Project summary

Framing Logic is a proven, three-year-old educational platform with a simple mission: make logic and critical-thinking education something regular people actually want to consume.

We live in amid a crisis of critical thinking. When regular people act without their faculties of critical thinking awakened, it benefits no one but the forces of darkness. I jest, but I do believe that critical thinking is the ultimate tool for self empowerment. When their critical thinking lays dormant, it leaves people vulnerable to manipulation and misinformation. For better or worse, we're all part of this social contract called society. And when a poorly reasoning individual acts it can swing back and affect us too.

The obvious answer is logic and critical thinking education. The problem is that the lives of regular people rarely intersects with traditional logic and critical thinking education. 

Framing Logic solves that problem by meeting people where they are: Youtube and other social media platforms. 

Framing Logic takes this science of reasoning and translates it into visual, entertaining educational media. The flagship series is called Logic Instant Replay. It takes real-world arguments, slows them down, maps their premises and conclusions, identifies fallacies, biases and rhetorical manipulation, and then visualizes how the reasoning actually works. Think of the instant replay in a sports, but for an argument.

This is totally unique on Youtube. Commenters often say that Logic Instant Replay is their first introduction to logic as a science.  

The key here is that Logic Instant Replay is entertaining. I use storytelling, motion graphics, comedy, gamification and culturally relevant examples so people voluntarily watch an educational program about logic.

There is already strong evidence that this approach works. Framing Logic has grown to more than 100,000 subscribers and roughly 2 million views. I regularly hear from viewers who tell me that the channel introduced them to logic for the first time or inspired them to study critical thinking on their own.

I also think this work is philosophically compatible with an important part of the Effective Altruism project. EA places unusual value on truth-seeking, evidence, reason, intellectual humility and updating beliefs when presented with better evidence. Framing Logic is trying to bring some of those fundamental epistemic habits to people far outside communities that already think this way. 

After three years there is no question that people want to watch this type of content. The question now is how can it scale to become self sufficient.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

The first goal is to bring high-quality logic and critical-thinking education to a massive audience. When more regular people are introduced to epistemic frameworks like the critical thinking, this will have a reverberating affect across society 

The second goal is to increase the free supplementary educational resources I already give away alongside the videos. I want to create more infographics, argument maps, learning guides, fallacy resources. Down the line, I will create dedicated instructional videos and eventually material that educators can use directly with students.

The third goal is sustainability. I do not want Framing Logic to become permanently dependent on grants. The goal is to use funding now as a bridge between a successful proof of concept and a financially self-sustaining educational platform. 

Framing Logic already has some 150 Patreon micro-investors. At this point I know how many views I need before I get a new Patreon member. From this I can project financial self-sufficiency within 1-3 years. 

My goal is therefore not simply to make more videos. It is to build enough production capacity and audience scale that Framing Logic can continue producing free critical-thinking education long after the grant money is gone.

How will this funding be used?

Funding will primarily be used to build a small production team to boost video output.

Right now I’m a one-man production company. I research, write, produce, edit, animate, design and publish each major episode myself. As a result, a Logic Instant Replay episode currently takes roughly 6–8 weeks to produce.

That is simply too slow. 

The first use of funding would be hiring freelance specialists in areas such as editing, motion graphics, production and research. With the right support, I believe I can reduce the production cycle to approximately 2–3 weeks per major episode.

That increase in output matters enormously on YouTube. More releases create a kind of algorithmic snowball effect through more opportunities for discovery, more opportunities to bring new people into critical-thinking education, and more opportunities to convert some of those viewers into long-term supporters.

Additional production capacity would also allow us to create substantially more free educational material alongside the videos: infographics, argument maps, learning guides, dedicated logic lessons and resources for educators.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Right now Framing Logic is just me, Ben Bode.

Here is a bit about my track record: I have spent approximately 20 years working professionally in video production. I have worked as a producer, director, motion-graphics artist, creative lead and executive producer across science communication, digital media, advertising and entertainment.

My last w-2 was producing videos at MrBeast. There I helped manage multi-million dollar budgets, and lead teams of dozens of people. Probably the most popular video I produced was "I Survived 7 Days in an Abandoned City." 

There I managed large productions, substantial budgets and teams of dozens of people while working inside what is arguably the most sophisticated YouTube production operation in the world.

Before MrBeast I was Head of Video at Singularity University, where much of my work involved communicating complicated and emerging technologies to a general audience.

During this time I realized I am pulled towards the challenge of making abstract ideas visually accessible. So when I realized I should put my logic education towards the social good of logic education, and in doing so create videos that include super abstract visualizations on reasoning, it seemed a natural fit. 

For the last three years I have been testing whether those skills can be combined into a new kind of critical-thinking education. So far, that experiment has produced more than 100,000 subscribers, roughly 2 million views, around 150 paying Patreon supporters, and an audience that regularly tells me they are learning logic because of the channel.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

Failure is a thud that nobody hears.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

I have just begun looking for larger grants. But I have a Patreon with 150 micro-investors.