I suppose "The Lord of the Rings" is a true history of England?
It's evidence based, not faith based. Try me!
In contrast, I am not religious any longer because I could not find any evidence of its reality.
> and uninteresting
I can't help with that.
P.S. I'm giving a talk on code generators on Jan 16 at nwcpp.org. Come join in!
It is a discussion, not war. Nobody got attacked. That comment is not an attack, this comment is not an attack.
> it's the widely known history, and are we attempting to contradict that?
No. One can reach true statements with faulty reasoning. Just because the statements are true doesn't mean that the logic behind them is right.
> I don't think OP claimed the book as "proof" of radical socialist fervor in the first place
I can't read the sentence I quoted from their comment in any other way.
> Socialism was already in the air in 1870s Russia such that it's often discussed by characters in the novel.
Socialism was in the air therefore it was discussed in the novel.
You interpreted it as “Socialism is discussed in the novel therefore it was in the air,” but that’s not what was said.
Yes. I still read it that way.
> but that’s not what was said.
If you say so. I re-read the comment and I interpret it the same way still. If we are not using the book as evidence of what was going in Russia, but evidence of what topic was interesting to its audience then I'm happy with that.
I know it is true because I read it in a book. Except it is not, it is completely made up and none of it is true. One can accidentally stumble upon true statements in the book. For example there is indeed a Kings Cross station both in the real world London and the fictional one.
> You can say the same thing about any book ever written,
Not really. There are this class of books called "nonfiction" where the stated goal of the author is to write true things. For example if you say "Socialism was already in the air in 1870s Russia, I read it in Peter Kenez's A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End" that would be not mistaken.
That's not necessarily a valid conclusion. It is a work of fiction. You can't use it as evidence of what was going on in Russia. At best it can be used as evidence of what were the topics the author were thinking about, and as such an indirect proof of what was discussed in the zeitgeist.
Similarly I could write a book set in 2025's America where everyone constantly talks about how the collapse of the bubblegum markets wiped them out, and discusses the benefits and ills of bubblegum trading. Doesn't make it true.