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A comment on Ask HN: What talks or videos do you suggest to watch on a long flight?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What talks or videos do you suggest to watch on a... by mercer on Saturday July 07, 2018 @03:28AM (#17477517)
The problem I have with biographies and documentaries is that they overlay order and narrative on this 'messy and unpredictable' reality. If anything, that's more manipulative than a good novel that is rooted in deep research/domain knowledge and that doesn't claim to be 'objective'.
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Re:Ask HN: What talks or videos do you suggest to watch on a... by skookumchuck on Saturday July 07, 2018 @07:45PM (#17481313)
Historical accounts are always biased, usually according to the political correctness of the time they were written. For example, the Founding Fathers went from hero to goat to hero to goat and are now morphing back to heroic status with the play "Hamilton".

Civil War heroes are goats today, even having their memorials removed.

Edison has gone from hero to goat. He'll be a hero again in a few decades.

It's the job of a professional historian to try and discern the truth from all this. But whatever truth there is in fiction is impossible to determine if you know nothing about history.

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