Everyone agrees doesn’t imply that something is true.
Just take a look at any decent science to see how hard it is to detect causality.
It’s quite easy to tell a story of how Giuliani implemented the broken windows doctrine and then crime rates fall. Then it might be that it’s all just effects of lead on children brain development. It might be some other random reason. Freakonomics did suggest that it was abortions.
Your history analysis that focuses on governments as actors completely ignores effects such as the environmental effects of lead.
There quite a lot that happened in the 19th century as far as the industrial revolution goes.
You are ignoring the meta-level. In the 19th century we got schools with compulsory education and children where taught that nation states are really important. History was told as a bunch of actions of state actors. Things happened because of ministers, princes and kings. If your goal is getting people to believe in nation states that’s useful. But that goal is different from the goal of truth.
Niall Ferguson for example manages to tell a quite different history. There’s money. The importing of good math notation, allows calculation of new forms of debt. The French Revolution happened because the French state sunk in debt. Bankers amassed a lot of money and picked winners and losers in wars.
Many times corruption wasn’t even illegal in the early 19th century. Some politicians didn’t get a salary because they made more than enough money via bribes.
it risks being one of those serious-sounding cautions that doesn’t actually throw much light on situations.
Sometimes the keys just don’t lie under the street light.
You’re falling into a trap—you’re saying things that are technically true, but are out of context. Just your opening sentence --
Everyone agrees doesn’t imply that something is true.
Of course not. But “just about everyone who has looked at it from every angle agrees the Treaty of Versailles was a major contributor to World War II” is… true.
You know? If you don’t think the Treaty of Versailles—the reparations, Germany’s poverty levels, the fact that the Nazi party had armed militia/thugs that were larger than the official German army due to the troop limitation clauses it, etc—if you don’t think that was a major contributing factor to WWII, then I don’t know what else to say to you.
Your history analysis that focuses on governments as actors completely ignores effects such as the environmental effects of lead. … You are ignoring the meta-level.
Assumption on your part which are false. Actually, nutrition levels and environmental effects are huge. It’s also worth studying.
Making points like the fact that universal education (modeled on the Prussian Education System—I’d find you links but you don’t appear to have made any effort to read the last set of links) -- this is, like, History 201 level stuff here. You’re saying things that are true but not applicable; you’re also assuming a lower level of rigor (why?) without just asking if I’ve looked into environmental effects. Come on man, this is bad form.
Sometimes the keys just don’t lie under the street light.
The witty quips are lame. Come on, dude, pseudo-wisdom slogans aren’t the way. Also picking pop narratives in the vein of Freakonomics or Gladwell type stuff to beat down is strawmanning.
The sad thing is, you actually have some valuable points and a lot of smart things to say—but witty quipping and making blind assumptions is an easy way to derail discussions.
In the field of medicine we have a lot of experience that suggests finding out causation is really hard. Anecdotal evidence frequently leads people astray. For some reason people think that just because good quality evidence isn’t available, they can get by with lower quality evidence when it comes to a domain such as history and still find out about causality.
Assumption on your part which are false. Actually, nutrition levels and environmental effects are huge. It’s also worth studying.
If nutrition levels are the main reason for nation for Bismarck’s actions, then Napoleon isn’t.
The witty quips are lame.
You assumed my intention is “shredding” light when it’s much better described as wanting to show that there’s darkness.
My concern is not so much about individual points but about the method being wrong.
Yes i wanted to especially bring Ferguson up. But I wonder how he tests his hypotheses. (I haven’t read anything yet, just had the luck to stumble upon his oeuvre on youtube—and that was that for my workplace concentration..)
Everyone agrees doesn’t imply that something is true. Just take a look at any decent science to see how hard it is to detect causality.
It’s quite easy to tell a story of how Giuliani implemented the broken windows doctrine and then crime rates fall. Then it might be that it’s all just effects of lead on children brain development. It might be some other random reason. Freakonomics did suggest that it was abortions.
Your history analysis that focuses on governments as actors completely ignores effects such as the environmental effects of lead. There quite a lot that happened in the 19th century as far as the industrial revolution goes.
You are ignoring the meta-level. In the 19th century we got schools with compulsory education and children where taught that nation states are really important. History was told as a bunch of actions of state actors. Things happened because of ministers, princes and kings. If your goal is getting people to believe in nation states that’s useful. But that goal is different from the goal of truth.
Niall Ferguson for example manages to tell a quite different history. There’s money. The importing of good math notation, allows calculation of new forms of debt. The French Revolution happened because the French state sunk in debt. Bankers amassed a lot of money and picked winners and losers in wars. Many times corruption wasn’t even illegal in the early 19th century. Some politicians didn’t get a salary because they made more than enough money via bribes.
Sometimes the keys just don’t lie under the street light.
You’re falling into a trap—you’re saying things that are technically true, but are out of context. Just your opening sentence --
Of course not. But “just about everyone who has looked at it from every angle agrees the Treaty of Versailles was a major contributor to World War II” is… true.
You know? If you don’t think the Treaty of Versailles—the reparations, Germany’s poverty levels, the fact that the Nazi party had armed militia/thugs that were larger than the official German army due to the troop limitation clauses it, etc—if you don’t think that was a major contributing factor to WWII, then I don’t know what else to say to you.
Assumption on your part which are false. Actually, nutrition levels and environmental effects are huge. It’s also worth studying.
Making points like the fact that universal education (modeled on the Prussian Education System—I’d find you links but you don’t appear to have made any effort to read the last set of links) -- this is, like, History 201 level stuff here. You’re saying things that are true but not applicable; you’re also assuming a lower level of rigor (why?) without just asking if I’ve looked into environmental effects. Come on man, this is bad form.
The witty quips are lame. Come on, dude, pseudo-wisdom slogans aren’t the way. Also picking pop narratives in the vein of Freakonomics or Gladwell type stuff to beat down is strawmanning.
The sad thing is, you actually have some valuable points and a lot of smart things to say—but witty quipping and making blind assumptions is an easy way to derail discussions.
In the field of medicine we have a lot of experience that suggests finding out causation is really hard. Anecdotal evidence frequently leads people astray. For some reason people think that just because good quality evidence isn’t available, they can get by with lower quality evidence when it comes to a domain such as history and still find out about causality.
If nutrition levels are the main reason for nation for Bismarck’s actions, then Napoleon isn’t.
You assumed my intention is “shredding” light when it’s much better described as wanting to show that there’s darkness.
My concern is not so much about individual points but about the method being wrong.
Yes i wanted to especially bring Ferguson up. But I wonder how he tests his hypotheses. (I haven’t read anything yet, just had the luck to stumble upon his oeuvre on youtube—and that was that for my workplace concentration..)