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What's the most Cringeworthy take on Actual History/Archeology you've ever read?

obssesednuker said:
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Check this guy's books on Amazon. The covers are clearly AI generated, and I have a sneaking suspicion he wrote his own reviews with the help of GenAI.

I would also bet good money the books are written by GenAI too given that he's published multiple books several hundred pages long each in under a year while somehow compiling "930 citations".

This guy's an obvious grifter, but at least he revealed his true colors within 24 hours of joining AH.com.

Great takedown by the way, both here and on AH.com.
 
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Konradleijon said:
AI written history books on Amazon is our future guys. I shudder for what they'd write about world war 2
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They've been a thing for a bit.

(Well, not history specifically, but I'm sure there's some in there)

Folding Ideas had a video in September of 2022 about a group of grifters that are basically 'selling the shovel', selling people the methods to farm their own incredibly shitty ai-generated books to sell online.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw
 
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obssesednuker said:
"Warfare in Medieval times was less destructive due to the lack of a administrative state-"

Well, yes, but this also meant the ability to perform tasks that help the country as a whole was strictly limited, which was vital to the construction and maintainence the standards of living we enjoy today.
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It also meant there was constant low-level warfare, at least in the early middle ages. So also trade-off between devastating wars every 20-30 years, or less devastating war, well, always.

Evagelion said:
i recently read about this polish artist with very... strange views on the development of human culture and civilization.
read this, its wild Stanisław Szukalski - Wikipedia
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Ah, you have discovered the wonders of Turboslavism :V

For some reason, that thing is absolutely rife in vaguely-Eastern Europe. You have Polish Turboslavism, Bulgarian Thracomania, Romanian Dacomania, the "Bosnian Pyramids" thing etc. Basically, every one of those things state everything in history was <their nation>, everyone copied <their nation>, and <their language> was the original one, which all languages developing from it - because yeah, sure, that is how languages work. It's just absolutely gaga, and it is insane how every nation in the area seems to have their own version.
 
the idea that the "witches" burned where remnants of a pan European matriarchal goddess cult.

it's worth mentioning that there is no United "pagan" tradtion.

Christians called any non-Christian religion and even some divergent sects "pagan" even Muslims where called "pagan"

Jews where the outlier considered not Christian but not Pagan either

It was a simple label applied to anything different and not anything unified.

per-christan Europe was not a feminist paradise by any means
 
My read of Lee has always been that he was a genuinely talented tactician who had his reputation burnished by facing absolutely incompetent opponents (beating George McClellan is not exactly the greatest laurel in history). He was a poor strategist but then again so was the entire Southern leadership class - I am always reminded of a quotation from a newspaper (I think in Richmond) in Battle Cry of Freedom which states that "defensive warfare is unsuited to the genius of our people" or something similar. It's telling for his record that as soon as he faced a journeyman general like Meade he failed. We can talk all we want about the genius of Chancellorsville and Stonewall Jackson but if anyone but a concussed Joe Hooker isn't in that battle it would've gone down differently.
 
Stonewall Jackson admittedly was very good; Jackson's Valley campaign was a brilliant campaign, and I think he was pretty much about the only general in Lee's army that could figure what Lee wanted done but wasn't actually stating in his orders.

That Lee had a tendency to unstated orders that he wanted to be carried out but didn't bother to actually tell people caused no end of issues from what I've gathered, and Lee never seemed to learn.
 
Alane1 said:
That Lee had a tendency to unstated orders that he wanted to be carried out but didn't bother to actually tell people caused no end of issues from what I've gathered, and Lee never seemed to learn.
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Most infamously of course on the first day of Gettysburg Lee ordered General Ewell to continue his assault on the XI and I Corps, who had been badly mauled earlier by Ewell's forces and were taking up defensive positions on Cemetery Hill. He phrased the order "take the hill if practicable," and Ewell decided it was not. Had Jackson still been alive and in command he probably would have in fact found it practicable, but Lee's predilection for ambiguous orders really fucked him.

This is a great example as well of the differences between Lee and Grant, because Grant understood his role as strategic and attempted to coordinate actions with different armies ("every horse on the team pulling the same way" as he phrased it to Lincoln). Of course, he had institutional power as General of the Armies in a way Lee never did (until February 1865 but that was too late), which is another reflection of how poorly the Southern leadership understood their strategic aims and goals in the war. Lee (much like Rommel in this aspect, aside from being historical losers venerated by racists with nothing better to do) simply didn't grasp strategy like Grant did, even if he was a gifted tactician. Grant knew his generals, knew his resources, and successfully utilized them in concert to achieve his military (and political goals). Lee couldn't be bothered to clarify his orders to get his subordinates to work together for his strategic vision.
 
QueenOfRoses said:
Most infamously of course on the first day of Gettysburg Lee ordered General Ewell to continue his assault on the XI and I Corps, who had been badly mauled earlier by Ewell's forces and were taking up defensive positions on Cemetery Hill. He phrased the order "take the hill if practicable," and Ewell decided it was not. Had Jackson still been alive and in command he probably would have in fact found it practicable, but Lee's predilection for ambiguous orders really fucked him.
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It's ironic because shit like that is probably good practice if all your field commanders are good. Maybe you missed information from far away and the hill wasn't practicable to take, after all. Leaving room for battlefield initiative in your orders can be useful in skilled militaries. But if you're realistic about the kind of subordinates you'll get from the planters who made up most of the southern officer corp, the explicit order is better because it doesn't compromise your strategy if they're idiots.
 
Even worse for Lee, Grant had access to an extensive telegraph network. He could safely let a general under him do their job from dozens of miles away knowing that if they found a Confed Army, he could realistically know about it before the battle was over. That sort of knowledge meant Grant could be a lot more aggressive. Its one thing to try and just fight Grant's army. Its another to fight Grant's army when he can safely trust that the Confeds are unable to do anything to stop him from flanking Lee with a third of that army on a strategic scale forcing Lee to pull back or risk being surrounded on the Tactical Scale....all the while another army is getting ready to push even farther. By that point, no amount of good tactics could save Lee from being completely defeated eventually, only the surrunder of the Confederacy
 
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Alane1 said:
Stonewall Jackson admittedly was very good; Jackson's Valley campaign was a brilliant campaign, and I think he was pretty much about the only general in Lee's army that could figure what Lee wanted done but wasn't actually stating in his orders.

That Lee had a tendency to unstated orders that he wanted to be carried out but didn't bother to actually tell people caused no end of issues from what I've gathered, and Lee never seemed to learn.
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Don't forget Chancellorsville. Jackson was almost certainly the one who came up with the flanking attack.
Nyvis said:
It's ironic because shit like that is probably good practice if all your field commanders are good. Maybe you missed information from far away and the hill wasn't practicable to take, after all. Leaving room for battlefield initiative in your orders can be useful in skilled militaries. But if you're realistic about the kind of subordinates you'll get from the planters who made up most of the southern officer corp, the explicit order is better because it doesn't compromise your strategy if they're idiots.
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Which, if I remember right, Lee did figure out the flaws with his prior command style in the post Gettysburg campaigns and adjusted accordingly. The type of mishap with Ewell and 'take that hill if practical' didn't happen again. It was just really terrible luck for Lee and he had to undergo a massive high command restructuring of the ANV after Jackson died and as crucial a campaign as Gettysburg ended up being the trial by fire for the new system.

Like the post Jackson command changes are massive when you consider that AP Hill and Ewell had been under Jackson's command as division commanders for 2 years and had never(as I remember) commanded above a division until after Jackson's death. And the divisions they had been commanding now had new division commanders and divisions from Longstreet's corps were distributed to make up the new 2nd and 3rd corps.
 
obssesednuker said:
Then I noticed this guy was a Lost Causer and it all made a fair bit more sense.
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Dude checks all the boxes: creepy romanticisation of feudalism, quotes Hoppe approvingly, Confederate apologism... Perhaps not surprisingly, he's also a Tolkien fanboy. Not that there's anything wrong with the last one in and of itself, but when combined with the rest, it paints a disturbing picture.

When you think of democracy, what comes to mind? Comparing democracy to monarchy, are you thankful to be living free rather than suffering oppression under a medieval tyrant? What if you could be evidentially shown that the democracy you hold so dear is not only less ideal than you've been taught, but is actually inferior to the kingdoms of the Middle Ages?

Get ready for a real history lesson you won't soon forget. In Jeb Smith's latest work Missing Monarchy, he uncovers eye-opening facts about the Medieval period, kingship, democracy, and more. When you learn how societies of our past addressed their governmental needs, you may begin to perceive that our current system isn't the utopia it is commonly portrayed as. And as you come to understand how power is wielded under our democracy, you just might start missing monarchy too.
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Its sort of morbidly interesting to see people fantasize about manorial/feudal systems and for that matter 'feudal' monarchies while somehow generally missing all the actual pros and cons of the systems involved...

I suppose its almost as fascinating how so many of them are liable to be people who'd I'd heavily suspect be liable to either get taken out by a peasant revolt, a nearby lord or the King under such a system rather than thrive.
 
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Alane1 said:
i suppose its almost as fascinating how so many of them are liable to be people who'd I'd heavily be liable to either get taken out by a peasant revolt, a nearby lord or the King under such a system rather than thrive.
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Or they'd just die from malnutrition related causes during a lean-year.
 
hydra1234 said:
Check this guy's books on Amazon. The covers are clearly AI generated, and I have a sneaking suspicion he wrote his own reviews with the help of GenAI.

I would also bet good money the books are written by GenAI too given that he's published multiple books several hundred pages long each in under a year while somehow compiling "930 citations".

This guy's an obvious grifter, but at least he revealed his true colors within 24 hours of joining AH.com.

Great takedown by the way, both here and on AH.com.
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Given ChatGPT/Generative AI's propensity to just make up citations, I doubt those 930 citations are referring to actual works or primary sources, which is a problem if you're trying to argue that European feudalism of undefined period - governance changed a lot more than people think in the 1000 years covered by the popular understanding of the period - is better than liberal democracy. Liberal democracy has its flaws, but it should be obvious that it's better than actual feudalism.
 
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