What does Veeky Forums think of Professor Green?

he wants you to hate him

and it worked
so you can't argue against the efficiency

Yeah, he has a bachelor's in English and minor in religious studies, he wanted later to also major in religious studies, because he wanted to be a priest, but gave up.

We get this thread twice a week.

Why do I still enter these posts?

John Green is the archetype of the white cuck beta male. He is a hyper-narcissist and likes to associate himself with leftist progressive causes to signal his false intelligence.

He should state that up front "Hi I'm John green and I'm barely educated in the field I'm about to discuss"

I mean, his high school history teacher writes most of the material for him. Which is laughable, really.

He looks like a vampire. 2spooky

Can we ban these faggots already?

Not OP.

Memeing aside, what's actually wrong with him?

Is it just that people have a problem with his personal politics?

Is the actual history he talks about wrong? Or is it that people take issue with his interpretation of it?

He triggers /pol/ by aknowleding history of non-white people. Which is like biggest crime of them all after holocaust non-denial.

>Professor
Triggered

He says a bunch of shit that is just flat-out wrong, even after accounting for his personal ideological lens.

>He says a bunch of shit that is just flat-out wrong, even after accounting for his personal ideological lens.

For example?

I'm not trying to bait you, I'm actually curious. I've probably watched 3 history vids of his over the years and while they were pretty broad, they weren't out-and-out wrong. I've done warehouse work for the (very small) business that prints his company's shirts, though. The shirts are wack as fuck but at the end of the day I guess his YouTube meme army has paid my rent.

What are some REALLY wrong assertions he's put out there?

John Green aside, crash courses of anything are trash and you should tell young people to avoid them.

He's really not that bad. Most people here only dislike him because his content is somewhat liberally biased, despite the fact that most of them would probably eat up the material of someone else who was similarly biased, only to the right.

Most teachers acknowledge that veritable shitloads of his channel's content (especially history, geography, and philosophy) are crammed full of half-truths, lies weasel words, and outright lies. Tertiary history sources (textbooks and online/printed encyclopedias) tend to be like that, but their stuff is WAY fucking worse. I can attest to that as well, especially the colonial era onwards.

examples:

youtube.com/watch?v=kg-Vgb6rxFk

therightstuff.biz/2014/04/07/i-hate-john-green/
(right leaning but still a good argument)

happierabroad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24367
(Pointing out his political biases, he is left leaning to a fault and that skews almost all of the work he does.) His utter disregard for objectivity during this election cycle made this quite apparent.

youtube.com/watch?v=fLkdFCK0rg8

("My bias is the best type of bias. Everyone else's bias is too biased.") what an asshole.

Yeah I like him. He acts as a communicator for the subject of history in broader overviews to spark interest in a wide audience. The guy has his own ideas about what's important in history (who doesn't). I also personally find him entertaining.

somewhat?

there are only two ways to present data when it comes down to it, detail oriented or narrative oriented. his videos almost completely omit detail.

so what lines along which is he presenting "history?"

he creates broad, blanket ideologies "colonialism is BAD, so let's skip over what they did, it was bad, now here's what happened afterward, also, without detail, but with a strong moral component..."

slightly liberally biased? gimme a fucking break

user those are all about him as a person and his personal politics. One literally uses the word "mangina" and the other is about how many sexual partners the poster thinks is an acceptable number and that he hates John Green because they don't agree about that.

You're just reinforcing the idea that you don't like him because of his political biases.

Seriously, I've got no dog in this fight. I just want examples of him giving incorrect history. And I'm getting crickets.

If you don't like him because of his politics that's fine. If you don't like him because he's annoying (and he IS annoying) that's fine.

But what are these "half-truths, lies weasel words, and outright lies" you're speaking of?

Examples, please? Give me a valid reason to hate this guy beyond "muh SJW." I don't give a fuck about his politics. I care if his facts are wrong.

he doesn't GIVE details, so that precludes the very possibility of giving incorrect information

he presents history like a fortune teller, with primarily a narrative and emotional component that allows a viewer to fit NEW things he hears abot afterward into the same framework, therfore feeling smart

"oh wow, X colonized Y. I HEARD about this before. the other thing was BAD, this must be BAD too!"

there is close to zero informational content in any of his videos. I bet you any single video has the informational content of a single paragraph, spread over 5-10 minutes.

it is the VERY DEFINITION of watering down information and making people stupid. televsion has less information per second than reading, and crash course has even less. it's one step above clickbait.

I know, I was including some of the arguments that folks use against the guy, I personally disagree with his politics because it has then tendency to flood into his work on crash course, and as a high school teacher's go to "I was to lazy to teach this class myself video, despite many of its inaccuracies" I find that inexcusable. So I suppose that it reflect poorly, since John makes the crap and the teachers eat that crap up.

give me a few moments and I'll have some for you. thanks for not being anal about it, that's quite rare these days.

The purpose of crash course et al is not to make a bunch of high school aged history professors; it is to help people pass AP exams or just learn a little about a period of history. Members of the audience can do further research if they so desire.

I think that the show also pretty clearly explains that there are many narrative patterns to follow in history. Nobody has all of the facts, and anyone who did could choose which data to report for their own narrative. I can't think of any history focussed media that doesn't have something to say about what's being reported. That aspect of history is introduced to you in school at the age of 10. The fact that the show acknowledges that the narrative of a certain episode could be traded for a differing view is admirable. At least they're honest with their biases.

You're still not answering his question

you sound really pseudo-intellectual yourself pham

here are some observed examples that I got from folks who have put aside more time than I to critique this stuff:

I've never come across this series before so I've had a look at the one on the "Dark Ages" to get a taste. So far, so bad. Really bad.

"If you like cities and great poetry, then the Dark Ages were pretty dark in Europe"

Really? So Beowulf isn't "great Poetry"? Chaucer?" Frigging Dante? WTF?

"Medieval Europe had .... less cultural output than the original Roman Empire"

Pardon? The sagas? The entire Arthurian corpus? The Book of Kells and all those other illuminated masterpieces? A few little cathedrals that dwarfed the stumpy buildings of the Romans? Chaucer and Dante again, along with Boccaccio, the Gawain-poet, Christine de Pizan, Snorri Sturluson, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Chrétien de Troyes and a few hundred others? I suppose that isn't "cultural output" for some reason.

But then we get the bizarre explanation that people in the "Dark Ages" lived longer than those in the ancient period because ... their wars were smaller. Again, WTF? The proportion of people who die in wars in any period (apart from, perhaps, a couple of major blips in the twentieth century) is minuscule. So we're supposed to believe the only reason people lived longer in the Middle Ages is their tiny wars? Wrong. They lived longer because of improvements in agrarian technology and a general rise in the overall standard of living. Which kind of goes against the whole "Dark Ages" thing. This guy gets the effect right but the cause completely wrong.

"Europe was dominated by superstition and boring religious debates about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin"

More to come.

(Cont.)

And the Greeks and Romans somehow weren't superstitious? Has this guy looked at the weird cluster of bizarre taboos and irrational nonsense that was Greco-Roman religion? BTW - the angels on the head of pin thing is a complete myth created in the eighteenth century.

"The mosque at Cordova was finished in a year whereas medieval cathedrals took, like, a million years to finish"

Yes, because those medieval Europeans must have just been stupid. Or maybe it was (i) because many of those cathedrals were built by quite small communities and funding was intermittent and (ii) they weren't "finished" simply because they kept getting added to. The Catholic cathedral I can see from my window was begun in 1868 and is still not completed. Does this mean modern Australians are primitive or something else?

And the rest is about how great the Islamic and Chinese worlds were and nothing else about Europe at all. So no mention of universities, the invention of the clock, eye glasses and the printing press, effective gunpowder weapons, a revolution in military fortification, the development of maritime technology that paved the way for the age of exploration, the Twelfth Century Renaissance, the rise of medieval science laying the foundations of the Scientific Revolution or a mass of innovations from buttons to double entry book-keeping or the beginnings of modern banking. And the only mention of cathedrals was a mocking comment about how long they took to build.

If that's indicative of this series, it's facile crap.

>Do you hate him just because he's a liberal?
>No he's a bad historian
>Why? Is he wrong or lying?
>Well yeah! He's an SJW piece of shit!
>What kind of stuff has he lied about?
>He's an SJW piece of shit!
>That's not what I'm asking you though. Can you show me an example of him lying?
>No! But he's an SJW piece of shit!

(Cont.)

"I've only watched the Egypt one with prior knowledge of Egypt (I'm studying it), and I can say that it is full of horrendously not-right information. Akhenaten invented the Aten? They used chariots in Old Kingdom?! The Nile flows north to south?????? Basically, I wept.
HOWEVER. I found the format fun, engaging and the videos were nice and easily digestible. I just wish they weren't so wrong, you know?"

first leftists complain that the curriculum leaves out important stuff, so they create national tests, then they complain about teaching to the tests

now, that the curriculum is universalized, dumbed down, and lacking completely in content, with an average matriculation reading level of the SEVENTH GRADE, the liberals are happy

what a great education system we have. matriculants used to have aTWELFTH grade reading level, but of course, crash course is good because it 'helps people pass the test, even if it lacks content;

bravo, idiots

I'll give you a countervailing narrative and what crash course looks like to a moderate, without content, with only ideological narrative instead of facts

"white people are just better. they evolved to be better, so they built industry first. by rewarding industrialists, they self-improved their own race. no other race does this, which is why they're all poor. conclusion: white people are better"

notice that by providing IDEOLOGY and NARRATIVE, a white nationalist can fit any FACT he finds into that narrative, whilst the education itself provided ZERO facts?

that's what crash course does, but on the opposite end of the spectrum.

any teacher that uses crash course should be stripped of his or her or xir license

(Cont.)

"His "Mongols are the exception" bit is sometimes inaccurate and I'm not a fan of that sort of "quirky" history act since is sacrifices accuracy trying to be weird in a good way. For example he perpetuates the "Afghanistan is the Graveyard of Empires" myth that's been addressed in this subreddit a few times.

He also has a bit of a noble savage thing going on when talking about hunter gatherer societies and civilization.

Those are from the videos I did watch. Since I didn't enjoy or learn from them I avoided the rest so I can only say so much but I would give a word of caution to those who take them too seriously.

I think it also depends on your view of casual history, how stringent should we be considering its better than nothing? What standards should we have for pop history?

That being said I enjoyed his economic videos a lot more so its not like I hate the guy too much."

dark age europe did have a lower total output than rome

but here he's making a fallacious assumption: that total output directly or indirectly correlates to innovation, new technology, growth, etc

which it doesn't. tang china had HUEG cultural output and yet stayed technologically neutral for 400 years without a single advancement.

he's either a bad historian, or outright deceptive for the purpose of getting those little 'digs' in.

I hate to inform you, senpai, but his econ videos are equally stupid.

Even a lot of his physics and biology videos are wrong and outdated. I sometimes reel from how awful it actually is.

>I think it also depends on your view of casual history, how stringent should we be considering its better than nothing? What standards should we have for pop history?

This is more or less my takeaway as an archaeologist as well. From an academic perspective, yeah, this isn't gonna get you a degree by any means. It lacks nuance in a big way. It's about on-par with the bullshit in high school history textbooks, which isn't a compliment.

So yeah, I guess most of the internet hate stems from the dude's personal politics. Which, again, is fine. There's a legitimate criticism to be had with a fast food attitude toward history, especially when it seems to be aimed at teenagers and people who don't give a shit or only superficially give a shit, as an academic as well.

>This faggot thinks he's "a moderate"

>Does this mean modern Australians are primitive or something else?
You REALLY can't go around making it this easy for people, man...

ah, is this the part where you call me a white supremacist because I don't think tribal african values and witchdoctors are capable of supporting scientific inquiry and women's rights?

Just reporting other opinions, I don't touch any of their videos with a 10-foot pole.

aboriginal skulls are literally closer in morphology to erectus than to modern humans

No, this is the part where I tell you that you're not nearly as close to the center as you seem to think you are.

Do you get called a white supremacist a lot? You're sure touchy...

He's a bit of a neoliberal.

good times man... nothing like a good refutation.

what is moderate to you? a mild indifference to fact rather than a strong indifference to fact?

>Chaucer
>Dark ages
Pick one

every other day
>what does /his think of john green
>"durr lieberals hate white people"

He's a neoliberal. That's pretty conservative, if you ask me. The United States has a skewed political system.

But how is he not a centrist?

>Do you get called a white supremacist a lot? >You're sure touchy..

Don't be an ass when you are the one implying that he is closer to the right, especially when folks with those sort of opinions are called that these days, regardless of their political leanings

not my choice to make, it's a quote from a forum that is not mine.

>Calls John Green, a neoliberal, which is a fundamentally center-right political ideology, a "leftist"

If someone ascribing to a center-right ideology is a "leftist" to you then you obviously sit to the right of that.

This is basic shit. Someone who's too smart for John Green videos should be able to pick it up no problem.

any reason not to think that, especially with regards to the media and popular personalities bashing white people on a daily basis?

For a "master race" white people sure are fragile little crybabies.

the united states spends 22% of net GDP on redistribution schemes, which is actually slightly higher than the OECD average

I don't think anyone remotely educated can call a redistribution of 22% of total productivity "conservative"

wait, how is john greene center right if he supports transgender rights, heavy redistribution, reparations, racial justice, decolonization, welfare, affirmative action, etc?

he's only RIGHT of you if you're a communist. you're the fanatic here. go fuck yourself.

he's a "neoliberal" because he supports capitalism. which is the politcal baseline. go fucking die

In what way is he a neoliberal? examples?

> This is basic shit. Someone who's too smart for John Green videos should be able to pick it up no problem.

no need to insult my intelligence sir.

Neoliberal tends to be thrown around as a blanket term for "whoever does not consciously ascribe to my political ideology". Hell, I've been told that Reagan was a neoliberal in class once and I almost laughed at my teacher. In this day and age "neoliberal" is just as vacuous a term as "SJW" in describing a person's political standing.

No, its just that normal people don't like being called racist when they have done nothing wrong, asshole.

we build everything we are the invenors of 99% of the things u are using we a mere gods to subhuman men like you
whites and asians are a superior species ,that is if it wants to siglehandedly wipe out every other race that exists only our mere pity.

>Hell, I've been told that Reagan was a neoliberal in class
reagan and thatcher were the posterchildren for neoliberalism

Don't forget that even in space age facilities we've built to try and teach them, brown people literally can't advance past arithmetic.

I used to be a tutor for mexican PHD candidates and they stopped at multiplying fractions. 90% of them literally couldn't do it. Just couldn't. These were the privileged ones who had made it into grad programs and often had tons of money.

More than 100 years after the invention of the steam engine, mexicans STILL can't build their own engines or basic pistons in any capacity.

Meanwhile, I taught in China for 4 years and people WITHOUT PLUMBING AND ELECTRICITY can master calculus before they even turn 16.

Now, their only recourse is to call us names like "nazi" that could get us killed in the street. Kind of like they're... still jungle people who blame witchcraft... an invisible force that reduces people to ruin without explicit intent or proof... sounds like white privilege.

I just watched some of his shit, Persians and Greeks and the start of the roman republic, his views in the persians and greeks vid were way too cucked for me and I'm a lefty

His crash course videos aren't bad jumping off points in my opinion, but he is way too biased and revisionist
The problem is that he thinks being euro-centrist is a bad thing, but during or past the Renaissance, basically anything that was anything was happening in Europe

Should just start other topics every time these get started to make the OP completely irrelevent.

His tiny, beady eyes are the worst part. It look so like somone in Mii Maker downsized them as far as they could go.

eurocentrism brought us the scientific method

even to this day, only east-asians can into science

anyone who is anti-eurocentrism thinks that drinking tea ceremonies from witch doctors in the columbian jungles is going to cure cancer, and shops at whole foods, and should be shot on sight

personally, i have a problem with his analyzation and interpretation of history.

he likes to blame everything on the white man and eurocentrists.

I'm more attracted to Indy Nidels hairy arms

Common misconceptions about Mr Green:

1. He isn't a historian

2. A Pakistani writes the script for his Crash Course History videos. John Green doesn't write them himself aside from the jokes which may be why it's not a eurocentric but more of a islamic view of history.

Plenty of the stuff is going to be oversimplified. It's a crash course video. I'm not trying to make excuses however that's the kind of content you should expect. It doesn't have a place in a serious historical discussion.

Why is he so based bros?

C L A S S C O N C I O U S N E S S

he lets his dumb politics cloud his view of history, and creates biased, revisionist, inaccurate videos

teachers, who generally have the same dumb politics, uncritically show his videos to their students in lieu of actually teaching

its always been bait.