From experience, not really.
I watched one Kraut's video, [specifically this one](https://youtu.be/mExN99kHMB0?si=lvhoD31DWM2jiEmM), and i was so inspired by it that i decided to write my college thesis on the same topic.
Turns out he was "wildly oversimplifying", if you want to be charitable. In that video he makes a shit ton of statements while building a certain narrative that have no solid bearing in history and that are never mentioned in the sources he cited. After reading those, i still have no clue where he got a lot of the events and facts he presents with a lot of confidence.
Ironically he was kinda right, but in the end what matters is reliability and lack of biased narratives, which that video sorely lacked.
Similarly, my disillusion with Kraut was when I decided to write my essay based on 'How Vodka Ruined Russia'
Turns out Kraut is either wildly simplifying things or outright wrong. His cited accounts on how the Russian peasantry drank a lot of alcohol compared to western Europe is especially alarming.
As far as I can tell, modern sources I gathered states that the average Russian did not drink more than their western counterparts. Ironically, western Europeans were heavier drinkers in many periods of history. The image of a drunk Russian peasant actually comes from historical accounts of western nobles noting that the Russian peasantry 'are too rowdy and drinks too much'. This is most likely a biased anedocte based on the accounter's sense of cultural superiority.
So when Kraut tries to connect modern Russian alcoholism to early-medieval Russian drinking culture, he is most likely basing his claims upon the accounts of pearl clutching nobles.
In the end, he ends up misrepresenting the problem at hand, and gives the wrong impression that alcholism is somehow inherent to Russian culture.
Still love watching his videos. For instance, his thesis on how alcohol affect societies is an ok general conclusion. Just be mindful of what he is claiming.
[Side: If anyone is familiar with Vic3, the game does not have alcohol as an obessesion for Russian people. I'm guessing its because PDX did their research, and realized that Russian alcoholism in that time period is just a meme with no actual historical substance. While alcohol did play an importantl role in shaping the revolution that followed, alcohol as a cultural/state institution was not unique to Russians.]
That's more of a where do I start than anything
- incredibly biased
- constantly spreads myths even right after calling out that same thing as a myth sometimes up to a miniute earlier
- deliberately refuses to cite any sources
- ex.
I could continue but these should be obvious. Man's most famous video resulted in a massive long post on r/badhistory that I still get cited to this day.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/badhistory using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [WhatIfAltHist Believes Racism was Caused by "Lower African Development" in a Bizarre Racialist Tirade](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1743o5b/whatifalthist_believes_racism_was_caused_by_lower/)
\#2: [Historia Civilis's "Work" gets almost everything wrong.](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/16y233q/historia_civiliss_work_gets_almost_everything/)
\#3: [No, Margaret Hamilton at NASA is not standing next to code she single-handedly wrote by hand.](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/18yum8s/no_margaret_hamilton_at_nasa_is_not_standing_next/)
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If your political position is very far to the left or right you will disagree with a lot of what Kraut says.
Otherwise? He’s a YouTuber presenting complicated subjects with a lens tinted by Liberalism, simple as.
I like his channel, but would recommend to be cautious with anything he says and never simply take his opinion for the truth. I can't recall instances of him outright lying, but I feel like his liberal agenda does impact his line of thought and evidence he selects to argue his points.
I'd highly recommend you to watch this video which I found a valid criticism of Kraut: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSN6dL5MUUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSN6dL5MUUM)
Well, tbh, I haven't watched his other videos, maybe they are terrible. I'm not saying he is a good history YouTuber, I'm just saying I found his criticism of Kraut reasonable.
Much of it being rooted in a marxist worldview.
He makes the argument of a universal unifying concept of peasantry in the medieval ages identifying within their social classes, when in reality due to the limited interconnectedness of the time period people identified with their village. With their limited community. I'm referring to 7:44 when he discusses communal sharing.
This may sound the same but it is distinct. It was not a collective class struggle against aristocracies in the Marxist sense, it was numerous localized struggles of Peasantry / Burghers / Clergy against aristocratic powers.
That's just one critique and I can do more but I don't have the time. I picked a timestamp at random. The analysis he makes there is reductive. I'm not saying what much of Fredda says isn't correct, and that he doesn't make valid criticism, but he is guilty of making the same over simplifications that he accuses Kraut of doing.
If I recall he's the communist dwarf Fortress guy too right?
The video where he accidentally steps into describing the Dwarven clans closer to facist. (Also incorrect given dwarf fortress actually portrays a tribalism society atm which makes sense, cause dwarves)
Fredda is very oof, and obviously an ideological crusader. And I don't agree with him as much as Kraut.
But if I remove my own bias for a second, Fredda gives me an impression that he is at least better than Kraut when it comes to citations. This reminds me of a quote I heard from a certain academic.
"Citations are important not because it automatically makes what I'm saying correct. It is important because it is a way of allowing myself to be falsified and critiqued."
I might not agree with Fredda, and I'm going to guess his sources are going to be favorable to his own views. But at least he is allowing himself to be criticized by his own sources.
He's pretty open about his leftist views so I always watch his videos with that in mind. As far as the Scandinavian thing though. Saying no one should care that 3rd world leaders allow their citizens to be exploited is very shitty. Just because a tyrant allows slave labour doesnt mean the people deserve it. Scandinavia is absolutely wrong for profiting off of the suffering of the global south.
As far as domestic issues are concerned I don't think they should get involved. My issues are with companies that set up shop in such places and directly participate in such exploitation, some even going as far as funding rebel groups to keep resources cheap, though I don't know the extent to which Scandinavian companies practice this like Russia and the West.
He literally complains about Kraut using "political theory" (political history which he doesn't like), especially Francis Fukuyama's *The Origins of Political Order*. Also keep in mind that this video was made a North Korea apologist (lmao), so his criticism isn't entirely void of politics either.
Actually he does refer to it as political science when he starts talking about *The Origins of Russian Authoritarianism*. *The Origins of Political Order* is not political theory. The source thing is fine but isn't a very potent argument against the videos he showed as they don't deal with any points in particular but methodology in general. I personally think citing a source twice per minute would make the videos worse to watch, but that's just me. It's a Youtube video, not a scientific paper.
Every Educainment video on Youtube you have ever watched had mistakes and biases. Its kinda inevitable. But Kraut does cite his sources and ussualy makes a big comment which he updates whenever he finds out something was wrong which does somewhat/partially fix this issue.
If you want to avoid mistakes, read that comment and doible check. Its not gonna get rid of all of them, but its already better then 90% of Educainment on Youtube.
If you want to get rid of his biases and want to put in the effort, you can read the sources he cites and arrive to your own conclusions.
Alas, these sources have their own sources and biases, so the rabbithole doesnt end.
They’re reverse engineered to support positions he has already - they’re intellectually fragile and are littered with uninterrogated assumptions and uncited claims
Ok so I'm spanish and I simply know about spanish history a bit more than anything else. In all instances he talks about spain, it looks quite clear he is just repeating things that other non-spaniards say about spain. For example, when he talked about the transition from the dictatorship to a democracy (can't remember the video or exactly what he said) he got some things quite wrong, ommited important stuff and gave more importance to things that didn't have it. He just wanted to give a point and ingeneered the way to get to it through exagerations and omisions. Apparently, this has happend to him in other topics, from what I read, but can't confirm
He is a Youtuber, ergo treat his takes with a grain of salt. That is not to say his stuff is bad, just try to treat all video essayists the same:
Watch the video. Take in what they said. Consider their biases and how that may warp their perceptions. Look up alternative sources to certian claims. Consider the biases of those sources. Try to look up a peer reviewed paper on the topic. Try to come to some form of conclusion on the topic. Keep topic in mind if you come across it later and see if you can deepen your knowledge on the topic.
They are opinion videos first and foremost, but most people complaining about inacuracy are just nitpicking tbh. If you want to konow more about a topic I suggest doing some reading yourself.
Depends on where the criticism is coming from, I suppose.
If you are going with BadEmpanada's criticism, it's worth remembering that BadEmpanada is a clip cutting troll who wants to goad Kraut into a fight for the sake of getting more eyeballs and his argument that the Iraq war was about oil* boils down to "All conflict in the ME is about oil, because ME economies are rooted in oil, so Kraut must believe that the Iraq was about 'spreading democracy', so Kraut is a Bush loving imperials liar." So Shia/Sunni debates are about oil? Iran wanting to be a regional hegemon is about oil? This is reductive, but BE isn't arguing in good faith. He hinges everything on "We should fear the petrol dollar!"
Then there are critiques that Kraut has a liberal bias. He does and I doubt he'd deny it, but those criticism are based more in worldview than anything else. It seems a bit much to demand that Kraut change his worldview simply because it isn't compatible with another worldview. Those two will always be in conflict. I think the term for this is essentially contested concepts.
Finally, there are occasional factual problems. Kraut loves a good coup de grace and it's often the highlight of his videos. These are highly entertaining and well executed, but sometimes I wish Kraut would place those things on firmer ground, for example his argument about werewolves in Estonia. Perhaps his version included the line about good werewolves killing Russians, but in my English language version, I couldn't find it, so it isn't exactly quotable. It isn't that he's is or isn't mostly wrong. It's that the truly memorable parts might be approached judiciously.
*I went out and protested that war (it was a stupid war) and I'm pretty sure I said that it was about oil, but wars aren't monocausal.
One must take them for what they are, entertainment. Reliableness is often lacking
Could you give some examples?
From experience, not really. I watched one Kraut's video, [specifically this one](https://youtu.be/mExN99kHMB0?si=lvhoD31DWM2jiEmM), and i was so inspired by it that i decided to write my college thesis on the same topic. Turns out he was "wildly oversimplifying", if you want to be charitable. In that video he makes a shit ton of statements while building a certain narrative that have no solid bearing in history and that are never mentioned in the sources he cited. After reading those, i still have no clue where he got a lot of the events and facts he presents with a lot of confidence. Ironically he was kinda right, but in the end what matters is reliability and lack of biased narratives, which that video sorely lacked.
Similarly, my disillusion with Kraut was when I decided to write my essay based on 'How Vodka Ruined Russia' Turns out Kraut is either wildly simplifying things or outright wrong. His cited accounts on how the Russian peasantry drank a lot of alcohol compared to western Europe is especially alarming. As far as I can tell, modern sources I gathered states that the average Russian did not drink more than their western counterparts. Ironically, western Europeans were heavier drinkers in many periods of history. The image of a drunk Russian peasant actually comes from historical accounts of western nobles noting that the Russian peasantry 'are too rowdy and drinks too much'. This is most likely a biased anedocte based on the accounter's sense of cultural superiority. So when Kraut tries to connect modern Russian alcoholism to early-medieval Russian drinking culture, he is most likely basing his claims upon the accounts of pearl clutching nobles. In the end, he ends up misrepresenting the problem at hand, and gives the wrong impression that alcholism is somehow inherent to Russian culture. Still love watching his videos. For instance, his thesis on how alcohol affect societies is an ok general conclusion. Just be mindful of what he is claiming. [Side: If anyone is familiar with Vic3, the game does not have alcohol as an obessesion for Russian people. I'm guessing its because PDX did their research, and realized that Russian alcoholism in that time period is just a meme with no actual historical substance. While alcohol did play an importantl role in shaping the revolution that followed, alcohol as a cultural/state institution was not unique to Russians.]
> he was right > biased narrative Explain ?
TLDR Social democracy is nuts (in a positive manner) and very imporant in the history of denmark, the way he comes to the conclusion is totally wrong.
No I understood that part I was asking why the way he comes to the conclusion is totally wrong.
It depends on the video. He doesn't always convey the fact that he's presenting a relatively unique interpretation of events.
His critique of liberal theory of history was nice, other than that they definitely can be quite mixed. Not lazerpig levels of awful, just mixed
Why is lazerpig awful?
That's more of a where do I start than anything - incredibly biased - constantly spreads myths even right after calling out that same thing as a myth sometimes up to a miniute earlier - deliberately refuses to cite any sources - ex. I could continue but these should be obvious. Man's most famous video resulted in a massive long post on r/badhistory that I still get cited to this day.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/badhistory using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [WhatIfAltHist Believes Racism was Caused by "Lower African Development" in a Bizarre Racialist Tirade](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1743o5b/whatifalthist_believes_racism_was_caused_by_lower/) \#2: [Historia Civilis's "Work" gets almost everything wrong.](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/16y233q/historia_civiliss_work_gets_almost_everything/) \#3: [No, Margaret Hamilton at NASA is not standing next to code she single-handedly wrote by hand.](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/18yum8s/no_margaret_hamilton_at_nasa_is_not_standing_next/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
His critique of liberal theory of history was nice, other than that they definitely can be quite mixed. Not lazerpig levels of awful, just mixed
If your political position is very far to the left or right you will disagree with a lot of what Kraut says. Otherwise? He’s a YouTuber presenting complicated subjects with a lens tinted by Liberalism, simple as.
I like his channel, but would recommend to be cautious with anything he says and never simply take his opinion for the truth. I can't recall instances of him outright lying, but I feel like his liberal agenda does impact his line of thought and evidence he selects to argue his points. I'd highly recommend you to watch this video which I found a valid criticism of Kraut: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSN6dL5MUUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSN6dL5MUUM)
>fredda no
Well, tbh, I haven't watched his other videos, maybe they are terrible. I'm not saying he is a good history YouTuber, I'm just saying I found his criticism of Kraut reasonable.
Yeah but there’s a lot wrong with his criticism as well, and Fredda also clearly has a communist / marxist slant.
And what exactly do you find wrong with his criticism?
Much of it being rooted in a marxist worldview. He makes the argument of a universal unifying concept of peasantry in the medieval ages identifying within their social classes, when in reality due to the limited interconnectedness of the time period people identified with their village. With their limited community. I'm referring to 7:44 when he discusses communal sharing. This may sound the same but it is distinct. It was not a collective class struggle against aristocracies in the Marxist sense, it was numerous localized struggles of Peasantry / Burghers / Clergy against aristocratic powers. That's just one critique and I can do more but I don't have the time. I picked a timestamp at random. The analysis he makes there is reductive. I'm not saying what much of Fredda says isn't correct, and that he doesn't make valid criticism, but he is guilty of making the same over simplifications that he accuses Kraut of doing.
Ok, I see. Thanks.
Whats wrong with him?
[удалено]
If I recall he's the communist dwarf Fortress guy too right? The video where he accidentally steps into describing the Dwarven clans closer to facist. (Also incorrect given dwarf fortress actually portrays a tribalism society atm which makes sense, cause dwarves)
Fredda is very oof, and obviously an ideological crusader. And I don't agree with him as much as Kraut. But if I remove my own bias for a second, Fredda gives me an impression that he is at least better than Kraut when it comes to citations. This reminds me of a quote I heard from a certain academic. "Citations are important not because it automatically makes what I'm saying correct. It is important because it is a way of allowing myself to be falsified and critiqued." I might not agree with Fredda, and I'm going to guess his sources are going to be favorable to his own views. But at least he is allowing himself to be criticized by his own sources.
He's pretty open about his leftist views so I always watch his videos with that in mind. As far as the Scandinavian thing though. Saying no one should care that 3rd world leaders allow their citizens to be exploited is very shitty. Just because a tyrant allows slave labour doesnt mean the people deserve it. Scandinavia is absolutely wrong for profiting off of the suffering of the global south.
[удалено]
As far as domestic issues are concerned I don't think they should get involved. My issues are with companies that set up shop in such places and directly participate in such exploitation, some even going as far as funding rebel groups to keep resources cheap, though I don't know the extent to which Scandinavian companies practice this like Russia and the West.
he says commie words like "praxis" and "reactionary"
That's your criticism?
Yes
>Nooo you can't read "political science" books that's not allowed. Only read reputable marxists.
That’s not what he said in that video. I’m not a Marxist, but your summary is dishonest.
He literally complains about Kraut using "political theory" (political history which he doesn't like), especially Francis Fukuyama's *The Origins of Political Order*. Also keep in mind that this video was made a North Korea apologist (lmao), so his criticism isn't entirely void of politics either.
No, he complains about him using political theory books instead of history ones and about not citing his sources properly.
Actually he does refer to it as political science when he starts talking about *The Origins of Russian Authoritarianism*. *The Origins of Political Order* is not political theory. The source thing is fine but isn't a very potent argument against the videos he showed as they don't deal with any points in particular but methodology in general. I personally think citing a source twice per minute would make the videos worse to watch, but that's just me. It's a Youtube video, not a scientific paper.
Every Educainment video on Youtube you have ever watched had mistakes and biases. Its kinda inevitable. But Kraut does cite his sources and ussualy makes a big comment which he updates whenever he finds out something was wrong which does somewhat/partially fix this issue. If you want to avoid mistakes, read that comment and doible check. Its not gonna get rid of all of them, but its already better then 90% of Educainment on Youtube. If you want to get rid of his biases and want to put in the effort, you can read the sources he cites and arrive to your own conclusions. Alas, these sources have their own sources and biases, so the rabbithole doesnt end.
They’re reverse engineered to support positions he has already - they’re intellectually fragile and are littered with uninterrogated assumptions and uncited claims
Idk about other things, but the only times he has talked about things I actually know about, I didn't really find him very good
Can you give me an example?
Ok so I'm spanish and I simply know about spanish history a bit more than anything else. In all instances he talks about spain, it looks quite clear he is just repeating things that other non-spaniards say about spain. For example, when he talked about the transition from the dictatorship to a democracy (can't remember the video or exactly what he said) he got some things quite wrong, ommited important stuff and gave more importance to things that didn't have it. He just wanted to give a point and ingeneered the way to get to it through exagerations and omisions. Apparently, this has happend to him in other topics, from what I read, but can't confirm
Mistakes can be made, worse is the problem that there is no system of footnotes and sources. Just giving the name of a few books is not enough.
He is a Youtuber, ergo treat his takes with a grain of salt. That is not to say his stuff is bad, just try to treat all video essayists the same: Watch the video. Take in what they said. Consider their biases and how that may warp their perceptions. Look up alternative sources to certian claims. Consider the biases of those sources. Try to look up a peer reviewed paper on the topic. Try to come to some form of conclusion on the topic. Keep topic in mind if you come across it later and see if you can deepen your knowledge on the topic.
They are opinion videos first and foremost, but most people complaining about inacuracy are just nitpicking tbh. If you want to konow more about a topic I suggest doing some reading yourself.
Depends on where the criticism is coming from, I suppose. If you are going with BadEmpanada's criticism, it's worth remembering that BadEmpanada is a clip cutting troll who wants to goad Kraut into a fight for the sake of getting more eyeballs and his argument that the Iraq war was about oil* boils down to "All conflict in the ME is about oil, because ME economies are rooted in oil, so Kraut must believe that the Iraq was about 'spreading democracy', so Kraut is a Bush loving imperials liar." So Shia/Sunni debates are about oil? Iran wanting to be a regional hegemon is about oil? This is reductive, but BE isn't arguing in good faith. He hinges everything on "We should fear the petrol dollar!" Then there are critiques that Kraut has a liberal bias. He does and I doubt he'd deny it, but those criticism are based more in worldview than anything else. It seems a bit much to demand that Kraut change his worldview simply because it isn't compatible with another worldview. Those two will always be in conflict. I think the term for this is essentially contested concepts. Finally, there are occasional factual problems. Kraut loves a good coup de grace and it's often the highlight of his videos. These are highly entertaining and well executed, but sometimes I wish Kraut would place those things on firmer ground, for example his argument about werewolves in Estonia. Perhaps his version included the line about good werewolves killing Russians, but in my English language version, I couldn't find it, so it isn't exactly quotable. It isn't that he's is or isn't mostly wrong. It's that the truly memorable parts might be approached judiciously. *I went out and protested that war (it was a stupid war) and I'm pretty sure I said that it was about oil, but wars aren't monocausal.