aldhissla

I still get flashbacks…

I assess it’s engagement bait. Our having read much of it, despite none of it having any discernable value at all, was apparently the point. I can’t see this drivel passing any first inspection by peers in the field…

Looks like a whole bunch of nonsense by and for people with no understanding of the purpose or even the structure of academic research. The author is a “Bachelor of Business Administration” with an apparent penchant for arcane scientific-sounding babble.

Read any proper publication, and you’ll see every word and thought thoroughly explained or reduced to common (if perhaps field-specific) knowledge. The abstract is short enough to give a cursory overview, and doesn’t dump a page’s worth of the author’s favourite sciency-sounding words and symbols.

Here’s an example (supposed to be without a paywall): https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641399.3641443

Note the format, length, and wording of the abstract, the authors’ credentials (both field-relevant and at least graduate-level), the conciseness of the discussion, etc.

Compare this to Watanabe’s efforts to convince you (and whoever else reads his stuff) that he’s smart. Very, very smart. Way smarter than you. Way smarter than the people who don’t realise his smartness. The least he expects of you is unearned respect, but I’m willing to bet he’s monetising this.

If this was the 00s, he’d probably have one of these websites (PSA: don’t download or install anything):

Kryptochef: https://web.archive.org/web/20060613200332/http://kryptochef.net/index2e.htm

Timecube: https://web.archive.org/web/20100127184015/http://www.timecube.com/

Aww, if you’d only said Deimos…

Why is it brilliant? His narrative style captured my attention in a way that left me wanting more. It’s also solid in terms of sourcing and correctness.

As for the merits/demerits of podcasts vs literature, it’s just different media for different use cases. He also wrote a book on Lafayette and his transcripts are available if reading is more your jam.

There are 10 chapters iirc, each except one covering a single revolution in ever-growing detail. The chapter on 1848 covers multiple.

It starts out with the English Revolution in less than 20 episodes and ends with the Russian Revolution exceeding 100.

It’s brilliant. Gotta relisten again. I can also recommend The History of Rome by him.