It's so funny how much of his work is Spenglerian guff. Every time I've dunked on Spengler there's always someone who accuses me of not having read it, because if I read it, clearly I'd see the genius truth to it. Spengler's visionary nature comes from being a prophet of pessimism, he depicts declines, he speaks of downturns, and of course anyone can cast those as the present moment, provided the past is idealized "properly" In a sense, I'm sure this is how youtube audiences work too. Anyone who thinks he sucks, or gets it wrong is "ideologically poisoned" as though WIAH speaks pure and noble truths alone. What is WIAH if not a prophet of pessimism?
There's some irony in this comment lol. I think it's super fair that you take issue with the assumption that you haven't read it, and you see the motivation for it being an implied assumption that you would not be in disagreement if you *had* read it. I totally agree that that's super frustrating. But, then you generalize his audience in a very similar way. You characterize them of viewing everything he says as truth because they view him as a prophet. The conclusion to that premise, is that those who defend him must being doing so because they view him as a prophet. You're basically setting yourself and everyone who agrees with you up to commit the same fallacy you're taking issue with! I can sympathize with your experience, it really sucks that people don't listen to criticism sometimes. I'm sorry that's how things went for you. I've been having a very similar experience with this comment section that you describe having in his comment section (or wherever you're giving this critique). I don't see many people other than myself giving a dissenting viewpoint on this video, and a lot of the push back that I've received have been direct accusations that I have not watched it, and often with an admission that they won't read my comment either. What's worse is this is sometimes in response to comments where I used a direct quote (how do I get direct quotes without having watched it??). Maybe you're not even wrong if your experience was the same as mine, I'm tempted to view everyone here the same way. But, I also think it's super important to not close the door on good faith discourse, especially when you are taking issue with opposing bad faith discourse in the same breath.
@@carterghill Weren't your comments accusing the creator of deleting them, and as for other people pushing back, its a bit oof the guy telling you "HELL YEAH BROTHER" was an unironic nazi. The latter, sure that's not quite your fault, but everyone's comments get eaten all the time on everything. Combine that with calling everything short of agreeing with you intellectually dishonest. Like, come on, you've seen whatif's videos. You can't pretend they aren't ideological sludge if you've seen them.
Well, I suppose the feeling is mutual. Both sides view each other with contempt, mostly due to ideological and/or partisan reason. In any case, for me, "alternate history" sub-genre is just a fiction, for *entertainment* purpose. Whatifalthist makes entertaining contents in this sub-genre, and I enjoy them for what they are. I consider myself Libertarian, and share quite a lot of values with Whatifalthist guy, so I have my own bias in this. But I appreciate the work and effort that this channel (and many others) put to "debunk" him. It is always good to hear from both/all sides.
This. I been with him for years and ingesting his narrative without forethought of what the subject is, the idealize pseudo-scientific worldview have me captivated until I look step back to all of and see the façade of what it is. A ideologue pseudo-intellectual whose credentials are benign by the testimony of "friends" with questionable positions with being a quasi-patronage and the masses who think they've find their prophet. it's a ideologue clientelism.
One of the funniest things I've learned in university is how many people are utterly shocked at the thought of reading a piece of literature written by someone they don't like. Like bro, how else are we supposed to study and analyze theory?
I'm an English student and this is so true for me too. People just don't wanna read authors and theorists they have personal disagreements with, and it's like, why are you even here then? The point of being at uni is to have your views challenged. If you don't like that then stop wasting your money by going here lol
@@Spyno41 i remember reading Marx books in high school... Man, Das Kapital is filled with anti semitism, he uses Kapital to refer to Jews in the book a lot of the times, so you could say the real name of the book is Das Juden
@@DJRonnieG the joke is that there has been no technological innovation since 1945 so my computer and bluetooth headphones must have been around back then
@@Kresimir_ Good to know you're cool with intellectual dishonesty. Also I'd agree that he's pretty predictable. Why is that bad though? Wouldn't being unpredictable in political theory suggest some level of inconsistency? There's no way I'd look favourably on someone who's inconsistent in their principles.
I'm studying history and (english language) literature myself and only about five minutes into the video, but the phrase "I read most of the primary source on Norse mythology, which isn't hard because combined it's like 300 pages" almost gave me an anyeurism
@@pinkmann8399 the problem is that the norse didn't write down their stories, runes were mainly used for magic phrases, names on items, and things like runestones commemorating certain deeds of war or people (thats simplifying it a LOT but this is a YT comment). The sources on norse mythology we do have are pretty much all written by Christian authors who collected oral accounts (I'm assuming WIAH is referring to the Prose + Poetic Edda), and as always with these kinds of sources you can't be certain how truthful they are because Christian authors had a tendency to have their worldview tint the accounts (as every author honestly kind of does) The bigger problem though is that only reading like 300 pages of a "primary" source is NEVER enough to give you a thorough understanding of such a complex subject. There are literal decades of historical, sociological and anthropological research giving additional information and context to the mythology. saying you're an expert on Norse Myth because you read translations of the two most known eddas is like saying "I read the new testament so now I'm an expert theologian"
@@InkspeckleI see, thanks. Whatifalthist has a tendency to speak authoritatively and with absolute confidence which is admirable, except that he dunningkrugers a lot because his knowledge isn't comprehensive at all.
@@Inkspeckle not only that but people write literal theses to figure out the meaning of skaldic poetry. Though WIAH is probably content with reading a translation from 1926.
That’s going to be difficult as most of them tend to be from the far left who themselves don’t provide a solution other than “we need socialism” every time capitalism did something bad.
@@europadefender perhaps they've reached the conclusion that we need socialism because they themselves have studied the history, Mr "Europa Defender?" (from what?). Anyway, it sounds like you're strawmaning. Can you provide specific examples of "far-left" historians who don't provide sources or explanations, but advocate socialism anyway? Because I have personally never seen any of them. All of them, include Fredda, are actual historians.
Whatifalthist is another in a long line of people ignoring International Relations - ignoring 60 years of work and falling short on any concept problematised since the 1950s, when this field of historical and political philosophy got going properly.
@@europadefender You don't need to propose a 'solution' to someone misreading basic history as recorded. We're not trying to solve the world in some crank's youtube comments.
I stopped watching him years ago, because he stopped making interesting thought experiments in the form of history, and instead was making statements on reality that didn't align with reality, or were informed by personal experience only - and not academic, provable research. I personally feel that he adheres to an ideology that seems to be a mixture of cultural determinism and social darwinism. This culture is good because it succeeded, and it succeeded because it was good. Those who didn't succeed didn't succeed because of the flaws in their culture. And, what I think is the most dangerous, and flawed, part of his ideology, is that there is *a singular good way for society to work, and it can only be found by looking at 'successful' cultures of the past*. He seems to not believe in the merit of new ideas, but only pre-existing ones. Is essense - what you said. He seems to base history and culture off of vibes, that seems to be informed by his personal biases and experiences. I will refrain from talking about his personal character, as I cannot speak to how he actually is, but how he presents himself, and how I interpret it. But he seems to be very much assured in his own correctness, and seems to think that nearly anything society concludes is good is suspect, as we live in an 'immoral society', and he is one of the few who can see that, and knows what's best for society. Very paternalistic, from what I can see. I believe he does have good intentions, but his ideology very conveniently allows him to discount differing ideas as ones made by a morally corrupt society to justify weakness and laziness. He also seems to relish in his own philosophical and academic prowess. Overall, he's... Very odd to me. A self-proclaimed academic, who doesn't bother backing up claims with substantial evidence, yet believes his own claims whole-heartedly.
Yup, everything you said is spot on. In short Whatifalthist thinks he's smarter than he actually is and this ego prevents him from listening to any other point of view and challenging his own beliefs. The fact that he dismisses per reviewed data to me fully demonstrates that he doesn't actually care to know what's true because his focus is what he wants to believe is right
I really wish he had stuck to making alternate history videos. When he was just making up funny little stories he wasn't passing his insane view of history as the only objective view of it.
You say he thinks there’s only one culture that is correct for Humanity…. You’re an idiot and have not watched or listened to his videos. He explicitly recognizes that different cultures had different strengths, different weaknesses. Does he think there is a general form of society most conducive towards, say, human happiness? Yeah, probably. But don’t you as well? Human sacrifice is probably bad. As long as it’s a general form, many specific alterations can be made for each individual culture. Can WIAH narrativize sometimes? Yeah, he can, but they’re not usually entirely removed from the truth. If you interpret everything he says in the worst way possible, yeah he probably sounds dumb. But that’s you being dumb, not him.
@@Oruam1111 I'm been done with this guy as clearly this is someone who's struggling to find his way in the world and he thinks history is going to do it? Nope.
What pisses me off about Whatifalthist isn't that he exists, it's that he just comes out with the most mind bogglingly ridiculous generalisation about something whilst providing no citation whatsoever and then people in his comments act like what he said was factual and he's a genius. For example, in one video the "downfall of Europe" he states that "Europe imports the majority of its culture from the US" - the evidence provided for this? Dua Lipa sings her songs with an American accent and British chavs act like American gangsters (i.e like "black people", his words not mine).
So true. I just listened to his baby boomer video and it was painful. He even said at one point “I think as a 23 year old I have a pretty unique and interesting point of view.”It was so cringe
His generalizations are not only sweeping, but also load-bearing for his conclusions. I like having him around as, well, a lolcow, but it sincerely baffles me how people can listen to him say things like “throughout all of history agricultural powers have always won wars against urban powers” and not immediately write him off as total dunce.
So true about the Soviet archives. There are still books coming out today which rely on pre-archive material as their foundational sources, and it makes any discussion or study of the Soviet Union problematic. A few years ago I was working on a book focused on the transition of power in '53, and the volume of obsolete material I ran across in researching was ridiculous, some of which had come out only a few years ago.
Or the death of stalin - the daughter of stalin wrote two different versions of it. I spent a paper comparing the differences and determined Stalin's daughter was a religious nut. Yet if you take the police files on her - yep - religious nut... but he would say "Beria poisoned him because communism is evil."
@@saint-0429it never worked lol you couldn't produce the same thing better in other part of warsaw pact because some idiot decided it must be produced in other place lol a Pole invented personal computer and was destroyed just because he added competition to much worse stationary computing employing more people 😂😂😂
I think that actually /r/BadHistory loves this guy because he provides them with a free and never ending source of content, and is incredibly fun to debunk because it's so easy.
Without the video, when I heard he refuses to use sources in the 2000s and after was what made me realize he was just not a good person to talk history.
This isn't true though, he's absolutely used more recent sources when they're relevant. He's an ancient and medieval historian. When he said that he *tends* not to use sources past 1960, it's because there isn't much new to be said about the topic at hand. It's not like our view on Rome has been completely turned on its head since Edward Gibben wrote about it. But, I've seen a lot of his Rome videos, and I do recall him mentioning things like how Roman statues are actually very colourful - this is actually very new information! Even in the 60s, people thought Rome was all white marble. So I don't think it's right to say he refuses to use recent sources in general, that just isn't accurate
Damn Fredda this is a very shame culture moment of a video. Clearly if this was made by a glorious western guilt based civilization then it would've said how cool WIAH is very cool and gets all the women.
bro fr fr WIAH is him bro fr fr trust me bro and hes so cool i love him bro he gets all the girls fr fr bro like trust me hes sooo intelligent and strong
You killed me, actually murdered me and my family when you showed the seven emotions part. Newton's Third fucking law. I can't fucking believe he actually thought he made sense.
@@sarmatiancougar7556 No, Newtons laws apply to objects with mass, not human emotion and its effect on society. He's chatting out of his ass, basically acting like pseudoscience grifter. Its the same type of logic that indian millionaire "gurus" use to justify that the soul exist by saying that "its quantum stuff bruh". He's being hilarious ludicrous by trying to justify his model because " the wording of a physics law sounds like it might help my argument".
@@sarmatiancougar7556 No, but the fact is, emotions are not energy. Therefore, claiming that the laws of physics apply to emotions is like claiming that since bread rises, you should let meat on the counter until it does.
The Hobits are famously based on English people. But not all English people, they're based on a very specific type of English person. The rural folk with relatively little going on in their lives that were easily contented and relatively poor. Tolkien saw a lot of virtue in those people and Hobits are based on them. He also famously loved nature and the countryside and loathed the increasing pace of industrialization.
As another huge Tolkien nerd, I feel ya I never watched WIAH’s LOTR video, but I had a bad feeling he’d misinterpret some stuff badly that would lead to this
I get what you're feeling. Any attempt to see the politics in Tolkien's works (that he himself even denied existing!) without trying to understand his own obscure yet interesting ideology of "Anarcho-Monarchism" (I know it sounds weird, but this is the best way to describe his ideology, and understanding it will lead to understanding of the "politics" of the Legendarium, whether they exist or not) will fail and will just be a reflection of the observer's own ideology (which Tolkien himself actually said he prefers to happen with his works to an extant). Tolkien was a very unusual man, both in his works and views, and if you want to understand their "politics" (if they exist), you need to understand his unorthodox (pun intended) views.
@@anqareliouth2921 Extrapolating from the Shire has his ideal English state, I'd describe JRRT's personal beliefs as somewhere falling in "Tradcath minarchism", or some other combination of "local authority, a strong focus on customs and traditions to regulate behaviour, and a distant philosopher/warrior-king for defence and legal arbitration"
i know fuck all abt tolkien but i was just thinking about how he could just as easily apply his idea of "the european hobbits were perfect and happy and peaceful and then the eastern orcs came" to ireland. the irish hobbits were perfect and happy and peaceful until the british orcs came. but that would ruin is fantasy of clean colonialism. he wants to wipe away the bloody history of tyrannical monarchies like the british empire because he thinks that we should go back to those times.
@@anqareliouth2921honestly, I’m just tired of people using the old “there are no allegories in LotR because Tolkien said so.” Now sure, political allegories you can make a case for, but no one can seriously tell me that Isengard and Mordor juxtaposed with the Shire and Fangorn aren’t an allegory for Industrialism destroying the peaceful British countryside
One thing I learned from university is WHY peer-reviewed sources are important. If your source isn't reviewed, you could risk miscommunication just as easily as only having one source to go off of.
That or worse, you maintain wrong information and had to rely on dubious sourcing, Peer Review is also important in other fields like say Medical diagnostics, in order to maintain accuracy and quality of results.
Wow I had not stopped to consider how his views and content might have been ideologically driven and took them pretty much at face value without giving much thought because he sounded confident. Thank you for highlighting this new perspective for me
I'd say whatifalthist is more of a political/historical ideologue/philosopher than a historian. They guy is in his early 20s, it takes longer than that to become a historian. But he is interesting in that he gives alternate angles on history and current events. It is a bit like using a tarot, posing the question "how does the question at hand viewed through the archetype of the queen of pentacles". I find this quite useful.
I mean sure, if you like that then that's fine. You can be a historian in your early 20s though, it all comes down to applying the methods of the historian's craft, you'll definitely stumble at the start but so do novice artists and scientists. They're still artists and scientists.
@@brunoactis1104Whoah! I didn't realise that he is that young. That is barely enough to have a bachelor's degree in most countries when studying full time...
@@FreddaYT I like the earthsea book series’ twist on the fantasy genre, the orc stand ins are described as blonde haired blue eyed savages who relish in the destruction of entire villages and turn psychotic at the sight of blood.
Philosophy is based in seeking out new knowledge and wisdom. Sophistry is the word you’re looking for, the belief that one already knows everything and spreading it through the aesthetics of philosophy.
As a Arab Muslim i want to point out that in one of his videos on the Islamic civilization there were two mistakes: 1.) he said that the Shia-Sunni split was between the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) friend ''Ali'' and his daughter ''Fatima'', my reaction was this 💀 because ''Ali'' R.A was his Cousin who was married to ''Fatima'' R.A the daughter of the prophet (pbuh) so what doesn't make sense is how there is a dispute between two married people well there wasn't and also the dispute was between Abu Bakr R.A (best friend of the prophet pbuh and one of the first to convert to Islam) and Ali R.A and even that dispute is largely from a Shia Perspective not really the Sunni one and the Shia's make only 15% of all Muslims and had started mostly as a Political opposition that developed to religious opposition so right of the Bat there are 2 mistakes and a Biased view held mostly by one group also that wasn't even the point were the split occurred it was when the prophet's (pbuh) Grandson and the people with him were massacred by a bad group of people basically deviants and that event looked down upon negatively by both Sunnis and Shia's as these Deviants are hated by all but the Shia's who were mostly from the Area where this event known as the ''Karbala massacre'', because it took place in modern day Iraq in Karbala so the fact that he took a Biased viewpoint then mixed up the prophets family and between whom the dispute was between and the fact that he took a biased perspective while ignoring other events that led to the Shia-Sunni split is enough to tell me to not trust this guy and that what he is saying is total bullshit. 2.) He said that it was the Bedouin Arab Muslims who united Arabia then went on to to invade Byzantium and Persia, now that isn't completely true because the people Muslims who united Arabia were Urbanized merchants from Mecca in the region of Hejaz which is the most habitable place in Arabia and its where most trade in the Arabian Peninsular takes place and its also where most outside contact between the Arabs and other people also takes place and again the Prophet (pbuh) and the early Muslims who invaded Arabia were all Urbanized Merchants so were the first people to convert, all urbanized but its when they invaded Arabia that they unified all the Arabs including the Bedouins and then with the military genius of Khalid Ibn Walid that they invaded. So the fact that he missed that fact for a so called ''professional historian'' is just disappointing. Note: Now i am Arab and English is my second language and technically my first language because i use it a lot but i use Arabic more so English to me is in-between first and second language because i have been taught English since Kindergarten anyways all i am trying to say is to excuse my not so great Grammar and you need to bear in mind that this is a non-English native writing English so its not so great.
About the language, try to use more commas and dots. It really helps to organize ideas for the reader and gives a sense of respite. Few to none puctuation signs will sometimes make it a little confusing and tiring (speaking as someone whose second language is also English, so I know the effort it takes from both ends of this too). Anyway, good write up. As the person before me said, you expressed your ideas and were understood. That's the point of language at the end of the day.
Like brazilian communist influencers usually say "It's freestyle history", "Source: not needed", "Source: Definitly happened", "Source: Trust me bro" lol
9:14 I mean this is generally just how science works, like imagine if someone said that they refused to read physics textbooks that are younger than 50 years old. They would barely know anything about the Standard Model, which is the single most important theoretical model in modern physics, and would be completely in the dark about basically all of modern astronomy. Or imagine the same with biology, that person wouldn't know anything about how DNA works, nor that several species have had their genome sequenced and that we are using that knowledge to discover incredible things about evolution, like the entire existence of retroviruses would be unknown to it and so would the age of life. It's a bit insane that you have to explain to someone that scientific fields evolve and get better over time, yes there are old things that still hold up but you won't know that if you don't check the modern literature to see if they hold up.
Yeah. I mean, it is an objective fact that I know things about physics that Isaac Newton did not. Obviously Newton was far smarter and a much much better physicist than me, but *purely by virtue of being born later in time than Newton*, I know about concepts and laws that he never did. And a lot of which we only know now because they were stuff that were discovered by building on his work.
Modern physics isnt trying to claim gravity is a social construct........... Just because your point makes sense out of context doesnt mean there isnt any context in which it doesnt make sense. You dont show up to a book burning looking for recomendations on a reliable history book.
I mean if he is really obssesed with picking only pre-1970 historians there is much better stuff than a literal non-historian like Spengler...gods we are lucky he didn't touch Gibbons yet, there are enough Roman Larpers as it is. I would say he should dive in and explore the first generation of Nouvelle Histoire scholars but that would require oh...yeah sticking to at least a somewhat rigorous standard which he set for himself and can't follow (Fukuyama...very pre 70's brah)
@@hedgehog3180 Very correct assesment, I like Gibbons mostly because I am kinda more interested in historiography than "usual" history itself and since he is such a well known figure is quite interesting to look at his method and consideration, sure nothing too amazing there but still for me quite interesting. The development of methodology, the narratives and context surrounding how the studies of history develops
@@FreddaYT I would say yes but I would probably consider he picked it up from some 19th century historian or early 20th century one who reheated that soup and made it even worse than Gibbons....and that particular set of ideas has been reheated so many times that is hilarious.
I mean, personally if I was going that far back I'd just go for primary sources, do my own research and put whatever spin I wanted (assuming spin was the intent) But then again... primary sources for history are generally... woke.
Whatifalthist isn’t fake he’s just from a separate dimension where everyone was on cocaine constantly and it bleeds over, can’t stand ur slander of him smh. Also I appreciate ur reading list I’ve been looking for good general history works for topics I’m not interested in but wanted a decent understanding of
Yeah I thought the alternate reading list was really good, I remember Bayly being a required reading in one of my history papers. However I have read Tom Holland's Dominion and I thought it was really good. Certainly on the pop history side of the spectrum but still worth reading imo
@@placeholder4819well, considering you have to be 13 to have a non-kids account on TH-cam and whatifalthist has been here for 10 years, simple math says between 16 and 23.
@@mysteriousstranger9496 At that age you've gone through enough years of school to know what a thesis is. Unless you're from a country in which school works differently, ofc.
Lol at the meth pipe for works cited. Also thank you, right away, for starting the video with what your qualifications and sources are. The scariest thing about how many videos are put out as essays and factual and I have no idea why I should be listening to that person.
I used to love this kid. I never took his ideas too seriously since the bias was very visible but once i found myself drifting away from the right wing spectrum it was too hard to ignore that almost nothing he says is rooted in fact instead of, as you so succinctly put it, vibes. Thanks for the video. it's great
Il be honest, the only certainty in history is things change. sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. And predicting the future is a fruitless endeavour
If you’re going to call him a fascist, you probably need more supporting evidence than he needs for calling himself a historian. Bit of a difference between the two wouldn’t you say?
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisis the only time the word "fascist" got used in this comment thread was in reference to Augusto Pinochet, who I don't think ever called himself a historian. Are you lost?
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisisIt’s from a TH-cam video about Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a bombastic action video game that has a better understanding of politics, society and history than Whatifalthist could ever hope to
Ok, but again, what in particular do you think he has got wrong and why so much hate? Anyone with 17 brain cells can do a critique like that…..for example, “princekyle4132 reply had the intellectual rigour of a shit edition of the Beano” ……my 17 brain cells worked overtime on that one.
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisis bruh they weren't offering an in depth critique lmao they were quoting a joke from a youtube video. You're asking for an expansion from someone who is literally not creating their own critique to begin with.
I can only imagine his concerns with "The Frankfurt School Corrupting the Study of History" are centered around his concerns with a general culture we see from the genpop online of "everything in the past is bad". But legit historians have a much more balanced view. My specialty is the development of Christianity, and even from a critical standpoint (viewing the Bible and the early church with skepticism) we tend to be more apologetic and forgiving than the genpop on the internet is. He would probably assume that the recently popular book "The Myth of Christian Persecution" represents the scholarly consensus of the field and is a byproduct of critical theory. But that book was entirely ignored by academics of early Christianity and her views are on the fringes of secular, critical scholarship.
This guy is the greatest example of a higher being. No person in a lab could of created such a contradiction, he would have to be created by a malevolent trickster god in order to troll us mere mortals
oh also, I'm majoring in history and specialising in medieval europe, so those book recs are quite useful. My university has one of the feudalism books in its library, so thanks for the recommendation
There’s always been pseudo-intellectuals throughout history who totally disdain the field they work in, but seeing them out in the open and people hailing them geniuses like Jordan Peterson and Whatifalthist (although he really isnt *that* popular) Its just baffling.
@@kucingcat8687 When the hell did he say that? Can you point to a lecture, or an interview, or a book? I know for a fact it wasn't after 2018, when he said he's had depression since he was 13 on the JRE. Evidently, "depression doesn't exist" would run counter to this interview, wouldn't it?
I have to say not all alternate historians are political extremists. Whatifalthist and Monsieur Z are however two examples of extremists maliciously misusing alternate history and history as a whole for a extremist agenda.
AlternateHistoryHub is one of the few I still watch, as he doesn't seem nearly as politically-minded, and recognizes that the butterfly effect would make it so he cannot reasonably predict much of what happens. He is okay with saying 'I don't know', or 'I'm not sure', which I appreciate a lot as a viewer.
Absolutely great video, glad to see others tackle the flawed views of Whatifalthist. I hope that more people will become more critical of the claims he makes in his videos, as literally hundreds of thousands are influenced by his content.
dropping out of college because it's "too woke" is such a dead giveaway for how close minded his worldview is. he is being taught by the most knowledgeable people in the world and rejects it because it differs from his rigid beliefs that he likely developed because those are his parent's beliefs. sad sad stuff.
He was asked to give his sources on his claim that "Turkey will form a neo-ottoman empire because they will adapt Anglo-saxon work ethics" and decided that was too woke for him😔
@cdollar67 highly doubt whatifalthis is a big money making machine. Bedsides, if he actually cared about history, you would think he would still get a degree to make better historical content
yeah ditch the family why not community too make sure to trust the societal patriarchs yep! not like elitist people get promoted in hierarchies such as academia. nope.
The one thing I would add to your reading list is an example of micro-history for a detailed example of close source analysis The great cat massacre or the cheese and the worms are probably the most influential
yesss micro-history is amazing and gives important insight into the lives of those not commonly talked about in the grand scheme of things. Reading on new social history is also greatly important, a field that has contributed enormously to our understanding of Latin American history and the ordinary people.
The Cheese And The Worms, Yes!!! I'm a history teacher from Brazil and our framework of references is mostly french from Annales d'Histoire Économique et Sociale, and I get a little lost when the basis of reference is British/from the US, because outside of people like Peter Burke, Edward Thompson and such, we don't really follow the "anglo-saxon" tradition of historiography.
Whatifalthist once got into a debate with Vaush. It was really telling. He just got very very very mad at basic questions Vaush asked him and firehosed nonsense. Then proceeded to get even madder when called out for said firehosing.
@@RoKBottomStudios oh that's easy to answer. Vaush came with skill at debate, rhetoric, and research. Whatifalthist came with vibes and an ego as bruisable as an over ripe mango.
@@bobbybooshay5388 I've seen the debate, and this take is ridiculous. Don't you remember when Vaush asked him about Simone de Beauvoir? He tried contradicting him by accusing him of not reading Marxist theory, yet without skipping a beat he continued his point about Marxism through that very person Vaush expected him not to know. You're right that rhetoric is how Vaush wins debate, but that doesn't convince me his point is correct. He is ass at research, and has openly admitted to using dishonest rhetoric. He interupted constantly and it's no surprise althist showed frustration when Vaush was behaving in a frustrating way. It wasn't good in terms of optics, but you can't come out thinking Vaush won in any sense if you actually listened to what they were saying
I don't understand how anyone with a functioning brain can genuinely take him seriously, he legitimately claimed at one point that Star Wars was to blame for the decline of Western Civilization.
I have only half a functioning brain, but even I can see this is not constructive criticism. Good start with the cherry picked example, looking forward to you expanding your argument further……obviously with sources please. Many thanks
From a certain point of view, actually, yes. When we elected Ronald Reagan to switch us over from working on environmental sustainability to dumping huge sums of money into the ludicrous “Star Wars” laser missile defense system (and distributing crack to the inner city, and destroying unions, and ignoring AIDS) we did sorta end up in the bad timeline.
Good job with this video. I am in a pretty turbulent part of my life and while watching this video i remember why i study to become a history teacher. People like Whatifaltist are a danger to the field of history and, in my opinion, the next generation. It really inspires me to become a better me so i can help these generations! So thank you!
actually I will argue for him but not in the reason you may think.... after watching this video I had sudden realasiation about his thinking methods and essays and I have to admit yep he is just bad at dealing with it but I also think... fake it till u make it as said I. this video he says some really interesting stuff but I have just to make a few arguments that I think are worth noteing... isn't family unit core of society and if we think about how it's changing we can see in what likely senario soceity (soceity meaning all country's with similar values and/or goals like USA and eu ,middle east , post soviet contrys, etc... essencally people with kinda shared value system or strong historical ties) and how analysing someone's way of thinking could indicate what will happen next essentially today I learned that he is a hypocrite who got accidentally indoctrinated by some random academic theory from ages ago but that doesn't mean that his tought are invaluable and now (I'm sorry but I'm in big shock so I need to find some excuse) if he analysed so many alt historys in past I think 9 years (too laizy to look up at the moment) and he assuming always had that vibe check it could mean that he doesn't know why but thing feel off like that weird felling when u are checking the room and it know that there is drama in it but u don't know specific details on it
Exactly!!! I do agree with him on some of his politics, but he comes off as very arrogant a lot of the times. Alongside him being very biased, I don’t understand how people can watch his videos.
Honestly. Like not to say "just copy what he's doing," but one of the reasons Cody at Alternate History Hub is so successful in my opinion is because he doesn't really "spin" anything and takes note of where bias might be (example, him preceding the statement that Christianity wouldn't exist in a Rome-less Europe with the qualifier that its not coming from an anti-christian place as he's Catholic). He just focuses for the most part on two things: What is the change to the timeline, and how do people react based on actual historical events creating trends (not just cycles and vibe). I think his pursuit of minimal bias in the presentation of his material is part of the reason his channel has been so successful, especially since- go figure- that's what actual academic history is like.
I'll never forget when before being raducalised i listened as a way to sleep, and at one point in "what if the russian empire continued to exist" he blamed the existance of the USSR to the demographic decline of russians. You know like excluding the fact that the axis had killed 27 millions soviets and the growth of the russian population (together with other european ethnicities of the USSR) stopped after the fall of the Soviet Union. His claim was that (only) the russian population would have reached half a billion people
This wording is flawed though, presenting it as he simply said, the plain existence of the Soviet government caused the decline is misleading, he blamed the actions, policies and the environment created by them, while his allusions are poorly structured they aren't unfounded, the Soviet obsession with industrialization crushed the rural sector, as well as causing a lot of upheaval and hardship.
Whatifalthist and Monsuor Z are bad and racist knockoffs of Alternate History Hub. AHH actually sites his sources and studies his topics which is why his videos take longer (as well as him having better production). These 2 knockoffs took the topic of althist and started pumping out versions of history that go their way. Whatever outcome would make them the happiest is what happens. They sometimes say "what if my enemies won?" And then say how terrible it would be.
Very telling that it took him so long to give sources, so he just gives lists of 20 books he read. Maybe one day he'll evolve citations for each video!
good video, i love your production style. I really appreciate the book recommendations! ive started reading them and you might have given me a slight obsession with historiography, its really reignited my passion for history and im already deepening my understanding of history more than i thought i would. dont think ill be satisfied with surface level videos anymore, seems there will be lots more reading in my near future. thanks :)
It’s funny to me the people who drop out of university because “it’s too woke I can’t use racial slurs in my projects” vs me who literally ran out of money.
Thank you for making this video, I have to admit that I was once one of his followers. I did genuinely believe what he was saying. But something in me held back doubt and I started looking at him with a more critical eye. Eventually his “theories” fell out of favor for me and I moved on. Thank you for teaching me and us all how to be a real historian. Could you also make a video looking at another man I used to believe wholeheartedly? His name is Historylegends, I used to watch his videos all the time on that dumpster fire game Call of Duty Vanguard and when the Russo-Ukrainian war kicked off I looked towards him for guidance. That was until he started showing his true colors, I believe Historylegends uses his intelligence and history only to prove his own world views. For example in the vanguard game there is a scene to where you fight with an African American division and he mentions they were only used for “housework” but when another historian Animarcy reviewed the scene he mentioned that the division was misused sure but they still fought in some capacity and won medals for their services. Could you take a look at Historylegends? Thank you.
@@mrtrollnator123 No, it wasn't like that. Remember those videos about internet historians grading videogames and movies based on the time they represent? That's what he was doing. He wasn't using the game itself as his source he was using his own knowledge to grade the game's historical accuracy. It's just I found a discrepancy and I wanted to bring it to light because I've seen HistoryLegends do this before where he "conveniently forgets" about certain facts to affirm his own personal vendetta against Liberals. Sure, he could've just forgot but I think I see a pattern in his works.
If you believe in something or someone you’ve never met wholeheartedly, you may be in for many disappointments. Best strategy is to just not watch, who cares, live and let live, let the people that do like him make their own judgements, we are all adults that have the ability to scrutinise his content and make our own judgements.
i fell down that very same fucking thing. vanguard was a disaster of a game and when historylegends started making videos pointing out historical inaccuracies it gave the illusion that he knew what he was talking about. he then started talking about the ukraine war and holy shit was he off the mark. i always picked up on little right wing things he said like "woke of duty." it felt odd that he said that so much until i realized that he is a little batshit insane. COD vanguard is still bullshit though, fight me!
@@Slava_Ukraini1991 You have no idea how happy I 'am to hear that I'm not the only one. I mean it's sad that we both fell for the same trap and I'm sorry you also had to go through that. But I'm just happy I'm not the only one. Hope you're doing better now, have a happy day. :)
I don't know if I should be angry or just sad. The fact that he's seemingly found mainstream success being a thought leader posing as a "historian" whilst actual historical channels who try and put effort into their work don't see anything close to that success or have YT stifle their channel's potential through demonetization. It's a real shame.
Is that really true, are proper historians getting done over by TH-cam? Or is it there just isn’t an audience for what they are doing? I like model railways, but i wouldn’t expect TH-cam to give me special treatment to push my model railway stuff to people who couldn’t care less.
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisis Well, TH-cam is actually pushing car/airplane enthusiast stuff to me whenever I watch anything train related, including model trains; now, I can't say if comparing history stuff to model trains was appropriate, or not.
He’s no 4 year old. He’s a grown man who sucks at chess and thinks chess sucks and made up his own version called Racist Chess that’s objectively terrible, and he’s spreading the bullshit of Racist Chess to everyone who’ll listen 😭
More like beating prophesied children who's actually stupid but revered in their backward community because he accidentally cured one of their citizen from simple wound in a fistfight lmfao.
I need to confirm this but there is something deep in my soul telling me the "precolonial development" map referenced in the post at 3:02 is just the development mapmode from a fresh 1444 Europa Universalis save.
According to himself he doesn't really play video games, but these games started affecting popular conceptions of history and also the alternate-history community before he probably got really into either, so there's a chance.
I think you should do a dedicated video on Monsieur Z. Who as I'm sure you are aware has a very similar vibe as Whatifalthist, and treats and talks about his alt history scenarios as if that was what WOULD of have happened. Not only that but in every single video capitalism and the free market somehow swoop in and fix everything. Lastly I think you can very much see his perspective on history with his alt history flags he likes to make (nothing wrong with that in and of itself), but coupled with his idea that most scenarios just end up with x small country embracing capitalism and turning into the next world power makes me think his whole geopolitical knowledge comes from Hoi4.
Yeah I have one I'm working on. Monsieur Z is WAY worse than Whatifalthist though when it comes to the politics and what he's willing to say. He's defended eugenics, has spoken somewhat favorably of fascism, defends the idea of creating an American ethnostate, believes women and minorities "were happier when they didn't have rights, so long as they played by the rules" etc. I have specific instances of him straight-up fabricating sources and quotes from videos that are still up on his channel.
@Fredda I'm more fustrated not enough people call him out. For some reason, he's constantly in my recommend, and the extent of the stuff he justifies basically as long as its against communism is stunning to me. Seeing these fascists or fascist sympathisers disguse their arrogance with a thick coat of smugness and pseudointellectualsim in some vain effort to justify their beliefs disgusts me. As much as I like the fun "what ifs" that alternative history can provide is always going to be a fun little thing to do as almost a real life fan fiction. The trouble, however, is that it's predominantly used by the right and fascists online as they can't defend their beliefs outright, they have to do this roundabout way to almost retconning history itself. For instance, one can't openly defend slavery per sae, but if you frame it something like: "If the south remained independent during the American civil war, the use of forced labour would have allowed their economy to surpass the north's tenfold! This increase of wealth would allow the slaves to feel proud of their work, become patriots, and thus creating strong national unity which in turn lead the northern slaves who fled regret running away in the first place." A very stupid one I just made up, but that's the point, I literally just made that all up to make slavery sound "good" and as its just "speculation" I don't even have to provide any sources. It's the perfect way to make your world beliefs sound correct when you strawman an entirely made-up bit of history, made up by yourself to reinforce those same beliefs! All wrapped in a thin layer of intellectualism and entertainment.
@@ozio_exe9584 This is very misleading rhetoric, I have never seen a well intentioned southern victory scenario by a right leaning alt-hister that tried to justify nor endorse slavery, do you have an example of this or did you make this up in your head? Off course you did, because that's what you people do, cartoonishly lambast your opponents by severely misrepresenting them to make them look as bad as possible, the worst kind of strawman.
I used to think his alternate history videos were fun. Then he basically started calling for a second American civil war and then I didn't think he was fun anymore.
Really Hope you see this: can you make a video about pop-history books? Like you mentioned Guns, Germs and Steel By Jared Diamond being derided by historians but a) I never actually knew that and b) I'd really love to know why. I did read it and I enjoyed it a lot, but I'd love to see the other side. I think it could even be a series rather than a single video.
Thanks for this video. When I have an essay or article get a mediocre response it tends to hurt my self-confidence as a historian but watching this has shown me that there's always someone much, much, worse at it than me.
Great video. I always knew WIAH was bad from a distance, but... to dogmatically exclude works written after a certain decade -- like, seriously? Keep up the good work, Fredda.
I'm glad you made this video. His videos intrigued me at first. Pretty interesting thought experiments, and I figured for a while that even if he's completely wrong/outlandish about something atleast I'm analyzing ideas from different angles than I'm used to. The more videos I watched the crazier the "thought experiments" became, with more and more outlandish claims - which I'm up for. But he didn't cite any sources or even explain his ideas or conclusions half-way through. The more outlandish the idea, the less explanation he gives. However he most certainly make points I completely agree with, and on rare occasions claims that I think (but don't know, since he doesn't cite any credible sources) are factually true. So I've kinda kept watching along for a bit, depending on the topic. I couldn't get myself to watch his video about how dating is broken for example. I knew it was gonna be incel type stuff. However, in the light of your video, it has pointed out to me how terrible his videos really are. It's just a bad influence at this point. Which is something I was slowly figuring out aswell, but I guess I got lost in the process of analyzing different thought experiments and seeing if they add up to anything tangible at all in reality.
Whatifalthist be like: "If the South American nations invented hot cocoa in 1444 the Europeans would become obsessed with it with it leading to an opium like addiction and the west falls in 1620"
I commend you for emphasizing what is (IMO) an absolutely crucial point: good, reliable scholarship is distinguished by its methods, not its conclusions. However, as WIAH perfectly illustrates, garbage methods and garbage conclusions tend to go hand in hand. 😂
This dive into his content really revealed the "spiritual" aspect of his views to me. I had'nt noticed this mania of personnifying everything and every concept. There's a kind of spiritual mystic approach of events, a faith on absolute truths, an idea that some enlightened individual might "crack the code" and understand everything. Basically it's just new age guru stuff with a racist reactionnary twist to it.
Its part of that "don't read anything after the 80s" twist I'd say. He really likes his 'Great-Man' theories and cults of personality with an interesting twist of assigning personality to different social groups over the years (Nations, countries, cultures, etc).
I am a student of Bernhard Linke, one of Hölkeskamps opponents in german ancient history and I am glad to see the debate as an example for good historiography. 👍
I'm just happy for your helping the awareness for an often forgotten subfield of the history profession and the international aspect, especially scholarship published or translated into English but thought out outside the anglosphere.
"i dropped out of college because it was too woke" is either covering up for failing out or him showing off his ego and how he thinks he's more intelligent than the professors to the extent that he believes he would be better off creating his own facts than listening to historians. That lines up with the "I hate peer review" stance too, why should I have to verify my claims, total bs!
I mean we can't deny the vibes are off and it's ruining the party but no one should've handed Whatifalthist the aux, his shit is weird and it's scaring off the hoes(people actually interested in history).
Comment for the algorithm, cuz more people need good historical analysis from those who have the maturity to go "hey I may not know everything just because I think it in my brain"
As soon as I heard him say "I don't read anything after the 1960s", I knew he was an idiot. Even if you don't believe in a lot of the liberal things nowadays, it's absurd to think our developments of anthropology, sociology, and institutional sciences haven't drastically improved in decades. He literally keeps himself in a echo chamber, the least he could do read something recent before criticizing modern ideas.
It's important to note that he doesn't like to read specifically academic stuff and particularly history and anthropology, after the 1960s. He'll still go for pop-history, pop-anthropology or political science written after the 2000s.
Fredda initially being a history game player turning into yet another online historian. This is the moment of our lives we’ve been waiting for, and now we just wait until he becomes a famous Hassan-type streamer 🎉
Honestly a thing i found funny is how much he flip flopped between russia being "good" or "bad" Like sometimes he'll say that "ever since the mongols invaded russia has been a failed state" Then he'll go "Tzarist russia was good the soviets destroyed it" Only to say "Russia has always been autocratic *pics of russian leaders*" And then go "Education and life expectancy plummeted afther the soviet union retracted from central asia , proves how the west is good " Like russia for him is this nebolously convenient force of history that rapresents everything good with the west and everything wrong with the east at the same time ... It's just soo inconsistent if you asked him three questions about russia you'd get 7 disagreeing replies
I've noticed that figures on the far-right do generally have a weird and inconsistent mixture of opinions on Russia - even figures in the Russian far-right.
1:02 even though I despise whatifalthist, I dont believe you should ever really say in a historical context "why you should trust me over him." It makes an incredibly elitist atmosphere and seems done out of a place of emotion rather than a place of academia, even if you are completely correct and the person you're rebuking is completely wrong. Other than that, great video.
All the whatifalthist is popular history, junkfood, is it any wonder that Fredda seems like an eltitist, and a condescending socialist? Man thinks his youtube channel is the pinnicle of academia, when its just a ideological as someone like TIKhistory.
All I can say is that none of us have the "whole picture" in our view. He does provide perspective that, when examined (as you have just done) can lead one to a fuller picture; regardless of whether or not you agree with his personal statements and conclusions. As someone who abandoned academics in the early 90s, I most definitely relate to his disdain for the institutions. The ideologies pushed through them into every corner of learning was apparent back then; and, are, literally, marketing tools.... Not to mention that "vibes", our instincts, are an integral part of our human experience. Not all things rational are reasonable. And, vice versa. Very little that we think we know is actually, experienced... the more we "discover" the greater that gap becomes. Much of our current pursuit of knowledge is far beyond superfluous to actually living life. We have been distracted from the human experience. Having it substituted by all manner of "wealth creating" commodities we exchange. Our progress has ceased to be progress and has become interference. You cannot deny there are evident cultural patterns in the rise and fall of civilizations over time. It does seem to move from a general sense of humility and spirit of service devolving into arrogant, individualistic, hedonistic pursuits. For lack of a better way of expressing it: the development and then rejection of morals and ethical standards.... A shadow can be very telling. Ask Poe.
Don't even bother man, this comment section is full of westernoid weirdos. I used to laugh when balck people around me in the 90s were saying that white people have no culture, but it turns out they were right, they no longer posses the values of the enlightenment or a pre world war view of the past, now everything is fascist to them, their civilization has no longer been transmitted to the last 4 generations. As an indian man, i have however noticed that this is more prevalent in the anglosphere and francosphere (the ones who are culturally white and no longer a distinct flavor of european), and if you talk to greeks, Italians and spaniards you will find they are a lot more educated about their own history. This stems from the fact that is culturally valued instead of shunned, and that it's commonly talked about inside the family while growing up, it's not just outsourced to educational institutions. In fact, a lot of the current discussions surrounding the roman empire don't even make sense to them because they don't see the empire as the height of roman civilization, but as the opposite. Everybody in this comment section is yapping about Gibbons, Justinian or the 3rd century crisis, and no one is reading or talking about numa pompillius, and then they turn around and call people fascists without a single hint of irony, it's baffling. How are you going to know what fascism is without understanding the religious and state structure of roman society before the conversion to greek culture? They aren't even aware of it, let alone read about it, but they will use the word and do the performative shunning like it's a fashion trend, this is exactly what is meant by lack of culture.
I watched a few of his videos, mostly braindead second monitor content while gaming. Even at 5% mental capacity It never took long to reach a WTF moment. Something, something british empire suddenly turns into pseudo-religious ramblings about personal nirvana?! He somehow transforms his personal biases on current day affairs into wierd dogmatic ways of looking at history. Instead of trying to reach a true understanding of what may or may not have happened in history (who wrote this? what's that persons background? what are their biases? what are MY biases? Can I crossreference this? etc, list goes on) he somehow twists it to justify his believes. Somehow he reverses causality if it suits him. It's no longer: "A was a contributing factor to B" it's now: "I think B is desirable, so retroactively I decree A happened (source pending)". The scary part is, he seems to truely believe those self made mirages are reality.
Very well made and thought provoking video. It talks to me more not just because it points out how ridiculous and annoying Whatifalthist is but because I am about to get my bachelor's in history. I do want to go to grad school and lately Iv been looking inwards to how I analyze history and what it actually means to interpret data in an appropriate and honest way. Specifically at the 13:30 mark
I want to thank you for this video and for saving my time. I recently discovered that guy throught his old alt history videos and literally yesterday watched his video about the 7 emotion, which i found extremely intresing since i had never heard someone trying to explain history and civilization in this way.I am relatively new to the world of historic study and ill admit that my understanding of the impact of philosophy, religion and culture on history is certainly limited. So i was very impressed , so impressed in fact to have completely ignored all the sudo intellectual garbage ,as you called them ,springed in his video about the 7 emotions and i was planning to watched his videos all his videos about future prediction. Now that i know of the way he oparates and the agenta his trying to shove down his viewers' throats , i glad that ill be avoiding such a bad influence
One of the few books that got me into alternate history as a concept were African Dominion, and 'On This Day In History, Sh!t Went Down'. Basically, a book on the days that things went down in history, that often aren't talked about that much. Also, the author is Canadian. Take of that what you will, but he's Canadian.
I literally shouted out "NO!" when he tried to bring up Newtonian physics as justification for his emotions video. That shit is what 12 year olds do when they try to sound smart while showing that you actually have no understanding of the topic at hand.
I think the issue is with the fact he runs a youtube channel that needs regular uploads to survive. This encorages him to rush and not citate or check his arguments.
Generally you should build your arguments off of stuff you read, which he says he does. In that case adding a little citation at the bottom of the screen telling us where he found it (down to the page number) shouldn't take long.
It annoys me that political discussions of any kind always gravitate towards this kind of personality. Likely a reason for why there will never be any good political discussion on the internet, mainly because people will never cease to spread the most abhorrend unsourced garbage in the hard pursuit of "proving" an ideology. Nevertheless, it is comforting to know that these people will never achieve any meaningful political influence outside the internet.
I was listening to his Christianity video the other night to put me to sleep but it woke me up listening to some of his hot takes. Crazy the algorithm recommended your channel to me
Genuinely, how can someone earnestly not believe in peer review? It's like, just getting other people to check your work! We do it in primary school. Of course it's necessary. People get things wrong all the time by accident. People intentionally lie all the time. People steal things all the time! People are just plain unclear in what they mean all the time! Having experts who know about the material check its validly to see if its accurate is like the basis of even sharing knowledge.
People also tend to overlook other people's shortcomings and flaws and go along to get along...groups don't care about the truth, all they care about is coming to a shared consensus. Can't you imagine how this conformity culture may undermine the validity of the peer review process?
@@SC-gw8np And that's not going to also happen and be way worse without peer review? Anyone can publish anything (in most parts of the world), but the only way to take it as genuine information is peer review. If I write a paper saying over a billion people died in the holocaust are you suddenly just going to start saying that's true because it's in a book? Are you going to independently research all the death records by traveling to Germany and checking eighty year old documents? No, you're going to consult experts who have done that and who have consulted each other and have argued with each other over it and come to a consensus.
@@Jotari Yes, I do independently research everything and no, I don't consult the opinion of those who pay no price for being wrong (and they are wrong more often than they are right). Peer review is a fundamentally flawed concept as it is built upon the appeal to popularity fallacy.
@@SC-gw8np No, you don't independently research everything. You literally cannot. These subjects are extremely vast that require a lifetime of specialization. You read research from other people who do the ground work already.
@@Jotari You cannot, maybe? Doesn't mean others can't. I'm an autodidact and have taught myself a lot of different skills. All it requires to critically appraise other people's research is scientific literacy. I have a background in mathematics and statistics so it comes naturally to me.
The guy is only in his mid-20s? Yet he draws and pushes his life experience as hard evidence like he was in his 60s. He would so be full of himself when he got to his 60s!
I think the criticism from one of the screenshots was telling "Now, this section is true in a hyper-literal sense. However..." For the most part this video was sort of comical. It reminded me of how someone I can't remember described part of peer review "your paper looks good but it needs to cite at least 13 additional papers, several of which just totally coincidentally were authored by me."
I would add that the quote from 8:35 to 9:31 about a historian's role is that sometimes they must try to present a "common-sense perspective" from periods of history that might differ from other mainstream academic historians in England and elsewhere. A historian might be faced by other scholars like Procopius, who many people believe was a "hearsay & bias witness source" (alongside others) during the reign of Justinian but still presented an account that still breeds some consideration of a second opinion about the Emperor's later reign and title of the "The Great." A title I think religious scholars took for granted versus the real historical impact of a specific figure in European history (besides the indirect role of the plague) Over the years, Flash Point History's channel has presented a very professional historical analysis of Justinian's reign. I absolutely agree with their assessment of the famous emperor that many historians would rather throw away just to preserve the image of Justinian in many academic fields of history.
Say what you will about Cody, but at least he keeps his political views out of his Althistory videos And hell I’ll go even farther and say that at least monsieur at least still does alternate history (even if they’re very awful and have shit politics) But whatifalthist can’t do either
I don't necessarily think Alternatehistoryhub keeps his politics out of his videos. I think this is a admirable goal but impossible task. I just think his politics aren't as abrasive as those of WIAH or Z. Alternatehistoryhub regrets saying some of the stuff he did in past videos, and that's because his attitudes and views have changed over time. Him being reasonable in his takes is itself an expression of his politics. Even if WIAH or Z tried to be "apolitical" they'd still sound insane.
It's so funny how much of his work is Spenglerian guff. Every time I've dunked on Spengler there's always someone who accuses me of not having read it, because if I read it, clearly I'd see the genius truth to it. Spengler's visionary nature comes from being a prophet of pessimism, he depicts declines, he speaks of downturns, and of course anyone can cast those as the present moment, provided the past is idealized "properly"
In a sense, I'm sure this is how youtube audiences work too. Anyone who thinks he sucks, or gets it wrong is "ideologically poisoned" as though WIAH speaks pure and noble truths alone. What is WIAH if not a prophet of pessimism?
Oh hey, love Rosencreutz.
There's some irony in this comment lol. I think it's super fair that you take issue with the assumption that you haven't read it, and you see the motivation for it being an implied assumption that you would not be in disagreement if you *had* read it. I totally agree that that's super frustrating.
But, then you generalize his audience in a very similar way. You characterize them of viewing everything he says as truth because they view him as a prophet. The conclusion to that premise, is that those who defend him must being doing so because they view him as a prophet. You're basically setting yourself and everyone who agrees with you up to commit the same fallacy you're taking issue with!
I can sympathize with your experience, it really sucks that people don't listen to criticism sometimes. I'm sorry that's how things went for you.
I've been having a very similar experience with this comment section that you describe having in his comment section (or wherever you're giving this critique). I don't see many people other than myself giving a dissenting viewpoint on this video, and a lot of the push back that I've received have been direct accusations that I have not watched it, and often with an admission that they won't read my comment either. What's worse is this is sometimes in response to comments where I used a direct quote (how do I get direct quotes without having watched it??).
Maybe you're not even wrong if your experience was the same as mine, I'm tempted to view everyone here the same way. But, I also think it's super important to not close the door on good faith discourse, especially when you are taking issue with opposing bad faith discourse in the same breath.
@@carterghill Weren't your comments accusing the creator of deleting them, and as for other people pushing back, its a bit oof the guy telling you "HELL YEAH BROTHER" was an unironic nazi. The latter, sure that's not quite your fault, but everyone's comments get eaten all the time on everything.
Combine that with calling everything short of agreeing with you intellectually dishonest. Like, come on, you've seen whatif's videos. You can't pretend they aren't ideological sludge if you've seen them.
Well, I suppose the feeling is mutual. Both sides view each other with contempt, mostly due to ideological and/or partisan reason.
In any case, for me, "alternate history" sub-genre is just a fiction, for *entertainment* purpose. Whatifalthist makes entertaining contents in this sub-genre, and I enjoy them for what they are.
I consider myself Libertarian, and share quite a lot of values with Whatifalthist guy, so I have my own bias in this. But I appreciate the work and effort that this channel (and many others) put to "debunk" him. It is always good to hear from both/all sides.
This. I been with him for years and ingesting his narrative without forethought of what the subject is, the idealize pseudo-scientific worldview have me captivated until I look step back to all of and see the façade of what it is.
A ideologue pseudo-intellectual whose credentials are benign by the testimony of "friends" with questionable positions with being a quasi-patronage and the masses who think they've find their prophet. it's a ideologue clientelism.
One of the funniest things I've learned in university is how many people are utterly shocked at the thought of reading a piece of literature written by someone they don't like. Like bro, how else are we supposed to study and analyze theory?
Like who?
@@lucaswallo8127 Adolf Hitler
@@lucaswallo8127 If I had to guess, possibly Freud and Karl Marx
I'm an English student and this is so true for me too. People just don't wanna read authors and theorists they have personal disagreements with, and it's like, why are you even here then? The point of being at uni is to have your views challenged. If you don't like that then stop wasting your money by going here lol
@@Spyno41 i remember reading Marx books in high school...
Man, Das Kapital is filled with anti semitism, he uses Kapital to refer to Jews in the book a lot of the times, so you could say the real name of the book is Das Juden
I gotta admit hearing "peer review is a mistake, and it has stifled technological innovation since 1945" is never going to get old.
I can't hear you over the sound of my WWII era Bluetooth headphones
@@sycrationI don't get it, but Asianometry did a great video on hearing aides.
@@DJRonnieG the joke is that there has been no technological innovation since 1945 so my computer and bluetooth headphones must have been around back then
@@sycration
Damn i didn't known the internet is from WW2 !
peer review is broken
and everybody knows it
epidemiology on other hand is the biggest collection of myths in history
I love how he calls himself AltHist and has not made an alternativ history video in like multiple years
More like ScaryAltFuture
more like Alt (right) hist
More like his history view is so distorted that all of his work is althistory
@@Matt-lk5ng AltReality lol
He one a few months ago
it makes me mad that there is people in this world who believe you can water down history to a mathematical equation with only 2 variants
also i checked his Goodreads and he hasn't read one communist book, which is hilarious because he claims to have studied leftist thought in depth
His upcoming Communism video is going to be so insanely funny. I've already started working on a script.
@@FreddaYT You started work on a script to debunk a video that isn't even out yet?
@@carterghill hes predictable enough that you could publish the debunk before his video came out and it would probably be mostly accurate
@@Kresimir_ Good to know you're cool with intellectual dishonesty. Also I'd agree that he's pretty predictable. Why is that bad though? Wouldn't being unpredictable in political theory suggest some level of inconsistency? There's no way I'd look favourably on someone who's inconsistent in their principles.
I'm studying history and (english language) literature myself and only about five minutes into the video, but the phrase "I read most of the primary source on Norse mythology, which isn't hard because combined it's like 300 pages" almost gave me an anyeurism
? aren't there very few surviving norse mythology primary sources
@@pinkmann8399 the problem is that the norse didn't write down their stories, runes were mainly used for magic phrases, names on items, and things like runestones commemorating certain deeds of war or people (thats simplifying it a LOT but this is a YT comment). The sources on norse mythology we do have are pretty much all written by Christian authors who collected oral accounts (I'm assuming WIAH is referring to the Prose + Poetic Edda), and as always with these kinds of sources you can't be certain how truthful they are because Christian authors had a tendency to have their worldview tint the accounts (as every author honestly kind of does)
The bigger problem though is that only reading like 300 pages of a "primary" source is NEVER enough to give you a thorough understanding of such a complex subject. There are literal decades of historical, sociological and anthropological research giving additional information and context to the mythology. saying you're an expert on Norse Myth because you read translations of the two most known eddas is like saying "I read the new testament so now I'm an expert theologian"
@@InkspeckleI see, thanks. Whatifalthist has a tendency to speak authoritatively and with absolute confidence which is admirable, except that he dunningkrugers a lot because his knowledge isn't comprehensive at all.
@@pinkmann8399truly the average althist nerd
@@Inkspeckle not only that but people write literal theses to figure out the meaning of skaldic poetry. Though WIAH is probably content with reading a translation from 1926.
hope the backlash against whatifalthist's pseudohistorical videos keeps growing for the sake of everybody who actually cares about history
That’s going to be difficult as most of them tend to be from the far left who themselves don’t provide a solution other than “we need socialism” every time capitalism did something bad.
@@europadefender perhaps they've reached the conclusion that we need socialism because they themselves have studied the history, Mr "Europa Defender?" (from what?).
Anyway, it sounds like you're strawmaning. Can you provide specific examples of "far-left" historians who don't provide sources or explanations, but advocate socialism anyway?
Because I have personally never seen any of them. All of them, include Fredda, are actual historians.
Whatifalthist is another in a long line of people ignoring International Relations - ignoring 60 years of work and falling short on any concept problematised since the 1950s, when this field of historical and political philosophy got going properly.
@@europadefender You don't need to propose a 'solution' to someone misreading basic history as recorded. We're not trying to solve the world in some crank's youtube comments.
@@game_boyd1644 The real communism was the friends we made along the way.
I stopped watching him years ago, because he stopped making interesting thought experiments in the form of history, and instead was making statements on reality that didn't align with reality, or were informed by personal experience only - and not academic, provable research.
I personally feel that he adheres to an ideology that seems to be a mixture of cultural determinism and social darwinism. This culture is good because it succeeded, and it succeeded because it was good. Those who didn't succeed didn't succeed because of the flaws in their culture. And, what I think is the most dangerous, and flawed, part of his ideology, is that there is *a singular good way for society to work, and it can only be found by looking at 'successful' cultures of the past*. He seems to not believe in the merit of new ideas, but only pre-existing ones.
Is essense - what you said. He seems to base history and culture off of vibes, that seems to be informed by his personal biases and experiences.
I will refrain from talking about his personal character, as I cannot speak to how he actually is, but how he presents himself, and how I interpret it. But he seems to be very much assured in his own correctness, and seems to think that nearly anything society concludes is good is suspect, as we live in an 'immoral society', and he is one of the few who can see that, and knows what's best for society. Very paternalistic, from what I can see. I believe he does have good intentions, but his ideology very conveniently allows him to discount differing ideas as ones made by a morally corrupt society to justify weakness and laziness. He also seems to relish in his own philosophical and academic prowess.
Overall, he's... Very odd to me. A self-proclaimed academic, who doesn't bother backing up claims with substantial evidence, yet believes his own claims whole-heartedly.
Yup, everything you said is spot on. In short Whatifalthist thinks he's smarter than he actually is and this ego prevents him from listening to any other point of view and challenging his own beliefs.
The fact that he dismisses per reviewed data to me fully demonstrates that he doesn't actually care to know what's true because his focus is what he wants to believe is right
I think he's just a run of the mill fash cheerleader, preaching a return to an idealized past where Other People knew their place.
I really wish he had stuck to making alternate history videos. When he was just making up funny little stories he wasn't passing his insane view of history as the only objective view of it.
You say he thinks there’s only one culture that is correct for Humanity….
You’re an idiot and have not watched or listened to his videos. He explicitly recognizes that different cultures had different strengths, different weaknesses.
Does he think there is a general form of society most conducive towards, say, human happiness? Yeah, probably. But don’t you as well? Human sacrifice is probably bad. As long as it’s a general form, many specific alterations can be made for each individual culture.
Can WIAH narrativize sometimes? Yeah, he can, but they’re not usually entirely removed from the truth. If you interpret everything he says in the worst way possible, yeah he probably sounds dumb. But that’s you being dumb, not him.
@@Oruam1111 I'm been done with this guy as clearly this is someone who's struggling to find his way in the world and he thinks history is going to do it? Nope.
What pisses me off about Whatifalthist isn't that he exists, it's that he just comes out with the most mind bogglingly ridiculous generalisation about something whilst providing no citation whatsoever and then people in his comments act like what he said was factual and he's a genius.
For example, in one video the "downfall of Europe" he states that "Europe imports the majority of its culture from the US" - the evidence provided for this? Dua Lipa sings her songs with an American accent and British chavs act like American gangsters (i.e like "black people", his words not mine).
we should destroy youtube for how right-wing it is
So true. I just listened to his baby boomer video and it was painful. He even said at one point “I think as a 23 year old I have a pretty unique and interesting point of view.”It was so cringe
His generalizations are not only sweeping, but also load-bearing for his conclusions. I like having him around as, well, a lolcow, but it sincerely baffles me how people can listen to him say things like “throughout all of history agricultural powers have always won wars against urban powers” and not immediately write him off as total dunce.
Wild, can you tell me what video that your citing
As a young black man who lives that exact lifestyle I would say he's accurate
So true about the Soviet archives. There are still books coming out today which rely on pre-archive material as their foundational sources, and it makes any discussion or study of the Soviet Union problematic.
A few years ago I was working on a book focused on the transition of power in '53, and the volume of obsolete material I ran across in researching was ridiculous, some of which had come out only a few years ago.
Or the death of stalin - the daughter of stalin wrote two different versions of it. I spent a paper comparing the differences and determined Stalin's daughter was a religious nut. Yet if you take the police files on her - yep - religious nut... but he would say "Beria poisoned him because communism is evil."
Do you have book recommendations about the Soviet Economy?
@@saint-0429it never worked lol
you couldn't produce the same thing better in other part of warsaw pact because some idiot decided it must be produced in other place lol
a Pole invented personal computer and was destroyed just because he added competition to much worse stationary computing employing more people 😂😂😂
@@saint-0429 R.W. Davies has a lengthy series on the subject. I'm sure there are other more recent works though, probably not as extensive.
@@szymonbaranowski8184 he asked for recommendations, not opinions
I think that actually /r/BadHistory loves this guy because he provides them with a free and never ending source of content, and is incredibly fun to debunk because it's so easy.
You're right, I also love him.
This guy is single-handedly keeping that sub alive.
ywnbaw
@@bigger_mibber6029 I'm a man
@@bigger_mibber6029 Didn't ask
Without the video, when I heard he refuses to use sources in the 2000s and after was what made me realize he was just not a good person to talk history.
Specifically any source made after 1950's or 1960's is woke nonsense from his point of view
I've heard of people doing that, supposedly because "anyone can become a scientist now"?
@@ihaveleftthetesco7628 Anyone can, but you have to actually "become a scientist" not just say you are one, which is where WIAH kinda drops the ball
Pretty sure he doesn't use sources after 1960s not 2000s
This isn't true though, he's absolutely used more recent sources when they're relevant.
He's an ancient and medieval historian. When he said that he *tends* not to use sources past 1960, it's because there isn't much new to be said about the topic at hand. It's not like our view on Rome has been completely turned on its head since Edward Gibben wrote about it.
But, I've seen a lot of his Rome videos, and I do recall him mentioning things like how Roman statues are actually very colourful - this is actually very new information! Even in the 60s, people thought Rome was all white marble. So I don't think it's right to say he refuses to use recent sources in general, that just isn't accurate
Damn Fredda this is a very shame culture moment of a video. Clearly if this was made by a glorious western guilt based civilization then it would've said how cool WIAH is very cool and gets all the women.
he's very intelligent strong and he gets all the girls fr fr, do not dare to question anything he says, did i mention he gets all the girls?
Bruh moment i seees
The fact he has a chris chan esq girlfriend application will never not be funny to me
@@lucasfragoso7634 (kubrick stare but its an epileptic ytp fractal earrape) sry *_W H A T_*
bro fr fr WIAH is him bro fr fr trust me bro and hes so cool i love him bro he gets all the girls fr fr bro like trust me hes sooo intelligent and strong
You killed me, actually murdered me and my family when you showed the seven emotions part. Newton's Third fucking law. I can't fucking believe he actually thought he made sense.
If you’re a physicist could you please clarify what was wrong with that❓did he misquote the actual law
@@sarmatiancougar7556 No, Newtons laws apply to objects with mass, not human emotion and its effect on society. He's chatting out of his ass, basically acting like pseudoscience grifter. Its the same type of logic that indian millionaire "gurus" use to justify that the soul exist by saying that "its quantum stuff bruh". He's being hilarious ludicrous by trying to justify his model because " the wording of a physics law sounds like it might help my argument".
@@sarmatiancougar7556 No, but the fact is, emotions are not energy. Therefore, claiming that the laws of physics apply to emotions is like claiming that since bread rises, you should let meat on the counter until it does.
@@KobKobold but they are energy though
The electrons in your brain that is
@@KobKobold plus applying basic laws of the universe to more specific things is not necessarily a mistake
More of a hypergeneralization
The Hobits are famously based on English people. But not all English people, they're based on a very specific type of English person. The rural folk with relatively little going on in their lives that were easily contented and relatively poor. Tolkien saw a lot of virtue in those people and Hobits are based on them. He also famously loved nature and the countryside and loathed the increasing pace of industrialization.
im not a fan of vaush but his "debate" with him was incredibly funny
Wow, disgusting that you complimented the world's current most influential fascist
It can be very entertaining to watch two bad people argue with each other while both being wrong.
@@Swedishmafia101MemeCorporationhow is vaush bad?
@@parazitkolol he is literally serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity
@@Dr-Jesus crimes against horsemanity
I laugh so hard when he said he is a historian consultant for american companies
As an American myself, I do not claim him.
You want to cancel people owning guns?
@@gabelincoln3608where did that topic even come from
@@gabelincoln3608play in traffic
@@jordinagel1184 out of nowhere for no reason; that's where lmao
I am a huge Tolkien nerd and what little you did mention makes me resist the urge to type paragraphs on how wrong he is.
As another huge Tolkien nerd, I feel ya
I never watched WIAH’s LOTR video, but I had a bad feeling he’d misinterpret some stuff badly that would lead to this
I get what you're feeling.
Any attempt to see the politics in Tolkien's works (that he himself even denied existing!) without trying to understand his own obscure yet interesting ideology of "Anarcho-Monarchism" (I know it sounds weird, but this is the best way to describe his ideology, and understanding it will lead to understanding of the "politics" of the Legendarium, whether they exist or not) will fail and will just be a reflection of the observer's own ideology (which Tolkien himself actually said he prefers to happen with his works to an extant).
Tolkien was a very unusual man, both in his works and views, and if you want to understand their "politics" (if they exist), you need to understand his unorthodox (pun intended) views.
@@anqareliouth2921 Extrapolating from the Shire has his ideal English state, I'd describe JRRT's personal beliefs as somewhere falling in "Tradcath minarchism", or some other combination of "local authority, a strong focus on customs and traditions to regulate behaviour, and a distant philosopher/warrior-king for defence and legal arbitration"
i know fuck all abt tolkien but i was just thinking about how he could just as easily apply his idea of "the european hobbits were perfect and happy and peaceful and then the eastern orcs came" to ireland. the irish hobbits were perfect and happy and peaceful until the british orcs came. but that would ruin is fantasy of clean colonialism. he wants to wipe away the bloody history of tyrannical monarchies like the british empire because he thinks that we should go back to those times.
@@anqareliouth2921honestly, I’m just tired of people using the old “there are no allegories in LotR because Tolkien said so.” Now sure, political allegories you can make a case for, but no one can seriously tell me that Isengard and Mordor juxtaposed with the Shire and Fangorn aren’t an allegory for Industrialism destroying the peaceful British countryside
One thing I learned from university is WHY peer-reviewed sources are important. If your source isn't reviewed, you could risk miscommunication just as easily as only having one source to go off of.
Yeah you should see the dunking the peer review process just got, not exactly a bulletproof system lacking a certain bias.
@@cArLaEzXy1992 People are biased? True objectivity is a myth?
You're really blowing my mind here man, truly. What's your idea?
@@nouhorni3229 To not invoke logical fallacies in the pursuit of truth for starters. In this example, it's the appeal to authority.
@@cArLaEzXy1992That’s an extremely high schooler understanding of appeal to authority.
That or worse, you maintain wrong information and had to rely on dubious sourcing,
Peer Review is also important in other fields like say Medical diagnostics, in order to maintain accuracy and quality of results.
Wow I had not stopped to consider how his views and content might have been ideologically driven and took them pretty much at face value without giving much thought because he sounded confident. Thank you for highlighting this new perspective for me
I'd say whatifalthist is more of a political/historical ideologue/philosopher than a historian. They guy is in his early 20s, it takes longer than that to become a historian. But he is interesting in that he gives alternate angles on history and current events. It is a bit like using a tarot, posing the question "how does the question at hand viewed through the archetype of the queen of pentacles". I find this quite useful.
I mean sure, if you like that then that's fine.
You can be a historian in your early 20s though, it all comes down to applying the methods of the historian's craft, you'll definitely stumble at the start but so do novice artists and scientists. They're still artists and scientists.
@@FreddaYTHe's not just in his early 20s, he's 21 and has been making videos since like 13. He's been doing the stuff you criticize for years.
@@brunoactis1104Whoah! I didn't realise that he is that young. That is barely enough to have a bachelor's degree in most countries when studying full time...
@@FreddaYT I like the earthsea book series’ twist on the fantasy genre, the orc stand ins are described as blonde haired blue eyed savages who relish in the destruction of entire villages and turn psychotic at the sight of blood.
Philosophy is based in seeking out new knowledge and wisdom. Sophistry is the word you’re looking for, the belief that one already knows everything and spreading it through the aesthetics of philosophy.
As a Arab Muslim i want to point out that in one of his videos on the Islamic civilization there were two mistakes:
1.) he said that the Shia-Sunni split was between the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) friend ''Ali'' and his daughter ''Fatima'', my reaction was this 💀 because ''Ali'' R.A was his Cousin who was married to ''Fatima'' R.A the daughter of the prophet (pbuh) so what doesn't make sense is how there is a dispute between two married people well there wasn't and also the dispute was between Abu Bakr R.A (best friend of the prophet pbuh and one of the first to convert to Islam) and Ali R.A and even that dispute is largely from a Shia Perspective not really the Sunni one and the Shia's make only 15% of all Muslims and had started mostly as a Political opposition that developed to religious opposition so right of the Bat there are 2 mistakes and a Biased view held mostly by one group also that wasn't even the point were the split occurred it was when the prophet's (pbuh) Grandson and the people with him were massacred by a bad group of people basically deviants and that event looked down upon negatively by both Sunnis and Shia's as these Deviants are hated by all but the Shia's who were mostly from the Area where this event known as the ''Karbala massacre'', because it took place in modern day Iraq in Karbala so the fact that he took a Biased viewpoint then mixed up the prophets family and between whom the dispute was between and the fact that he took a biased perspective while ignoring other events that led to the Shia-Sunni split is enough to tell me to not trust this guy and that what he is saying is total bullshit.
2.) He said that it was the Bedouin Arab Muslims who united Arabia then went on to to invade Byzantium and Persia, now that isn't completely true because the people Muslims who united Arabia were Urbanized merchants from Mecca in the region of Hejaz which is the most habitable place in Arabia and its where most trade in the Arabian Peninsular takes place and its also where most outside contact between the Arabs and other people also takes place and again the Prophet (pbuh) and the early Muslims who invaded Arabia were all Urbanized Merchants so were the first people to convert, all urbanized but its when they invaded Arabia that they unified all the Arabs including the Bedouins and then with the military genius of Khalid Ibn Walid that they invaded. So the fact that he missed that fact for a so called ''professional historian'' is just disappointing.
Note: Now i am Arab and English is my second language and technically my first language because i use it a lot but i use Arabic more so English to me is in-between first and second language because i have been taught English since Kindergarten anyways all i am trying to say is to excuse my not so great Grammar and you need to bear in mind that this is a non-English native writing English so its not so great.
Your English is good dude. The important thing is communicating your intent and message, and you have done so.
About the language, try to use more commas and dots. It really helps to organize ideas for the reader and gives a sense of respite. Few to none puctuation signs will sometimes make it a little confusing and tiring (speaking as someone whose second language is also English, so I know the effort it takes from both ends of this too).
Anyway, good write up. As the person before me said, you expressed your ideas and were understood. That's the point of language at the end of the day.
it doesn't change fact that majority of intellectual work and inventions in Islam came from Iranics not Arabs😂
Basically add a period more often and your English is good. Aside from lacking periods and giant run on sentences you are good.
As a native English speaker, I applaud your grammar. I know that English is a hard language, but you still did well.
Like brazilian communist influencers usually say "It's freestyle history", "Source: not needed", "Source: Definitly happened", "Source: Trust me bro" lol
Freestyle history is good, I like that.
F R E E S T Y L E H I S T O R Y
e free stile
você assiste o conteudo do tio ?
"My source is that I made it the fuck up" - Senator Armstrong
9:14 I mean this is generally just how science works, like imagine if someone said that they refused to read physics textbooks that are younger than 50 years old. They would barely know anything about the Standard Model, which is the single most important theoretical model in modern physics, and would be completely in the dark about basically all of modern astronomy. Or imagine the same with biology, that person wouldn't know anything about how DNA works, nor that several species have had their genome sequenced and that we are using that knowledge to discover incredible things about evolution, like the entire existence of retroviruses would be unknown to it and so would the age of life. It's a bit insane that you have to explain to someone that scientific fields evolve and get better over time, yes there are old things that still hold up but you won't know that if you don't check the modern literature to see if they hold up.
Right? This point really had me shitting myself laughing
Yeah. I mean, it is an objective fact that I know things about physics that Isaac Newton did not. Obviously Newton was far smarter and a much much better physicist than me, but *purely by virtue of being born later in time than Newton*, I know about concepts and laws that he never did. And a lot of which we only know now because they were stuff that were discovered by building on his work.
Modern physics isnt trying to claim gravity is a social construct...........
Just because your point makes sense out of context doesnt mean there isnt any context in which it doesnt make sense.
You dont show up to a book burning looking for recomendations on a reliable history book.
@@andrewlenfest7548elaborate
@@andrewlenfest7548 Modern history isn't trying to claim gravity is a social construct either, so I don't see how that's relevant.
I mean if he is really obssesed with picking only pre-1970 historians there is much better stuff than a literal non-historian like Spengler...gods we are lucky he didn't touch Gibbons yet, there are enough Roman Larpers as it is. I would say he should dive in and explore the first generation of Nouvelle Histoire scholars but that would require oh...yeah sticking to at least a somewhat rigorous standard which he set for himself and can't follow (Fukuyama...very pre 70's brah)
Gibbons is old enough to be more history than historian at this point.
I'm pretty sure some of his ideas about how the Fall of Rome is exactly like social justice today etc. comes from his reading of Gibbon lol.
@@hedgehog3180 Very correct assesment, I like Gibbons mostly because I am kinda more interested in historiography than "usual" history itself and since he is such a well known figure is quite interesting to look at his method and consideration, sure nothing too amazing there but still for me quite interesting. The development of methodology, the narratives and context surrounding how the studies of history develops
@@FreddaYT I would say yes but I would probably consider he picked it up from some 19th century historian or early 20th century one who reheated that soup and made it even worse than Gibbons....and that particular set of ideas has been reheated so many times that is hilarious.
I mean, personally if I was going that far back I'd just go for primary sources, do my own research and put whatever spin I wanted (assuming spin was the intent)
But then again... primary sources for history are generally... woke.
Whatifalthist isn’t fake he’s just from a separate dimension where everyone was on cocaine constantly and it bleeds over, can’t stand ur slander of him smh. Also I appreciate ur reading list I’ve been looking for good general history works for topics I’m not interested in but wanted a decent understanding of
Yeah I thought the alternate reading list was really good, I remember Bayly being a required reading in one of my history papers. However I have read Tom Holland's Dominion and I thought it was really good. Certainly on the pop history side of the spectrum but still worth reading imo
Hey now let's not bad mouth cocaine like that 😂
The lesson of this video is that history is in fact, not vibes
Big if true
When I around 13 actually believed in his thesis but the more i started to learn about history and politics the more i lost all faith in his channel
how old r u?
@@placeholder4819well, considering you have to be 13 to have a non-kids account on TH-cam and whatifalthist has been here for 10 years, simple math says between 16 and 23.
Same
13 year olds don't even know what a thesis is, get a grip
@@mysteriousstranger9496 At that age you've gone through enough years of school to know what a thesis is. Unless you're from a country in which school works differently, ofc.
Lol at the meth pipe for works cited.
Also thank you, right away, for starting the video with what your qualifications and sources are. The scariest thing about how many videos are put out as essays and factual and I have no idea why I should be listening to that person.
DON'T MAKE A STRAWMAN OUT OF WHATIFALTHIST! THAT WAS CLEARLY A CRACK PIPE AND NOT A METH PIPE!! FAKE NEWS!
I like to pretend that all of his content is alt history even the content that isn’t meant to be.
Finally, his name is accurate once more!
I used to love this kid. I never took his ideas too seriously since the bias was very visible but once i found myself drifting away from the right wing spectrum it was too hard to ignore that almost nothing he says is rooted in fact instead of, as you so succinctly put it, vibes. Thanks for the video. it's great
Il be honest, the only certainty in history is things change. sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. And predicting the future is a fruitless endeavour
Can you source that?
So then why would you study history?
@@evancollins5339 Is the only reason you have to study history a pitiful attempt at becoming a prophet?
@@evancollins5339because history is interesting and i love learning about it, it also helps us understand what is going on currently
@@evancollins5339if you’re seriously asking that question I pity your history teachers
For all the people who say he got worse after he didn't make alt histories anymore, he didn't, it just got more noticeable cause his views got worse
What's wrong with his views?
@Thorpeaaron11 his views is not in relation to video views but personal irl views.
@@chrisdonishDon’t engage, he has a fascist as his profile picture, Pinochet I believe.
If you’re going to call him a fascist, you probably need more supporting evidence than he needs for calling himself a historian. Bit of a difference between the two wouldn’t you say?
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisis the only time the word "fascist" got used in this comment thread was in reference to Augusto Pinochet, who I don't think ever called himself a historian. Are you lost?
"The success of a nation is determined by materialistic and socioeconomic factors. Read a fucking book." -Max0r
Great critique, could you expand? many thanks.
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisis It's a quote you baboon, I've some what agreed with you in this section but your dedication to sperging is making it hard.
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisisIt’s from a TH-cam video about Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a bombastic action video game that has a better understanding of politics, society and history than Whatifalthist could ever hope to
Ok, but again, what in particular do you think he has got wrong and why so much hate? Anyone with 17 brain cells can do a critique like that…..for example, “princekyle4132 reply had the intellectual rigour of a shit edition of the Beano” ……my 17 brain cells worked overtime on that one.
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisis bruh they weren't offering an in depth critique lmao they were quoting a joke from a youtube video. You're asking for an expansion from someone who is literally not creating their own critique to begin with.
please.
Go over his video about the incel uprising.
It's just too funny.
I guess he's apart of the pipeline now. 😂
"Works cited:" just showing a picture of a dirty pipe got a chuckle out of me.
Small minds are easily amused I guess lol
@@ottomanpapyrus9365 im sure your comedy is very high iq and intellectual
😆🤣😆🤣😆🤣😆🤣
🤓👆 ummm that's a crack pipe akchually
A dirty *crack* pipe 😂😂😂
I can only imagine his concerns with "The Frankfurt School Corrupting the Study of History" are centered around his concerns with a general culture we see from the genpop online of "everything in the past is bad".
But legit historians have a much more balanced view. My specialty is the development of Christianity, and even from a critical standpoint (viewing the Bible and the early church with skepticism) we tend to be more apologetic and forgiving than the genpop on the internet is. He would probably assume that the recently popular book "The Myth of Christian Persecution" represents the scholarly consensus of the field and is a byproduct of critical theory. But that book was entirely ignored by academics of early Christianity and her views are on the fringes of secular, critical scholarship.
This guy is the greatest example of a higher being. No person in a lab could of created such a contradiction, he would have to be created by a malevolent trickster god in order to troll us mere mortals
I prefer cybersmith over whatifaltist ngl
@@Kresimir_ the human pet guy?
@@pabloni1117 yeah. He's insane, but in a more earnest/less harmful way than whatifalthist is
@@Kresimir_ honestly fair
oh also, I'm majoring in history and specialising in medieval europe, so those book recs are quite useful. My university has one of the feudalism books in its library, so thanks for the recommendation
There’s always been pseudo-intellectuals throughout history who totally disdain the field they work in, but seeing them out in the open and people hailing them geniuses like Jordan Peterson and Whatifalthist (although he really isnt *that* popular) Its just baffling.
What makes J. Peterson a pseudo intellectual with disdain for his field in your mind?
But JBP loves his job and has said so on multiple occasions. Also wouldn't call him a "psuedo-intellectual."
@@patrickstar174he said that "depression doesn't exist", literally. How is that not pseudo-intellectual?
@@xX_Pokeman_Xxhe said that "depression doesn't exist", literally. How is that not pseudo-intellectual?
@@kucingcat8687 When the hell did he say that? Can you point to a lecture, or an interview, or a book?
I know for a fact it wasn't after 2018, when he said he's had depression since he was 13 on the JRE. Evidently, "depression doesn't exist" would run counter to this interview, wouldn't it?
it's funny how much Whatifaltist relied on the idea that Russians rooted for Sauron while watching LOTR 😅
What?????
you didn't??? Sauron was clearly the true hero all along, I was so heartbroken when he lost
@@maciejbala477 😂 srsly though, the lispy guy who makes these videos is just making up shit as he likes it.
Omg I looove the small niche in youtube dedicated to debunking reactionary alternate "historians." This outta be a good one!!
Amusingly the entire Whatifalthist subreddit is dedicated to bashing his takes
It's actually so fucking funny
I have to say not all alternate historians are political extremists.
Whatifalthist and Monsieur Z are however two examples of extremists maliciously misusing alternate history and history as a whole for a extremist agenda.
@@InquisitorXarius Who's a good non-extremist alternate history channel?
AlternateHistoryHub is one of the few I still watch, as he doesn't seem nearly as politically-minded, and recognizes that the butterfly effect would make it so he cannot reasonably predict much of what happens. He is okay with saying 'I don't know', or 'I'm not sure', which I appreciate a lot as a viewer.
got an ad on this vid about how estrogen is killing men.
LMAO
“Our enhancement pills are softening our boys!!!”💀💀💀
Absolutely great video, glad to see others tackle the flawed views of Whatifalthist. I hope that more people will become more critical of the claims he makes in his videos, as literally hundreds of thousands are influenced by his content.
Lets go it's Possible History
Possible History: The guy I dumped WIAH for, because he does ACTUAL history.
@@utubrGaming PH's recent vids have been WILD though?
dropping out of college because it's "too woke" is such a dead giveaway for how close minded his worldview is. he is being taught by the most knowledgeable people in the world and rejects it because it differs from his rigid beliefs that he likely developed because those are his parent's beliefs. sad sad stuff.
He was asked to give his sources on his claim that "Turkey will form a neo-ottoman empire because they will adapt Anglo-saxon work ethics" and decided that was too woke for him😔
@@cdollar67 he dropped out of all of college
@cdollar67 highly doubt whatifalthis is a big money making machine.
Bedsides, if he actually cared about history, you would think he would still get a degree to make better historical content
yeah ditch the family why not community too make sure to trust the societal patriarchs yep! not like elitist people get promoted in hierarchies such as academia. nope.
@cdollar67 no shit some youtubers make alot of money.
But whatifalthis? I doubt it
Besides, he began on his education while being on youtube.
The one thing I would add to your reading list is an example of micro-history for a detailed example of close source analysis
The great cat massacre or the cheese and the worms are probably the most influential
yesss micro-history is amazing and gives important insight into the lives of those not commonly talked about in the grand scheme of things. Reading on new social history is also greatly important, a field that has contributed enormously to our understanding of Latin American history and the ordinary people.
The Cheese And The Worms, Yes!!! I'm a history teacher from Brazil and our framework of references is mostly french from Annales d'Histoire Économique et Sociale, and I get a little lost when the basis of reference is British/from the US, because outside of people like Peter Burke, Edward Thompson and such, we don't really follow the "anglo-saxon" tradition of historiography.
Crack Pipe Time lets go!
W voosh
Sources cited: Picture of giant crack pipe.
Whatifalthist once got into a debate with Vaush. It was really telling. He just got very very very mad at basic questions Vaush asked him and firehosed nonsense. Then proceeded to get even madder when called out for said firehosing.
How the fuck did he suffer in a debate with vaush of all people?
Talking with Vaush would drive any sane man to righteous anger.
@@RoKBottomStudios vaush is a good rhetorician and has an ideology diametrically opposed to whatifalthist’s
@@RoKBottomStudios oh that's easy to answer.
Vaush came with skill at debate, rhetoric, and research. Whatifalthist came with vibes and an ego as bruisable as an over ripe mango.
@@bobbybooshay5388 I've seen the debate, and this take is ridiculous. Don't you remember when Vaush asked him about Simone de Beauvoir? He tried contradicting him by accusing him of not reading Marxist theory, yet without skipping a beat he continued his point about Marxism through that very person Vaush expected him not to know.
You're right that rhetoric is how Vaush wins debate, but that doesn't convince me his point is correct. He is ass at research, and has openly admitted to using dishonest rhetoric. He interupted constantly and it's no surprise althist showed frustration when Vaush was behaving in a frustrating way. It wasn't good in terms of optics, but you can't come out thinking Vaush won in any sense if you actually listened to what they were saying
I don't understand how anyone with a functioning brain can genuinely take him seriously, he legitimately claimed at one point that Star Wars was to blame for the decline of Western Civilization.
ok but
I forget which video that was from
Did he?!
I have only half a functioning brain, but even I can see this is not constructive criticism. Good start with the cherry picked example, looking forward to you expanding your argument further……obviously with sources please. Many thanks
From a certain point of view, actually, yes. When we elected Ronald Reagan to switch us over from working on environmental sustainability to dumping huge sums of money into the ludicrous “Star Wars” laser missile defense system (and distributing crack to the inner city, and destroying unions, and ignoring AIDS) we did sorta end up in the bad timeline.
I was just hoping this video was about who I thought It was since I didn't remember his name and oh, lucky me!
Good job with this video. I am in a pretty turbulent part of my life and while watching this video i remember why i study to become a history teacher. People like Whatifaltist are a danger to the field of history and, in my opinion, the next generation. It really inspires me to become a better me so i can help these generations! So thank you!
I'm glad I could have that effect!
actually I will argue for him but not in the reason you may think....
after watching this video I had sudden realasiation about his thinking methods and essays and I
have to admit yep he is just bad at dealing with it
but I also think... fake it till u make it as said I. this video he says some really interesting stuff but I have just
to make a few arguments that I think are worth noteing...
isn't family unit core of society and if we think about how it's changing we can see in what likely senario
soceity
(soceity meaning all country's with similar values and/or goals like USA and eu ,middle east , post soviet
contrys, etc... essencally people with kinda shared value system or strong historical ties)
and how analysing someone's way of thinking could indicate what will happen next
essentially today I learned that he is a hypocrite who got accidentally indoctrinated by some random academic theory from ages ago
but that doesn't mean that his tought are invaluable and now (I'm sorry but I'm in big shock so I need to find some excuse)
if he analysed so many alt historys in past I think 9 years (too laizy to look up at the moment) and he
assuming always had that vibe check it could mean that he doesn't know why but thing feel off like that
weird felling when u are checking the room and it know that there is drama in it but u don't know specific
details on it
He should of stuck to doing alternative history scenerios (like what his channel is named after) instead of whatever political garbage he does now
Exactly!!! I do agree with him on some of his politics, but he comes off as very arrogant a lot of the times. Alongside him being very biased, I don’t understand how people can watch his videos.
his althist was still really bad and based largely on his political preferences rather than realistic changes to a timeline.
Honestly. Like not to say "just copy what he's doing," but one of the reasons Cody at Alternate History Hub is so successful in my opinion is because he doesn't really "spin" anything and takes note of where bias might be (example, him preceding the statement that Christianity wouldn't exist in a Rome-less Europe with the qualifier that its not coming from an anti-christian place as he's Catholic). He just focuses for the most part on two things: What is the change to the timeline, and how do people react based on actual historical events creating trends (not just cycles and vibe). I think his pursuit of minimal bias in the presentation of his material is part of the reason his channel has been so successful, especially since- go figure- that's what actual academic history is like.
I'll never forget when before being raducalised i listened as a way to sleep, and at one point in "what if the russian empire continued to exist" he blamed the existance of the USSR to the demographic decline of russians. You know like excluding the fact that the axis had killed 27 millions soviets and the growth of the russian population (together with other european ethnicities of the USSR) stopped after the fall of the Soviet Union. His claim was that (only) the russian population would have reached half a billion people
This wording is flawed though, presenting it as he simply said, the plain existence of the Soviet government caused the decline is misleading, he blamed the actions, policies and the environment created by them, while his allusions are poorly structured they aren't unfounded, the Soviet obsession with industrialization crushed the rural sector, as well as causing a lot of upheaval and hardship.
Whatifalthist and Monsuor Z are bad and racist knockoffs of Alternate History Hub. AHH actually sites his sources and studies his topics which is why his videos take longer (as well as him having better production). These 2 knockoffs took the topic of althist and started pumping out versions of history that go their way. Whatever outcome would make them the happiest is what happens. They sometimes say "what if my enemies won?" And then say how terrible it would be.
Very telling that it took him so long to give sources, so he just gives lists of 20 books he read. Maybe one day he'll evolve citations for each video!
good video, i love your production style. I really appreciate the book recommendations! ive started reading them and you might have given me a slight obsession with historiography, its really reignited my passion for history and im already deepening my understanding of history more than i thought i would. dont think ill be satisfied with surface level videos anymore, seems there will be lots more reading in my near future. thanks :)
It’s funny to me the people who drop out of university because “it’s too woke I can’t use racial slurs in my projects” vs me who literally ran out of money.
I used to watch this guy a couple months back, now I’m flabbergasted
What happened? Sounds bad.
Thank you for making this video, I have to admit that I was once one of his followers. I did genuinely believe what he was saying. But something in me held back doubt and I started looking at him with a more critical eye. Eventually his “theories” fell out of favor for me and I moved on. Thank you for teaching me and us all how to be a real historian. Could you also make a video looking at another man I used to believe wholeheartedly? His name is Historylegends, I used to watch his videos all the time on that dumpster fire game Call of Duty Vanguard and when the Russo-Ukrainian war kicked off I looked towards him for guidance. That was until he started showing his true colors, I believe Historylegends uses his intelligence and history only to prove his own world views. For example in the vanguard game there is a scene to where you fight with an African American division and he mentions they were only used for “housework” but when another historian Animarcy reviewed the scene he mentioned that the division was misused sure but they still fought in some capacity and won medals for their services. Could you take a look at Historylegends? Thank you.
Bro if he's using a literal game to back up his claims then I wouldn't call him a historian
@@mrtrollnator123 No, it wasn't like that. Remember those videos about internet historians grading videogames and movies based on the time they represent? That's what he was doing. He wasn't using the game itself as his source he was using his own knowledge to grade the game's historical accuracy. It's just I found a discrepancy and I wanted to bring it to light because I've seen HistoryLegends do this before where he "conveniently forgets" about certain facts to affirm his own personal vendetta against Liberals. Sure, he could've just forgot but I think I see a pattern in his works.
If you believe in something or someone you’ve never met wholeheartedly, you may be in for many disappointments. Best strategy is to just not watch, who cares, live and let live, let the people that do like him make their own judgements, we are all adults that have the ability to scrutinise his content and make our own judgements.
i fell down that very same fucking thing. vanguard was a disaster of a game and when historylegends started making videos pointing out historical inaccuracies it gave the illusion that he knew what he was talking about. he then started talking about the ukraine war and holy shit was he off the mark. i always picked up on little right wing things he said like "woke of duty." it felt odd that he said that so much until i realized that he is a little batshit insane. COD vanguard is still bullshit though, fight me!
@@Slava_Ukraini1991 You have no idea how happy I 'am to hear that I'm not the only one. I mean it's sad that we both fell for the same trap and I'm sorry you also had to go through that. But I'm just happy I'm not the only one. Hope you're doing better now, have a happy day. :)
I don't know if I should be angry or just sad. The fact that he's seemingly found mainstream success being a thought leader posing as a "historian" whilst actual historical channels who try and put effort into their work don't see anything close to that success or have YT stifle their channel's potential through demonetization. It's a real shame.
Why would that make you make
It's almost as if there are TH-cam admins/mods that are pushing for the Right while suppressing anything that makes the opposition look good.
…sad?
Is that really true, are proper historians getting done over by TH-cam? Or is it there just isn’t an audience for what they are doing? I like model railways, but i wouldn’t expect TH-cam to give me special treatment to push my model railway stuff to people who couldn’t care less.
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisis Well, TH-cam is actually pushing car/airplane enthusiast stuff to me whenever I watch anything train related, including model trains; now, I can't say if comparing history stuff to model trains was appropriate, or not.
criticising Whatifalthist is like beating a 4 year old at chess
The difference is that nobody takes their understanding of chess from a 4-year-old.
He’s no 4 year old. He’s a grown man who sucks at chess and thinks chess sucks and made up his own version called Racist Chess that’s objectively terrible, and he’s spreading the bullshit of Racist Chess to everyone who’ll listen 😭
More like beating prophesied children who's actually stupid but revered in their backward community because he accidentally cured one of their citizen from simple wound in a fistfight lmfao.
@@princekyle4132sadly people who watch his сrazy theories seriously will never see this video
I need to confirm this but there is something deep in my soul telling me the "precolonial development" map referenced in the post at 3:02 is just the development mapmode from a fresh 1444 Europa Universalis save.
According to himself he doesn't really play video games, but these games started affecting popular conceptions of history and also the alternate-history community before he probably got really into either, so there's a chance.
You can start an EU4 game before 1453?
This man relies on vibes more than Gwennith Paltrow's vibe stickers
Nice argument, I’d vote for you in a debate.
@@ThisUnfoldingCrisis they weren't making an argument, they were cracking a joke. You'd need to be thick as a brick to miss it.
@@henriquepacheco7473 don’t engage i suspect its one of the maiden repellants more crafty monkeys pretending to be “moderate”
I think you should do a dedicated video on Monsieur Z. Who as I'm sure you are aware has a very similar vibe as Whatifalthist, and treats and talks about his alt history scenarios as if that was what WOULD of have happened. Not only that but in every single video capitalism and the free market somehow swoop in and fix everything. Lastly I think you can very much see his perspective on history with his alt history flags he likes to make (nothing wrong with that in and of itself), but coupled with his idea that most scenarios just end up with x small country embracing capitalism and turning into the next world power makes me think his whole geopolitical knowledge comes from Hoi4.
Yeah I have one I'm working on. Monsieur Z is WAY worse than Whatifalthist though when it comes to the politics and what he's willing to say.
He's defended eugenics, has spoken somewhat favorably of fascism, defends the idea of creating an American ethnostate, believes women and minorities "were happier when they didn't have rights, so long as they played by the rules" etc.
I have specific instances of him straight-up fabricating sources and quotes from videos that are still up on his channel.
@Fredda I'm more fustrated not enough people call him out. For some reason, he's constantly in my recommend, and the extent of the stuff he justifies basically as long as its against communism is stunning to me.
Seeing these fascists or fascist sympathisers disguse their arrogance with a thick coat of smugness and pseudointellectualsim in some vain effort to justify their beliefs disgusts me. As much as I like the fun "what ifs" that alternative history can provide is always going to be a fun little thing to do as almost a real life fan fiction. The trouble, however, is that it's predominantly used by the right and fascists online as they can't defend their beliefs outright, they have to do this roundabout way to almost retconning history itself. For instance, one can't openly defend slavery per sae, but if you frame it something like:
"If the south remained independent during the American civil war, the use of forced labour would have allowed their economy to surpass the north's tenfold! This increase of wealth would allow the slaves to feel proud of their work, become patriots, and thus creating strong national unity which in turn lead the northern slaves who fled regret running away in the first place."
A very stupid one I just made up, but that's the point, I literally just made that all up to make slavery sound "good" and as its just "speculation" I don't even have to provide any sources. It's the perfect way to make your world beliefs sound correct when you strawman an entirely made-up bit of history, made up by yourself to reinforce those same beliefs! All wrapped in a thin layer of intellectualism and entertainment.
@@ozio_exe9584 This is very misleading rhetoric, I have never seen a well intentioned southern victory scenario by a right leaning alt-hister that tried to justify nor endorse slavery, do you have an example of this or did you make this up in your head?
Off course you did, because that's what you people do, cartoonishly lambast your opponents by severely misrepresenting them to make them look as bad as possible, the worst kind of strawman.
I used to think his alternate history videos were fun. Then he basically started calling for a second American civil war and then I didn't think he was fun anymore.
Oh my God thank you for footnotes that's one of the things that history youtube lacks so much
Really Hope you see this: can you make a video about pop-history books? Like you mentioned Guns, Germs and Steel By Jared Diamond being derided by historians but a) I never actually knew that and b) I'd really love to know why. I did read it and I enjoyed it a lot, but I'd love to see the other side.
I think it could even be a series rather than a single video.
Thanks for this video. When I have an essay or article get a mediocre response it tends to hurt my self-confidence as a historian but watching this has shown me that there's always someone much, much, worse at it than me.
Great video. I always knew WIAH was bad from a distance, but... to dogmatically exclude works written after a certain decade -- like, seriously? Keep up the good work, Fredda.
I'm glad you made this video. His videos intrigued me at first. Pretty interesting thought experiments, and I figured for a while that even if he's completely wrong/outlandish about something atleast I'm analyzing ideas from different angles than I'm used to. The more videos I watched the crazier the "thought experiments" became, with more and more outlandish claims - which I'm up for. But he didn't cite any sources or even explain his ideas or conclusions half-way through.
The more outlandish the idea, the less explanation he gives. However he most certainly make points I completely agree with, and on rare occasions claims that I think (but don't know, since he doesn't cite any credible sources) are factually true. So I've kinda kept watching along for a bit, depending on the topic. I couldn't get myself to watch his video about how dating is broken for example. I knew it was gonna be incel type stuff.
However, in the light of your video, it has pointed out to me how terrible his videos really are. It's just a bad influence at this point. Which is something I was slowly figuring out aswell, but I guess I got lost in the process of analyzing different thought experiments and seeing if they add up to anything tangible at all in reality.
Woooooooo! Can't wait for you to tackle the Crack pot theorist!
Whatifalthist be like: "If the South American nations invented hot cocoa in 1444 the Europeans would become obsessed with it with it leading to an opium like addiction and the west falls in 1620"
I commend you for emphasizing what is (IMO) an absolutely crucial point: good, reliable scholarship is distinguished by its methods, not its conclusions.
However, as WIAH perfectly illustrates, garbage methods and garbage conclusions tend to go hand in hand. 😂
This dive into his content really revealed the "spiritual" aspect of his views to me. I had'nt noticed this mania of personnifying everything and every concept. There's a kind of spiritual mystic approach of events, a faith on absolute truths, an idea that some enlightened individual might "crack the code" and understand everything.
Basically it's just new age guru stuff with a racist reactionnary twist to it.
Its part of that "don't read anything after the 80s" twist I'd say. He really likes his 'Great-Man' theories and cults of personality with an interesting twist of assigning personality to different social groups over the years (Nations, countries, cultures, etc).
I am a student of Bernhard Linke, one of Hölkeskamps opponents in german ancient history and I am glad to see the debate as an example for good historiography. 👍
That's so cool, tell him I said hi or don't since that might be weird
I'm just happy for your helping the awareness for an often forgotten subfield of the history profession and the international aspect, especially scholarship published or translated into English but thought out outside the anglosphere.
"i dropped out of college because it was too woke" is either covering up for failing out or him showing off his ego and how he thinks he's more intelligent than the professors to the extent that he believes he would be better off creating his own facts than listening to historians. That lines up with the "I hate peer review" stance too, why should I have to verify my claims, total bs!
I mean we can't deny the vibes are off and it's ruining the party but no one should've handed Whatifalthist the aux, his shit is weird and it's scaring off the hoes(people actually interested in history).
Comment for the algorithm, cuz more people need good historical analysis from those who have the maturity to go "hey I may not know everything just because I think it in my brain"
As soon as I heard him say "I don't read anything after the 1960s", I knew he was an idiot. Even if you don't believe in a lot of the liberal things nowadays, it's absurd to think our developments of anthropology, sociology, and institutional sciences haven't drastically improved in decades. He literally keeps himself in a echo chamber, the least he could do read something recent before criticizing modern ideas.
It's important to note that he doesn't like to read specifically academic stuff and particularly history and anthropology, after the 1960s. He'll still go for pop-history, pop-anthropology or political science written after the 2000s.
Fredda initially being a history game player turning into yet another online historian. This is the moment of our lives we’ve been waiting for, and now we just wait until he becomes a famous Hassan-type streamer 🎉
Honestly a thing i found funny is how much he flip flopped between russia being "good" or "bad"
Like sometimes he'll say that "ever since the mongols invaded russia has been a failed state"
Then he'll go
"Tzarist russia was good the soviets destroyed it"
Only to say
"Russia has always been autocratic *pics of russian leaders*"
And then go
"Education and life expectancy plummeted afther the soviet union retracted from central asia , proves how the west is good "
Like russia for him is this nebolously convenient force of history that rapresents everything good with the west and everything wrong with the east at the same time ...
It's just soo inconsistent if you asked him three questions about russia you'd get 7 disagreeing replies
I've noticed that figures on the far-right do generally have a weird and inconsistent mixture of opinions on Russia - even figures in the Russian far-right.
1:02 even though I despise whatifalthist, I dont believe you should ever really say in a historical context "why you should trust me over him." It makes an incredibly elitist atmosphere and seems done out of a place of emotion rather than a place of academia, even if you are completely correct and the person you're rebuking is completely wrong. Other than that, great video.
All the whatifalthist is popular history, junkfood, is it any wonder that Fredda seems like an eltitist, and a condescending socialist? Man thinks his youtube channel is the pinnicle of academia, when its just a ideological as someone like TIKhistory.
Fredda is just butthurt that he has less than 10 percent of the viewership of WIAH.
@@codywork-us7wu10 retards or one normal person. You choose
Thank god for this video, I felt like I was losing my mind watching his stuff
All I can say is that none of us have the "whole picture" in our view. He does provide perspective that, when examined (as you have just done) can lead one to a fuller picture; regardless of whether or not you agree with his personal statements and conclusions.
As someone who abandoned academics in the early 90s, I most definitely relate to his disdain for the institutions. The ideologies pushed through them into every corner of learning was apparent back then; and, are, literally, marketing tools....
Not to mention that "vibes", our instincts, are an integral part of our human experience. Not all things rational are reasonable. And, vice versa. Very little that we think we know is actually, experienced... the more we "discover" the greater that gap becomes. Much of our current pursuit of knowledge is far beyond superfluous to actually living life.
We have been distracted from the human experience. Having it substituted by all manner of "wealth creating" commodities we exchange.
Our progress has ceased to be progress and has become interference.
You cannot deny there are evident cultural patterns in the rise and fall of civilizations over time. It does seem to move from a general sense of humility and spirit of service devolving into arrogant, individualistic, hedonistic pursuits. For lack of a better way of expressing it: the development and then rejection of morals and ethical standards....
A shadow can be very telling. Ask Poe.
Don't even bother man, this comment section is full of westernoid weirdos. I used to laugh when balck people around me in the 90s were saying that white people have no culture, but it turns out they were right, they no longer posses the values of the enlightenment or a pre world war view of the past, now everything is fascist to them, their civilization has no longer been transmitted to the last 4 generations.
As an indian man, i have however noticed that this is more prevalent in the anglosphere and francosphere (the ones who are culturally white and no longer a distinct flavor of european), and if you talk to greeks, Italians and spaniards you will find they are a lot more educated about their own history. This stems from the fact that is culturally valued instead of shunned, and that it's commonly talked about inside the family while growing up, it's not just outsourced to educational institutions. In fact, a lot of the current discussions surrounding the roman empire don't even make sense to them because they don't see the empire as the height of roman civilization, but as the opposite. Everybody in this comment section is yapping about Gibbons, Justinian or the 3rd century crisis, and no one is reading or talking about numa pompillius, and then they turn around and call people fascists without a single hint of irony, it's baffling. How are you going to know what fascism is without understanding the religious and state structure of roman society before the conversion to greek culture? They aren't even aware of it, let alone read about it, but they will use the word and do the performative shunning like it's a fashion trend, this is exactly what is meant by lack of culture.
I watched a few of his videos, mostly braindead second monitor content while gaming. Even at 5% mental capacity It never took long to reach a WTF moment. Something, something british empire suddenly turns into pseudo-religious ramblings about personal nirvana?!
He somehow transforms his personal biases on current day affairs into wierd dogmatic ways of looking at history. Instead of trying to reach a true understanding of what may or may not have happened in history (who wrote this? what's that persons background? what are their biases? what are MY biases? Can I crossreference this? etc, list goes on) he somehow twists it to justify his believes. Somehow he reverses causality if it suits him. It's no longer: "A was a contributing factor to B" it's now: "I think B is desirable, so retroactively I decree A happened (source pending)". The scary part is, he seems to truely believe those self made mirages are reality.
Ur just mad he calls u an idiot lol
Very well made and thought provoking video. It talks to me more not just because it points out how ridiculous and annoying Whatifalthist is but because I am about to get my bachelor's in history. I do want to go to grad school and lately Iv been looking inwards to how I analyze history and what it actually means to interpret data in an appropriate and honest way. Specifically at the 13:30 mark
I want to thank you for this video and for saving my time. I recently discovered that guy throught his old alt history videos and literally yesterday watched his video about the 7 emotion, which i found extremely intresing since i had never heard someone trying to explain history and civilization in this way.I am relatively new to the world of historic study and ill admit that my understanding of the impact of philosophy, religion and culture on history is certainly limited. So i was very impressed , so impressed in fact to have completely ignored all the sudo intellectual garbage ,as you called them ,springed in his video about the 7 emotions and i was planning to watched his videos all his videos about future prediction. Now that i know of the way he oparates and the agenta his trying to shove down his viewers' throats , i glad that ill be avoiding such a bad influence
One of the few books that got me into alternate history as a concept were African Dominion, and 'On This Day In History, Sh!t Went Down'. Basically, a book on the days that things went down in history, that often aren't talked about that much. Also, the author is Canadian. Take of that what you will, but he's Canadian.
I literally shouted out "NO!" when he tried to bring up Newtonian physics as justification for his emotions video. That shit is what 12 year olds do when they try to sound smart while showing that you actually have no understanding of the topic at hand.
Ok? Ur opinion is of course welcome but it is that of an Idiot. Oh well what is the world without idiots
I might, I do try to humble myself @zgct
The TH-cam-Algorithm one day started pushing Whatifalthist videos on my front page... Thanks for your analysis!
For some reason, I confused him with alternate history hub and I got sad
Oh yeah no Cody is cool
@@FreddaYT Cody is Based, Cody is Aspiration
I think the issue is with the fact he runs a youtube channel that needs regular uploads to survive. This encorages him to rush and not citate or check his arguments.
Generally you should build your arguments off of stuff you read, which he says he does. In that case adding a little citation at the bottom of the screen telling us where he found it (down to the page number) shouldn't take long.
There's a ton of youtubers who upload weekly and use a ton of resources with citatations
It annoys me that political discussions of any kind always gravitate towards this kind of personality. Likely a reason for why there will never be any good political discussion on the internet, mainly because people will never cease to spread the most abhorrend unsourced garbage in the hard pursuit of "proving" an ideology. Nevertheless, it is comforting to know that these people will never achieve any meaningful political influence outside the internet.
I was listening to his Christianity video the other night to put me to sleep but it woke me up listening to some of his hot takes.
Crazy the algorithm recommended your channel to me
I love the disco elysium soundtrack in the background ❤
Genuinely, how can someone earnestly not believe in peer review? It's like, just getting other people to check your work! We do it in primary school. Of course it's necessary. People get things wrong all the time by accident. People intentionally lie all the time. People steal things all the time! People are just plain unclear in what they mean all the time! Having experts who know about the material check its validly to see if its accurate is like the basis of even sharing knowledge.
People also tend to overlook other people's shortcomings and flaws and go along to get along...groups don't care about the truth, all they care about is coming to a shared consensus. Can't you imagine how this conformity culture may undermine the validity of the peer review process?
@@SC-gw8np And that's not going to also happen and be way worse without peer review? Anyone can publish anything (in most parts of the world), but the only way to take it as genuine information is peer review. If I write a paper saying over a billion people died in the holocaust are you suddenly just going to start saying that's true because it's in a book? Are you going to independently research all the death records by traveling to Germany and checking eighty year old documents? No, you're going to consult experts who have done that and who have consulted each other and have argued with each other over it and come to a consensus.
@@Jotari Yes, I do independently research everything and no, I don't consult the opinion of those who pay no price for being wrong (and they are wrong more often than they are right). Peer review is a fundamentally flawed concept as it is built upon the appeal to popularity fallacy.
@@SC-gw8np No, you don't independently research everything. You literally cannot. These subjects are extremely vast that require a lifetime of specialization. You read research from other people who do the ground work already.
@@Jotari You cannot, maybe? Doesn't mean others can't. I'm an autodidact and have taught myself a lot of different skills. All it requires to critically appraise other people's research is scientific literacy. I have a background in mathematics and statistics so it comes naturally to me.
The guy is only in his mid-20s? Yet he draws and pushes his life experience as hard evidence like he was in his 60s. He would so be full of himself when he got to his 60s!
Fellow Norwegian! Happy to see it, great video
I think the criticism from one of the screenshots was telling "Now, this section is true in a hyper-literal sense. However..." For the most part this video was sort of comical. It reminded me of how someone I can't remember described part of peer review "your paper looks good but it needs to cite at least 13 additional papers, several of which just totally coincidentally were authored by me."
I would add that the quote from 8:35 to 9:31 about a historian's role is that sometimes they must try to present a "common-sense perspective" from periods of history that might differ from other mainstream academic historians in England and elsewhere.
A historian might be faced by other scholars like Procopius, who many people believe was a "hearsay & bias witness source" (alongside others) during the reign of Justinian but still presented an account that still breeds some consideration of a second opinion about the Emperor's later reign and title of the "The Great." A title I think religious scholars took for granted versus the real historical impact of a specific figure in European history (besides the indirect role of the plague)
Over the years, Flash Point History's channel has presented a very professional historical analysis of Justinian's reign. I absolutely agree with their assessment of the famous emperor that many historians would rather throw away just to preserve the image of Justinian in many academic fields of history.
Say what you will about Cody, but at least he keeps his political views out of his Althistory videos
And hell I’ll go even farther and say that at least monsieur at least still does alternate history (even if they’re very awful and have shit politics)
But whatifalthist can’t do either
I don't necessarily think Alternatehistoryhub keeps his politics out of his videos. I think this is a admirable goal but impossible task. I just think his politics aren't as abrasive as those of WIAH or Z. Alternatehistoryhub regrets saying some of the stuff he did in past videos, and that's because his attitudes and views have changed over time. Him being reasonable in his takes is itself an expression of his politics.
Even if WIAH or Z tried to be "apolitical" they'd still sound insane.
@@FreddaYT fair points and I agree, also I just want to get this out but I think Cody is a closeted left winger (aside from his views on abortion)
@@FreddaYT Monsieur Z's alt-history videos often get very far-fetched. The best alt-history content comes from Possible History imo.
@@FreddaYT based understanding that history and politics, and humans and bias, are inseparable pairs.