Revisionist History

I have read his books and listened to him on other podcasts, one day, bored of the same ole podcasts I decided to start Revisionist History, from the beginning, I have been binging it ever since, I love Malcolm, he talks just the way I imagined he would as I read his books! Keep it up, this is a great listen

Brave reporting with the latest episode. Brave research too. Thank you for the hard and excellent work.

I only listened to the first season, and I apologize if the mistakes I flag here have already been learned from. My wife just had a baby, and I will likely not get to listen any further for a long time, but I’ll try to update my review if and when I do. Some episodes are very, very good, with forceful attempts to speak truth to power, and I think I learned something profound from many of them. The one on the stuck accelerators was one of the best examples of this, the highlight for me being the criticism of the Consumer Reports video — something like, “no, don’t tell them to keep their foot on the accelerator! That’s the worst advice possible!” I thought that episode was on point and I learned a lot from it. But then there are the misses. There were two big ones in the first season, which leaves the podcast with an 80% landing rate for its episodes’ arguments in that season. The first miss is in the first episode. Episode 1 presented an interesting story and psychological theory that could plausibly explain the behavior of a group of men. But, it then extrapolates that theory to a whole societal level without what seemed like proper justification. This extrapolation seemed hard to believe given what I’ve seen in the world — the way I see it, women in general are on a continual rise to power in many ways, with their odds of winning elections going up more or less every year, and women may one day surpass men in politics like they did in higher Ed. And no other possible explanations for what happened in Australia were entertained, other than pure sexism. One problem with using sexism to explain electoral outcomes is that while sexism surely exists, many female politicians have genuine flaws that shouldn’t be simply swept under the rug — Hillary Clinton and Dilma, Brazil’s first female present, being good examples. I don’t know much about the Australian lady, but from the recording of her speech, she struck me as unafraid of becoming the bully when given the chance. And similarly, the episode about comedians who made fun of politicians had a logical fallacy in what appeared to be its main argument. Sure, comedians with underlying partisan motives exist. But I wholly disagree with that that means all political comedians should have partisan motives — or that those motives should align with the left. No. I watch political comedy because it’s funny. I hope the people who do political comedy do it first and foremost to make people laugh, and also to speak truth to power, no matter where that power lies or in what political party. If you claim to be speaking truth to power, with broad appeal, but then reveal yourself to have an apparent partisan agenda, then my prediction is that half your viewership will stop feeling like they can readily trust or take seriously what you say, and they’ll leave you behind, screaming into the partisan echo chamber that you yourself created.

I tried. Boring. Self grandiose. Terrible read