it's a documentary about the way we (the polish jews) rescued this country from the people who came over from india , squatted, and refused to develop things properly. so we started killing things. buffalo, for instance.

When I was in grad school, a professor of mine quipped, "Just because a paper is published in Nature (the most prestigious and impactful journal in at least the biological sciences if not all hard sciences) doesn't necessarily mean that it is wrong." We then proceeded to eviscerate a high profile Nature paper that was utter crap. It was an important lesson, but it is also one easy to get wrong. Claims in the most reliable of publications can be wrong, and claims in poor publications can be just fine. If the source is in dispute, there isn't really a substitute for digging in.

In your case, citing a documentary film isn't necessarily bad per se, but video citations are an extremely inefficient way to cite a fact when a text quotation of a reliable source would do. Also, secondary publications, like documentaries, are always less reliable than the primary source material from which they are drawn, but if the secondary source is good at citing its primary sources, it could be really good. Secondary sources are valuable to the extent that they summarize, compile, and make available the primary material. This is why Wikipedia is so great. It isn't always right or complete, but it almost always links to primary material so people can evaluate the summary and dig into the primary. Documentaries don't do this very well.

Bottom line, it is probably pretty easy to cite a source that is easier for your readers to consume and assess than any video, unless the video is like a demonstration of something. On the flip side, charlatans love to cite videos, because they are extremely inefficient to attack, as they take time and effort to quote, and the population of people that bother to watch more than a little is strongly enriched for people who believe the conclusion, because skeptics will give up long before they get very deep.

so you hate polish people?

Well there you have it, folks.

Uh, that's about as much a documentary on the West as Will and Grace is a documentary about interior design.

are you suggesting they portrayed something wrong? before you answer, if you feel so compelled, read wookie's answer.


maybe even take a closer look at what i've posted.

I'm not sure what you mean by frowned upon. I don't think that such a citation should be subject to mod action.

On the other hand it's not a very useful citation if the goal is to establish the truth of some claim you want to make. Besides the things wookie said about problems citing videos in general, it also doesn't look to me like this is really a documentary. That's what kerowo is saying. It might be historical fiction but it does appear to be fictionalized. I would hesitate to treat it as an authoritative source.

in that history of my people (native americans/ polish jews) it was pointed out that barbarians from india were eating our sacred buffalo. So we killed the invaders by starving them by killing the buffalo.

for some reason they also talked about a civil war and slaves from africa. completely irrelevant to the history of my people, but perhaps why you have your panties all bunched up?

I'm saying that the series you linked to is not a documentary. It is an entertainment set in the West. It's purpose is not to be historically accurate.

i misunderstood.

now i am urinating.

I can assure you that I am posting while completely naked.

if i ever truly believed otherwise you wouldn't be a moderator.

Did I just see 3 mods get very badly leveled, or is it me that's getting leveled? Because it sure sounded like everyone was taking Mat's "documentary" link seriously, even after he posted this about it:

Which was pretty funny, IMO.

You've possibly led a very sheltered life if you don't know there are some truly awful human beings out there who aren't interested in reasoned arguments and will never change their opinions on certain emotive subjects such as race.

Either that, or you (consciously or subconsciously) find some agreement with them, which is why you were unable to mete out appropriate bans (and possibly why you went AWOL when your pals were delighting in the killing of an anti Nazi protester).

I used to give you the benefit of the doubt, put you in the first group and think of you as an ungrounded posh boy (probably called Charles) .

I think the balance of opinion now probably puts you in the second group of racist Lefties. Sorry.

What are you straw manning about now? What does that have to do with the problem of refusing to engage with huge swathes of the electorate within a democracy?

You could just accept gracefully that you didn't read what was being said rather than trying to bluster your way out.

Sheltered life huh? How far do you reckon you'd get in real society if you and others like you carried on the way you do in that forum with the accusations you make?

I would give you at most a week before you and your views get discarded and get thrown by the way side to make room for those that can actually make considered judgment on things and do it in such a way that is respectful and not rash like most of those who post in politics.

I think I've said it before that the only good thing about the politics forum is it keeps those posters occupied enough and gives their political hunger enough of a feed to dissuade them from ever running for politics as, if you think Trump is bad, wait till you see what happens if some of that lot get into any positions of power.

"considered judgment"

Remind me again what you were banned for?

for those upset about getting flak about using videos, wookie's reply really explains things very well. i'm guessing similar answers have been given many times before and were ignored?

Oops? internet-serious-business.jpg

it was not a 100% joke, and wookie gave the perfect answer. i didn't expect people would start arguing about the accuracy of the show after my description, however.

and all that said, it's an interesting series that seems to strive for historical accuracy, not just a fictionalized story. don't start arguing about that now. i'm not using it to back up any claim at all.

I’m not surprised 538 or reddit politics are better either. In the case of 538, the articles themselves are pretty high brow by mass media standards and so attract commenters of a similar nature. Reddit is just so big that it’s best posters are better than 2+2s almost by default.

My only point was that if 2+2 politics was mostly interested in discussing correlation between polling and election results via models or well informed beltway political strategy a case could be made for a second politics forum with lower standards where people can let off steam and talk about Trump being a moron racist, Schumer being an idiot for considering reversion of SCOTUS confirmation procedure or how much drunk sex Kavanaugh had in his teens. But that’s what politics here already is and any second more open subforum will just be a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

I'm not familiar with the full extent of the discussion here, but my reflection. This is all from memory, I don't really feel strongly about any of this, so am likely wrong in details.

1) I had an off-2p2 discussion with Suzzer about politics.
2) Suzzer transposed it to 2p2
3) We discussed a bit, various folks were pretty critical of my view.
4) My perception was that people were just regurgitating various talking points, rather than have a meaningful, open-minded discussion that could move at all.
5) It exchange wasn't very important to me, I don't feel strongly about the issue, but that was my rough perception.


They haven't hired me back, if that's what you're hinting at. I do not envisage that happening in the forseeable future.

This is a good point and one only needs to scroll up to Fly's latest contribution to understand why.

Meme into lock IMO

sorry, not informed about the details of whatever situation you got going on here (and dont really care either), but this is a common theme that i see popping up everywhere and i want to address it.

the bottom line is that the average regular in P forum is vastly more informed and has spent countless more hours analyzing political/current events than the average joe who wants to come by and drop a couple controversial hawt takes. if you want a discussion to "move" i.e. people to be more receptive/accepting of whatever controversial/uninformed position you've staked out (that's the impression i'm getting from your wording/tone), perhaps you should keep in mind that you likely aren't a revolutionary thinker with special information to share and that everybody challenging you has already heard and considered all this **** you're talking

just like the right wingers who whine and cry at the lack of a safe space for them and the low tolerance for their bigotry, the problem most posters have is a personal one about recognizing where they are on the information scale (**common problem in poker**) and managing/having realistic expectations for what they intend to get out of a discussion with people who essentially live and breathe this ****.

do 10nl players waltz into high stakes forums and start giving strategy advice without getting dogpiled/ridiculed? think about it.

i mean i'm not advocating for being able to abuse people (although i dish out plenty of it from time to time, as my infraction history will show), but when you reduce things down to "oh i wanted to engage super substantively but people are just spewing meaningless talking points", that's both condescending and patently ridiculous. a cop-out, if you will, and not a good look.