Civilization 7 must NEVER be made!

[Daniel Boone]

I wasn’t expecting to go this deep when I clicked on this thread

 

[Patine]

There aren’t really that many people with real history credentials here. It’s mostly people with specific pet interests reading Wikipedia and regurgitating facts.

It’s unfortunate that history is the one discipline where it’s easy for someone to sound like they know what they’re talking about by basically memorizing trivia.

I don't think being a PhD of History with University Tenure and 30 published books was quite the bar stated, nor is such an obtuse and derisive way of describing the rest of the community needed or productive.

 

[Evie]

There aren’t really that many people with real history credentials here. It’s mostly people with specific pet interests reading Wikipedia and regurgitating facts.

It’s unfortunate that history is the one discipline where it’s easy for someone to sound like they know what they’re talking about by basically memorizing trivia.

Why don't you sneer at us some more while you're at it?

(Also, History and Asian Studies graduate, and studied legal history extensively as part of my later law degree, so while I may not have formal history credentials, kindly do stuff your assumptions about Wikipedia somewhere they won't have to worry about sun damage)

 

[pokiehl]

Why don't you sneer at us some more while you're at it?

(Also, History and Asian Studies graduate, and studied legal history extensively as part of my later law degree, so while I may not have formal history credentials, kindly do stuff your assumptions about Wikipedia somewhere they won't have to worry about sun damage)

I don't think being a PhD of History with University Tenure and 30 published books was quite the bar stated, nor is such an obtuse and derisive way of describing the rest of the community needed or productive.

I didn’t think calling out the fact that history 4x games attract know-it-alls would be such a controversial opinion—nor did I think clarifying that memorizing history trivia does not really indicate mastery of something. Sometimes one can clearly hear “Well ackshually…” when reading certain threads, made all the more absurd that it’s just by someone who knows the details of a story.

Sorry you got offended.

 

[Patine]

I didn’t think calling out the fact that history 4x games attract know-it-alls would be such a controversial opinion—nor did I think clarifying that memorizing history trivia does not really indicate mastery of something. Sometimes one can clearly hear “Well ackshually…” when reading certain threads, made all the more absurd that it’s just by someone who knows the details of a story.

Sorry you got offended.

You know, going out of your way to sound insulting and arrogant making a ppresumptuous and, at least in significant part, false declaration for no appreciable gain or benefit to the community and conversation, and saying what you said was overreacted to, doesn't earn many people positive responses.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

There aren’t really that many people with real history credentials here. It’s mostly people with specific pet interests reading Wikipedia and regurgitating facts.

It’s unfortunate that history is the one discipline where it’s easy for someone to sound like they know what they’re talking about by basically memorizing trivia.

"Real history credentials" is a meaningless phrase. The percentage of good history of any kind (economic, military, social, etc) being produced by people with academic degrees in history is, frankly, not a majority, and some of the best historical work has been done by non-historians. In my own field of interest, military history, that includes the books by Barbara Tuchman and John Toland - both working journalists with no academic 'credentials' in history but Pullitzer Prize winners for their historical works. Best example, though, is David Glantz, a man with no degree in history of any kind, but who spent 30 years as an officer in the US Army studying the Soviet military, founded and ran the Tactical Studies Institute at the Command and Staff College at Leavenworth for two decades, and has written over 60 books on Soviet military history, including multi-volume massive works on Stalingrad and Smolensk. He is considered the Expert on the Red Army in World War Two in English and he lectured at the Russian military's Frunze Academy after the fall of the Soviet Union, because he knew more about the Soviet campaign in Manchuria in 1945 than they did!

History is one of many disciplines, like subjects ranging from politics to economics to medicine (Reference: any 24-hour period of television 'talk shows') in which regurgitating trivia sounds like expertise. But it is also one of many subjects (not necessarily including medicine off that list) that can be mastered all or in part without reference to academic 'credentials'.

Case in point, if needed: I never completed an advanced degree in history (International Relations and Classics - sort of related but Not Quite), but have 15 books of military history written and still in print, numerous articles over the years including two translated into Russian, and lectured on military history for over ten years at Gaming Conventions to try to give people the historical background to some of the games they were playing. Which, I suppose, is some of what I'm still attempting . . .

 

[pokiehl]

"Real history credentials" is a meaningless phrase. The percentage of good history of any kind (economic, military, social, etc) being produced by people with academic degrees in history is, frankly, not a majority, and some of the best historical work has been done by non-historians. In my own field of interest, military history, that includes the books by Barbara Tuchman and John Toland - both working journalists with no academic 'credentials' in history but Pullitzer Prize winners for their historical works. Best example, though, is David Glantz, a man with no degree in history of any kind, but who spent 30 years as an officer in the US Army studying the Soviet military, founded and ran the Tactical Studies Institute at the Command and Staff College at Leavenworth for two decades, and has written over 60 books on Soviet military history, including multi-volume massive works on Stalingrad and Smolensk. He is considered the Expert on the Red Army in World War Two in English and he lectured at the Russian military's Frunze Academy after the fall of the Soviet Union, because he knew more about the Soviet campaign in Manchuria in 1945 than they did!

History is one of many disciplines, like subjects ranging from politics to economics to medicine (Reference: any 24-hour period of television 'talk shows') in which regurgitating trivia sounds like expertise. But it is also one of many subjects (not necessarily including medicine off that list) that can be mastered all or in part without reference to academic 'credentials'.

Case in point, if needed: I never completed an advanced degree in history (International Relations and Classics - sort of related but Not Quite), but have 15 books of military history written and still in print, numerous articles over the years including two translated into Russian, and lectured on military history for over ten years at Gaming Conventions to try to give people the historical background to some of the games they were playing. Which, I suppose, is some of what I'm still attempting . . .

It's not a meaningless phrase at all, and I'm sorry you and the others seem to be taking what I said quite personally (even though I have done nothing to point you or anyone else out specifically, and did not write the post with anyone in particular in mind). I also think your defensiveness here has made you interpret the word "credentials" to mean something that I did not actually say or even imply.

There is a wide gulf between knowing history facts and having the experience, training, and skillset to research, interpret, analyze, and write. It beggars belief that this is a controversial take to you of all people.

One reads so many posts here that are written so assuredly and condescendingly about the author's favorite type of history - with subsequent admissions of errors or misinterpretations almost never forthcoming - that one might be fooled into thinking that he is in the presence of some sort of distinguished trailblazing scholar.

Again, all I am saying is that there is more to "knowing your history" (to quote the original post I was replying to) than memorizing trivia, and I don't think many historical 4x fans have gone beyond that despite their posturing otherwise.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It's not a meaningless phrase at all, and I'm sorry you and the others seem to be taking what I said quite personally (even though I have done nothing to point you or anyone else out specifically, and did not write the post with anyone in particular in mind). I also think your defensiveness here has made you interpret the word "credentials" to mean something that I did not actually say or even imply.

There is a wide gulf between knowing history facts and having the experience, training, and skillset to research, interpret, analyze, and write. It beggars belief that this is a controversial take to you of all people.

One reads so many posts here that are written so assuredly and condescendingly about the author's favorite type of history - with subsequent admissions of errors or misinterpretations almost never forthcoming - that one might be fooled into thinking that he is in the presence of some sort of distinguished trailblazing scholar.

Again, all I am saying is that there is more to "knowing your history" (to quote the original post I was replying to) than memorizing trivia, and I don't think many historical 4x fans have gone beyond that despite their posturing otherwise.

I will admit to bringing some baggage to the discussion: the academic establishment in the USA is all too ready to dismiss anyone without specific 'credentials' (advanced degrees) in a field, regardless of demonstrated knowledge - as in, having published well-reviewed material in the field. They, not I, place a definition on Credentials and I interpreted your orginal statement as echoing their definition. My apology for that.

But I stand by the statement of 'real history credentials' as largely meaningless, at least as a criteria for actual knowledge of the subject, which is the context in which it was used in your original post. Demonstrated knowledge of the subject is the only real 'credential', and if you find that lacking here I would point out that this is not an academic or historical forum at all, but represents a cross-section of part of the gaming community, which (as I discovered lecturing at ORIGINS) does not imply much more historical knowledge than you'd get from a set of man in the street interviews. Historical Interest is another matter, and in people playing generally historicalish games (which is the closest to history most games get) do have that, but obtaining and understanding the historical knowledge is quite another thing.

 

[AntSou]

Historical 4x games are inevitably going to attract attention from people with interest in history. That includes all, from people with advanced knowledge in a subject, to nationalists infatuated with their particular national mythology, to even those whose interest in history doesn't go beyond daydreaming about cosplaying as crusaders.

So the statement "there aren’t really that many people with real history credentials here" seems to me like a no brainer, and the feeling expressed here: "one reads so many posts here that are written so assuredly and condescendingly about the author's favourite type of history - with subsequent admissions of errors or misinterpretations almost never forthcoming - that one might be fooled into thinking that he is in the presence of some sort of distinguished trailblazing scholar." is definitely palpable at times.

Still, the ratio of people on Civfanatics with history "credentials" (understood as possessing a legitimate claim to knowledge, i.e., beyond a superficial knowledge of a topic) also seems to me clearly higher than your average internet board/community, excluding maybe those specific to History. Going about the internet over the last couple of decades, I don't recall many boards where members like Boris or Zaarin were a common sight.
---

I think it's positive to see people with even superficial understandings of their favourite history topics discussing it online. I include myself in that group, and that's how one happens to learn, especially about previously held misconceptions. From what I read it doesn't seem p0kiehl is taking issue with that, but with those who speak with the assuredness of the academic yet are just hobbyists like most of us.

 

[Patine]

One reads so many posts here that are written so assuredly and condescendingly about the author's favorite type of history - with subsequent admissions of errors or misinterpretations almost never forthcoming - that one might be fooled into thinking that he is in the presence of some sort of distinguished trailblazing scholar.

I should you take the advice of the most famoous words uttered by a late and former Premiier of my home Province of Alberta, Jim Prentice, here, "look in the mirror!"

 

[pokiehl]

Historical Interest is another matter, and in people playing generally historicalish games (which is the closest to history most games get) do have that, but obtaining and understanding the historical knowledge is quite another thing.

I think we're both hitting on the same idea, with the concession that your phrasing is more diplomatic. As @AntSou said, I'm just taking issue with overconfident, pedantic "know-it-allness", and lamenting that history is so vulnerable to that.

I should you take the advice of the most famoous words uttered by a late and former Premiier of my home Province of Alberta, Jim Prentice, here, "look in the mirror!"

Please calm down. Your posts literally always come off as very angry. I've not spent a second here attacking you, but you continually return to get another word in. I think you've made like 6 replies to me today alone. Just ignore my posts if they make you get so worked up.

 

[Patine]

I think we're both hitting on the same idea, with the concession that your phrasing is more diplomatic. As @AntSou said, I'm just taking issue with overconfident, pedantic "know-it-allness", and lamenting that history is so vulnerable to that.


Please calm down. Your posts literally always come off as very angry. I've not spent a second here attacking you, but you continually return to get another word in. I think you've made like 6 replies to me today alone. Just ignore my posts if they make you get so worked up.

Anyways, I am done with this discussion.

 

[caketastydelish]

We survived 2012, this will be no different.

 

[Patine]

We survived 2012, this will be no different.

2012 was a Mayan prophecy, unrelated to any other religion's prophecies or eschatology - and Mayan Elders and Mystics in the Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize were telling everyone for years, prior, the end of the Long-Count Calendar meant the, "End of an Age," not the, "End of the World," but sensationalist media ignored them.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

2012 was a Mayan prophecy, unrelated to any other religion's prophecies or eschatology - and Mayan Elders and Mystics in the Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize were telling everyone for years, prior, the end of the Long-Count Calendar meant the, "End of an Age," not the, "End of the World," but sensationalist media ignored them.

I believe the best comment on the whole thing was from a Mayan-descendant villager in the Yucatan area when asked about the 'meaning' of 2012, who replied:

"It means it's time to start a new calendar".

 

[pokiehl]

We survived 2012, this will be no different.

And Y2K

 

[Patine]

And Y2K

The year 2000, on the Gregorian-adjusted solar calendar, held no true, verifiable eschatological or prophetic significance. Except maybe an averted Microsoft OS calendar/clock bug.

 

[Evie]

Bit more of a bug than that, but we actually did the hard work of preventing it so now everyone is persuaded it never was a threat.

But yes, millenarian beliefs - first or second - tend to be very fringe, and it’s hacks writing long after the fact who usually turn them into “widespread” beliefs.

 

[Patine]

Bit more of a bug than that, but we actually did the hard work of preventing it so now everyone is persuaded it never was a threat.

Are you, or were you employed by MS, or is that statement a generalized one?

 

[Evie]

Considering that the fundamental problem with two-digits year numbering in computers was first identified when Gates and Allen were *toddlers*, I'm not sure why working with Microsoft is a significant point here. The Y2K dating issues were.a much earlier issue, stemming from memory-saving measures and lack of consideration for future-proofing computer system in the early days of computing, all of which were established long before Gates and Allen ever became relevant. While it's possible their software might have had issues too, they were never the crux of the matter.

It was exaggerated by the media in the late 90s, but the errors that DID happen on and around January 1, 2000, did make it plain that there was, in fact, the potential for some serious problems that woudl have required significant work to fix while having the potential for significant impact on people's life (government payments withhold, banking trouble, transit systems broken, healthcare mistakes, etc).