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>No, history is not always political. Political history is political, but there are other kinds of histories. No, history of any kind is always political. Why

>No, history is not always political. Political history is political, but there are other kinds of histories. No, history of any kind is always political. Why? Simple: History is written by the victors.

kazinator 2y ago
History is written by the survivors and descendants. Not all those who are vanquished are so completely eradicated that they don't have descendants; and even in those unfortunate cases, someone unrelated to them will dig up and reconstruct their story as best as possible, and tell it to the world. Some of the loudest voices are from the descendants of those who had been trampled. Not all kinds of victories are political. Transistors over vacuum tubes: is that a political victory? Or just a matter of the former not being easy to shrink to microscopic sizes, or operate without high voltages and waste heat.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Transistors over vacuum tubes: is that a political victory? Sure, feel free to research how much resistance (no pun intended) there was over the mass adoption of transistors. the years of meetings and debates, the propoganda and fear tactics against transistors, the subjective claims over quality and safety of vacuum tubes. This wasn't just some iterative upgrade like an RTX 2080 to a 3080.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    A transistor and tube don't know anything about politics though. You can't hold a referendum to eliminate the Early effect from a transistor, or Miller capacitance from a tube stage. We can give an accurate and informative technical history of electronic parts, while completely avoiding discussions of mass adoption struggles, and vendors spreading FUD and whatever other fluff. If you add some that to the story it's still primarily a technological story and not political.
throwawayq3423 2y ago
Just the concept of "history" depends on a shared objective reality, which is under attack in 2024 more than any other time.

kazinator 2y ago

History is written by the survivors and descendants. Not all those who are vanquished are so completely eradicated that they don't have descendants; and even in those unfortunate cases, someone unrelated to them will dig up and reconstruct their story as best as possible, and tell it to the world. Some of the loudest voices are from the descendants of those who had been trampled. Not all kinds of victories are political. Transistors over vacuum tubes: is that a political victory? Or just a matter of the former not being easy to shrink to microscopic sizes, or operate without high voltages and waste heat.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>Transistors over vacuum tubes: is that a political victory? Sure, feel free to research how much resistance (no pun intended) there was over the mass adoption of transistors. the years of meetings and debates, the propoganda and fear tactics against transistors, the subjective claims over quality and safety of vacuum tubes. This wasn't just some iterative upgrade like an RTX 2080 to a 3080.
- kazinator 2y ago
  A transistor and tube don't know anything about politics though. You can't hold a referendum to eliminate the Early effect from a transistor, or Miller capacitance from a tube stage. We can give an accurate and informative technical history of electronic parts, while completely avoiding discussions of mass adoption struggles, and vendors spreading FUD and whatever other fluff. If you add some that to the story it's still primarily a technological story and not political.

throwawayq3423 2y ago

Just the concept of "history" depends on a shared objective reality, which is under attack in 2024 more than any other time.