4 ms·

> Renegade viewpoint? Yeah, in absence of better proof provided, I'll stick with the opinion of the majority of historians. The rest of your points haven't ha

by jbooth 16y ago

> Renegade viewpoint? Yeah, in absence of better proof provided, I'll stick with the opinion of the majority of historians. The rest of your points haven't had anything to do with government finances or the attitudes of both presidents towards countercyclical spending vs balanced budgets. They seem like some blindly-applied-backwards-80-years modern republican simplifications about the nature of "government programs". Some dude got screwed by Goodyear at some point in history? Huh? There's been a lot of scholarship on this topic. You've got to do better than that if you're going to make an overarching claim like in your original point. To start with, here's a google search for "herbert hoover balanced budget": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=herbert+hoover+balanced+budget&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=herbert+hoover+bala...

kiba 16y ago
Yeah, in absence of better proof provided, I'll stick with the opinion of the majority of historians. What is your rationale for sticking with whatever the majority of historians said? The rest of your points haven't had anything to do with government finances or the attitudes of both presidents towards countercyclical spending vs balanced budgets. They seem like some blindly-applied-backwards-80-years modern republican simplifications about the nature of "government programs". Some dude got screwed by Goodyear at some point in history? Huh? Sorry about non-sequitur here. I was talking about the effects of FDR's New Deal programs and regulations, and Goodyear was just one data-points amongst many(presumably). Even so, why you think mine is a Republican simplification of government programs?
- jbooth 16y ago
  Because, respectfully, the entire thought process displayed by your post seems to consist of "government = bad, therefore new deal = bad". It shows very little effort to understand what was actually happening, it boxes a huuuuuge range of possibilities into a simple black/white viewpoint, and it's a silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans. As far as what the majority of historians said, if it's them or you, and you're not saying something very very persuasive, I'll tend to believe them. No offense intended.
  - kiba 16y ago
    it shows very little effort to understand what was actually happening, it boxes a huuuuuge range of possibilities into a simple black/white viewpoint I do not work on whether a viewpoint is black and white or gray but if it represent the true map of the reality. Such explanations is nonsense to me. and it's a silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans. You'll need to expand your perimeter on political spectrum. You'll also need to explain why my views is a silly oversimplification.(Err, I mean wrong.)
  - anamax 16y ago
    > As far as what the majority of historians said, if it's them or you, and you're not saying something very very persuasive, I'll tend to believe them. Why? The last time I looked, nothing about history was subject to "nature". If all historians agreed that Hitler had 7 arms and flew, nothing bad would happen. If, on the other hand, engineers decided to act as if steel was less dense than air at 1 bar, things would go wrong.
    - timwiseman 16y ago
      It depends on how that history is applied. If a false understanding of history is applied in foreign relations, then there are situations where unnecessary wars can be created. If a false understanding of history is applied to military strategy, wars can be needlessly lost. There was a reason that the government created and spent so much on the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. If you control people's understanding of history, you can have a big impact on what they do in the future.
      - anamax 16y ago
        That's true, but it doesn't generate feedback to bad historians. For example, if a country gets into an unnecessary war because of bad history, the historians aren't penalized. > There was a reason that the government created and spent so much on the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. If you control people's understanding of history, you can have a big impact on what they do in the future. Bingo, and it's not just govt that tries to influence history to influence the future. Note that there's nothing in here that encourages accuracy.
- timwiseman 16y ago
  What is your rationale for sticking with whatever the majority of historians said? If I may, when the majority of experts in a field all believe the same thing, it is referred to as consensus. The consensus of the experts in any well researched field tends to be, if not actually right, at the very least the best answer that can be arrived at with current information. Of course, they are not always right, even in a field as well grounded as mathematics, the consensus has been wrong in the past (the consensus for a very long time was the Euclidean Geometry was the only possible geometry.....). But it is quite reasonable to demand that someone trying to say the consensus is wrong has a high bar to meet to establish that. In general, the most reasonable thing for someone without the expertise or interest to carefully do an indpendent analysis of all available data is to believe the consensus. When someone does meet that high bar to show that the consensus is wrong, then in any reasonable academic field that consensus will change.

by jbooth 16y ago

kiba 16y ago

Yeah, in absence of better proof provided, I'll stick with the opinion of the majority of historians. What is your rationale for sticking with whatever the majority of historians said? The rest of your points haven't had anything to do with government finances or the attitudes of both presidents towards countercyclical spending vs balanced budgets. They seem like some blindly-applied-backwards-80-years modern republican simplifications about the nature of "government programs". Some dude got screwed by Goodyear at some point in history? Huh? Sorry about non-sequitur here. I was talking about the effects of FDR's New Deal programs and regulations, and Goodyear was just one data-points amongst many(presumably). Even so, why you think mine is a Republican simplification of government programs?

jbooth 16y ago
Because, respectfully, the entire thought process displayed by your post seems to consist of "government = bad, therefore new deal = bad". It shows very little effort to understand what was actually happening, it boxes a huuuuuge range of possibilities into a simple black/white viewpoint, and it's a silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans. As far as what the majority of historians said, if it's them or you, and you're not saying something very very persuasive, I'll tend to believe them. No offense intended.
- kiba 16y ago
  it shows very little effort to understand what was actually happening, it boxes a huuuuuge range of possibilities into a simple black/white viewpoint I do not work on whether a viewpoint is black and white or gray but if it represent the true map of the reality. Such explanations is nonsense to me. and it's a silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans. You'll need to expand your perimeter on political spectrum. You'll also need to explain why my views is a silly oversimplification.(Err, I mean wrong.)
- anamax 16y ago
  > As far as what the majority of historians said, if it's them or you, and you're not saying something very very persuasive, I'll tend to believe them. Why? The last time I looked, nothing about history was subject to "nature". If all historians agreed that Hitler had 7 arms and flew, nothing bad would happen. If, on the other hand, engineers decided to act as if steel was less dense than air at 1 bar, things would go wrong.
  - timwiseman 16y ago
    It depends on how that history is applied. If a false understanding of history is applied in foreign relations, then there are situations where unnecessary wars can be created. If a false understanding of history is applied to military strategy, wars can be needlessly lost. There was a reason that the government created and spent so much on the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. If you control people's understanding of history, you can have a big impact on what they do in the future.
    - anamax 16y ago
      That's true, but it doesn't generate feedback to bad historians. For example, if a country gets into an unnecessary war because of bad history, the historians aren't penalized. > There was a reason that the government created and spent so much on the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. If you control people's understanding of history, you can have a big impact on what they do in the future. Bingo, and it's not just govt that tries to influence history to influence the future. Note that there's nothing in here that encourages accuracy.
timwiseman 16y ago
What is your rationale for sticking with whatever the majority of historians said? If I may, when the majority of experts in a field all believe the same thing, it is referred to as consensus. The consensus of the experts in any well researched field tends to be, if not actually right, at the very least the best answer that can be arrived at with current information. Of course, they are not always right, even in a field as well grounded as mathematics, the consensus has been wrong in the past (the consensus for a very long time was the Euclidean Geometry was the only possible geometry.....). But it is quite reasonable to demand that someone trying to say the consensus is wrong has a high bar to meet to establish that. In general, the most reasonable thing for someone without the expertise or interest to carefully do an indpendent analysis of all available data is to believe the consensus. When someone does meet that high bar to show that the consensus is wrong, then in any reasonable academic field that consensus will change.