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I'm an investor. To make that work, I'm not a historian, but a current-ian. I avoid news like the plague - all narrative, all emotion, all written by English m

I'm an investor. To make that work, I'm not a historian, but a current-ian. I avoid news like the plague - all narrative, all emotion, all written by English majors, not subject-matter experts. If a current-ian has to avoid the news, what hope will a historian have in a hundred years in understanding the truth of our time, given only a storm of past-due emotional clickbait? Future historians can learn more from dispassionate recording of facts, not local news. They would be better served by databases that have lists of facts about current times in simple data formats. Stats, voting records, laws, commodity prices, demographics, weather data, boring (but low-key fascinating) things like that.

jon-wood 4y ago
Historians need both those things. The hard facts on weather data, commodity prices, and voting records say exactly what was happening, but they can't tell a historian why it happened. The reasons behind voting records are inherently emotional, subjective, messy things which can't be boiled down to a series of hard facts. Those reasons are also the important bit of history, because they're what allow us to (hopefully, we're not doing a great job of it lately) avoid making the same mistakes our ancestors did.
carlosjobim 4y ago
> what hope will a historian have in a hundred years in understanding the truth of our time, given only a storm of past-due emotional clickbait? Expanding on that thought: What hope do we have of understanding history a hundred years or longer ago? Right now today, with a huge amount of true information available for anybody who takes time to look a little, almost everybody around us is 100% propagandized and will believe the opposite tomorrow of what they believed yesterday if the TV tells them to. Taking history as it is "taught" as any truth value is ridiculous, since we know that the rulers of each age have used history mostly as a tool for their own political goals. Even today, it is quite apparent that most historians go into the profession as political activists primarily and researchers secondarily, often having decided first what they want to "discover".
- FredPret 4y ago
  I think the best bet is by focusing on multiple centuries ago. Nobody cares about the ancient Roman Reds vs Blues anymore.
  - carlosjobim 4y ago
    They might not care about the teams anymore, but even going to antiquity, modern historians are always busy trying to shoehorn in their beliefs and ideology. A large non-English history publication I follow has in recent years started to explain every new archeological find with "they were trying to impress their neighbours". Find the remains of a huge ship where you didn't expect it? - Trying to impress neighbours. Find fortifications in a place and from an age where you have no record of conflict? - Trying to impress neighbours. The reason of course is because these historians all have gone to universities and live in this city where the inhabitants are infamous for their anxiety to impress their neighbours. So historians might not root for any team anymore, but they see historical research as mainly a tool to justify and spread their own beliefs. Of course there are much more polemic examples than the one I gave above.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    There are huge fights that occur in historical accounts, often because it reflects on the present day and the understanding thereof.
jccalhoun 4y ago
Historians aren't just interested in facts. How things were discussed is also important and what was and wasn't covered.
cj 4y ago
Not that I would call Wikipedia the epicenter of truth, but... > what hope will a historian have in a hundred years in understanding the truth of our time It could be really insightful if it's possible to see how a specific wikipedia article evolved on an annual basis over the past 100 years, assuming it's still around. E.g. for the most political topics, like "abortion", I imagine an annual snapshot and comparing the page between years/eras would provide a lot of historical insight on how "truth" shifts year to year.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Kiwix creates such snapshots on ~1 year cadence, but I don't know if anyone actually preserves the old ones.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
burkaman 4y ago
I'm sorry, have you ever spoken to a historian? Are you under the impression that they study the past by finding "unemotional" texts written by subjects matter experts about the current affairs of their day? What era do you think was full of these "dispassionate recordings of facts" for historians to peruse? What decade do you think local newspapers stopped being peer-reviewed journals? Also, how do you plan to make investment decisions without considering emotion? Are you betting on perfectly efficient markets?
- FredPret 4y ago
  Where do I say newspapers have ever been good, or that historians do in fact study dry facts? I'm saying newspapers are fundamentally incapable of giving unbiased and useful data that broader society can rely on. If you want a daily dose of outrage, perfect. If you want actionable information, look elsewhere.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    You wrote: "future historians can learn more from dispassionate recording of facts, not local news." Even if everything you say is true, such newspapers are still very valuable in a historical context because they preserve things like what the "daily dose of outrage" was about, its broader context etc.
claudiulodro 4y ago
In this universe, who will do things like uncover the Watergate scandal (originally Washington Post) or the Theranos scandal (Wall St Journal collaborating with a whistleblower)? Journalism is much more than a ticker tape of data or clickbait headlines.
bikeshed 4y ago
This is the most quintessentially hackernews comment ever posted.

jon-wood 4y ago

Historians need both those things. The hard facts on weather data, commodity prices, and voting records say exactly what was happening, but they can't tell a historian why it happened. The reasons behind voting records are inherently emotional, subjective, messy things which can't be boiled down to a series of hard facts. Those reasons are also the important bit of history, because they're what allow us to (hopefully, we're not doing a great job of it lately) avoid making the same mistakes our ancestors did.

carlosjobim 4y ago

> what hope will a historian have in a hundred years in understanding the truth of our time, given only a storm of past-due emotional clickbait? Expanding on that thought: What hope do we have of understanding history a hundred years or longer ago? Right now today, with a huge amount of true information available for anybody who takes time to look a little, almost everybody around us is 100% propagandized and will believe the opposite tomorrow of what they believed yesterday if the TV tells them to. Taking history as it is "taught" as any truth value is ridiculous, since we know that the rulers of each age have used history mostly as a tool for their own political goals. Even today, it is quite apparent that most historians go into the profession as political activists primarily and researchers secondarily, often having decided first what they want to "discover".

FredPret 4y ago
I think the best bet is by focusing on multiple centuries ago. Nobody cares about the ancient Roman Reds vs Blues anymore.
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  They might not care about the teams anymore, but even going to antiquity, modern historians are always busy trying to shoehorn in their beliefs and ideology. A large non-English history publication I follow has in recent years started to explain every new archeological find with "they were trying to impress their neighbours". Find the remains of a huge ship where you didn't expect it? - Trying to impress neighbours. Find fortifications in a place and from an age where you have no record of conflict? - Trying to impress neighbours. The reason of course is because these historians all have gone to universities and live in this city where the inhabitants are infamous for their anxiety to impress their neighbours. So historians might not root for any team anymore, but they see historical research as mainly a tool to justify and spread their own beliefs. Of course there are much more polemic examples than the one I gave above.
- bombcar 4y ago
  There are huge fights that occur in historical accounts, often because it reflects on the present day and the understanding thereof.

jccalhoun 4y ago

Historians aren't just interested in facts. How things were discussed is also important and what was and wasn't covered.

cj 4y ago

Not that I would call Wikipedia the epicenter of truth, but... > what hope will a historian have in a hundred years in understanding the truth of our time It could be really insightful if it's possible to see how a specific wikipedia article evolved on an annual basis over the past 100 years, assuming it's still around. E.g. for the most political topics, like "abortion", I imagine an annual snapshot and comparing the page between years/eras would provide a lot of historical insight on how "truth" shifts year to year.

int_19h 4y ago
Kiwix creates such snapshots on ~1 year cadence, but I don't know if anyone actually preserves the old ones.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

burkaman 4y ago

I'm sorry, have you ever spoken to a historian? Are you under the impression that they study the past by finding "unemotional" texts written by subjects matter experts about the current affairs of their day? What era do you think was full of these "dispassionate recordings of facts" for historians to peruse? What decade do you think local newspapers stopped being peer-reviewed journals? Also, how do you plan to make investment decisions without considering emotion? Are you betting on perfectly efficient markets?

FredPret 4y ago
Where do I say newspapers have ever been good, or that historians do in fact study dry facts? I'm saying newspapers are fundamentally incapable of giving unbiased and useful data that broader society can rely on. If you want a daily dose of outrage, perfect. If you want actionable information, look elsewhere.
- int_19h 4y ago
  You wrote: "future historians can learn more from dispassionate recording of facts, not local news." Even if everything you say is true, such newspapers are still very valuable in a historical context because they preserve things like what the "daily dose of outrage" was about, its broader context etc.

claudiulodro 4y ago

In this universe, who will do things like uncover the Watergate scandal (originally Washington Post) or the Theranos scandal (Wall St Journal collaborating with a whistleblower)? Journalism is much more than a ticker tape of data or clickbait headlines.

bikeshed 4y ago

This is the most quintessentially hackernews comment ever posted.