have run the YouTube channel noelplum99.
My interest in science and the "god question" date right back to my childhood: I declared to my father that I'd decided God did not exist at six years old and by twelve had a rudimentary understanding of general and special relativity and the weirdness of quantum mechanics.

What do I do?

I make videos on YouTube. I love to think. Obsessively so.
My YouTube output is the result of years of interest and research and a borderline compulsive obsessional churning through of those subjects that hold my interest. My aim is to lay out my thoughts as best I can and, in doing so, to stimulate others to go away and have the same fascinating arguments with themselves that I have had with myself.

Why support this channel?

My aim is to make videos which have both high levels of nuance, balance and detail yet are light-hearted and down to earth. To do this takes time, both in terms of scoping out the video and then recording and editing.

My time is precious: I work 42 hours a week as a professional firefighter, with a young baby boy and a wife with a reduced work commitment. As a result the time I devote to YouTube HAS to pay to continue. If it does not then, sadly, that time will have to be spent earning money in another way. That is something I desperately want to avoid because I enjoy making videos and enjoy the exchanges that result.

Additionally, with the help of my existing patrons my output has already seen improvements and looking forward I hope to make my channel a place where more and more people will go to be entertained, challenged and also to find good debate amongst the comments section.
Your pledges make that possible because your pledges allow me to spend considerably more time taking the kernel of an idea for a video and fully realising it as a project, rather than rushing it out in an hour and a half because that is all that I can justify.

What is in it for me?

Good question (though I asked it on your behalf so don't get too smug!).

I ask for pledges on a 'per video' basis. As a matter of principal I will only ever set as pledged those videos that justify your support and never more than four pledged videos in any month. Any other output during a month will be unpledged.

All patrons get access to my patron-only videos. These are something I take seriously and, because I actually ENJOY making them, you can be assured they will be a regular feature of the patreon feed. These videos detail future plans (upcoming videos), additional subjects that I am not minded to discuss publically via my channel and thought-provoking additional content that runs alongside some of my YouTube videos.

Patrons who pledge $4 (or more) per video get early access to my planned videos.

Patrons who pledge $8 (or more) per video get the right to ask me whatever they like and I will give my thoughts in the next Patron-only video. If you enjoy my output and have questions to ask regarding something I have covered in a video this is potentially a very useful thing. It is also not a one-off, you can ask me to clarify or give my thoughts as often as you wish (within reason).

if you have gotten this far, thank you for reading whether or not you then choose to pledge - though getting this far means you are a sufficiently bloviating windbag, nine times out of ten, that my channel will be like manna from heaven ;)