WhatifAltHist / Rudyard Lynch - History youtuber, galaxy brained, no credentials and no sex

[Nicholas Gur]

EDIT: lmao. Right around the 10 minute mark he starts going on about civilizational cycles and then we get “we’re in the cycle that began with romes fall and is ending with the mouse utopia!” Before ranting about leftism and the JQ.
Schizo sisters we are so back

He really did invoke Wotan. The west is saved!

 

[Nachos Bell Grande]

That damned mouse utopia experiment. Dude watched the Down The Rabbit Hole video in high school and made it his entire life.

 

[Big Nasty]

I feel that this guy could probably start talking about something from old Marvel Thor comics as if it were an authentic Norse legend.

 

[Amerikaner Teddybär]

That damned mouse utopia experiment. Dude watched the Down The Rabbit Hole video in high school and made it his entire life.

I remember someone saying it was a lot less substantial than people realize. Here's the link if y'all are interested.

 

[Nachos Bell Grande]

I bet I can guess exactly what Rudy's big brain idea was that made him obsessed with the rat utopia.

It says some of the males started pretending to be female to survive.

Autists become trans to get dates when they can't get them because of "society"

Therefore mouse utopia explains the entire world, and he just confirmation biased his way from there. I literally had this same idea once about LA specifically. I doubt it's a revolutionary idea at all if my dumb ass can think of a version of it.

To me it just seems like another one of those 20th century psychology experiments where they tortured something and then extrapolated nonsense from it to make their careers.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Not even 3 minutes in and he’s already making his normal historical blunders. He claims Jews invented monotheism, and then his co-host raises and then curtly brushes aside Hindu/Vedic claims to that.
No mention made of Atenism or Zoroastrianism, nor any other earlier monotheistic or quasi-monotheistic religions. Just “Jews invented monotheism, simple as.”

I don't mind him claiming that the ancient Hebrews were the first monotheists. Partly because academics themselves have not and likely will never reach a consensus on what came first (even Gherardo Gnoli flip-flopped as to whether Zoroastrianism or Judaism predated the other), partly because academics love splitting hairs over what qualifies as monotheism and religion (to the point we have invented terms like henotheism), and partly because the fact that it's not hard to demonstrate that these faiths all had some form of contact with each other in a relatively proximate timeframe makes the issue of which came first into a dick measuring contest over what should be a literal matter of faith. For the purposes of his point, the claim is fine to make without dithering over ackshullys, imo - though it would have been better to use some sort of qualifiers.

 

[waffle]

To me it just seems like another one of those 20th century psychology experiments where they tortured something and then extrapolated nonsense from it to make their careers.

Doing any digging about methodology of mid 20th century "psychological research" is basically a cognito-hazard. Large portions of modern thought is built on crazy drugged out hippies doing totally insane stuff with no rigor and then insisting it was "science" because they wrote some of it down. It's like if after WW2 if all the real but unethical studies about cold exposure injuries and treating burn wounds got swept under the rug and people were only interested in all the crazy non-rigerous shit Mengla did.

 

[Rimanah]

I don't mind him claiming that the ancient Hebrews were the first monotheists. Partly because academics themselves have not and likely will never reach a consensus on what came first (even Gherardo Gnoli flip-flopped as to whether Zoroastrianism or Judaism predated the other), partly because academics love splitting hairs over what qualifies as monotheism and religion (to the point we have invented terms like henotheism), and partly because the fact that it's not hard to demonstrate that these faiths all had some form of contact with each other in a relatively proximate timeframe makes the issue of which came first into a dick measuring contest over what should be a literal matter of faith. For the purposes of his point, the claim is fine to make without dithering over ackshullys, imo - though it would have been better to use some sort of qualifiers.

My criticism is less with his thesis that Jews were the first monotheists and more with how he presents it.
There is a very strong argument for Jews being the first to develop monotheism as we currently understand the word. But rather than just presenting that argument, he touches on the more nuanced nature of that debate, before just dismissing it without explaining why. Instead, he spends his time talking about mouse utopia and how Jews are creative “nuclear reactors” who create ideologies that destroy surrounding cultures.
For a series/channel that is supposed to be about teaching history, it’s just a very poor practice.

Edit: just to make my criticism clearer and more productive, what Rudy should have done was acknowledged the complexity of the discussion (as he and his co-host did) but then rather than simply dismissing those claims, he should have explained that he wasn’t going into them, and briefly explained why. And then maybe provided further reading in his source list in the description. I know asking Rudy to cite his sources is a big ask, because it’s woke or something in his mind. but it’s frankly rather ridiculous that his channel dedicated to teaching history doesn’t.

 

[Big Nasty]

Mouse Utopia is an article of faith in online right-wing thought because it is seen as a complete refutal of the concept of the welfare state.

 

[Computer God Autism]

My criticism is less with his thesis that Jews were the first monotheists and more with how he presents it.

I know, I just think him doing the discussion justice without getting completely sidetracked would be demanding a bit too much from the only begotten child-bride of Odin.

Instead, he spends his time talking about mouse utopia and how Jews are creative “nuclear reactors” who create ideologies that destroy surrounding cultures.

I unironically want to see Rudy do a crossover with Gail Chord Schuler.

 

[Nicholas Gur]

Haven't been able to get this character out of my head since ruddy started showing himself on camera

 

[Rekeita's Kidneys]

Who the fuck names their kid "Rudyard"?

I'd have a psychotic break if that was my name too nigga no cap

 

[Imperial Citizen]

Bro is back to regularly scheduled programing like nothing ever happened and finally covering a topic several people in his audience request every time he makes a community post. I should have watched it at work, but I didn't want to.

A few highlights:

Spoiler: Musings on a retard

• Claims Khazars converted to Judaism to troll the Byzantines and the Islamic Caliphate and remain independent.
• States that the Jews create Christianity to call out the decadence of the Greco-Roman civilization as well as Marxism to point out the corruption of the Industrial Revolution societies.
• 30 minutes in, says we know nothing about the time period of when the Jews were formed; the Bronze Age.
• Suggests that we don’t have any records because the Jews were not a great civilization at the time. Guess he wasn’t aware of the Jews having an oral tradition.
• Holy shit, he is using the stories of the Torah as objective evidence of history! “According to the Bible, which is the only record we have from this period”
• Claims Jews invented a monotheistic axis. Ignoring Canaanite polytheism, Yahwism, and the rising monolatrism.
• Claims that Moses was a biological offspring of the Pharaoh.
• The 10 commandments were an evolutionary strategy to protect themselves against other civilizations.
• 54 minutes in and he finally starts talking about the Kingdom of Israel. “King David and King Solomon were basically Andrew Tate”
• Now he brings up that the Jews weren’t always monotheistic. But how can he know that if he puts more trust in the Bible as a source of history?
• Rudy claims that the Judeans were salty about the Israelites and didn’t write their stories in the Bible.
• Constantly uses video game terminology. Israel started off in the worst spawn point, Israel is about to get powned by history.
• Gets the term “God’s Chosen People” wrong, believing it means that God would reward the Jews with victory as long as the followed God. It means that the Jews are chosen to follow God’s laws.
• Says Kabbalah comes from the Babylonian mystic tradition. I have no idea where he got that idea from since Kabbalah formally emerged in the 12th and 13th century.
• Claims that Cyrus the Great was called an honorary Jew. Wrong, he is called a messiah, not a Jew.
• Claims the Pharisees obsession with Jewish law was a reaction to their powerlessness in the face of the dominant Greco-Roman culture.
• The Essenes were on psychedelics and created Christianity.
• The origin of Hanukkah was not the oil for the Menorah lasting 8 days, but instead the Maccabees surviving out in the desert. Where the fuck did he learn that?
• “I think Herod was an ethnic Edomite”
• Christ told the Jews that they weren’t going to be free under the Romans any time so, and that why they killed him.

 

[scathefire]

Who the fuck names their kid "Rudyard"?

I'd have a psychotic break if that was my name too nigga no cap

I think he said at one point that he was named after Rudyard Kipling. Kind of a random guy to name your kid after, but it did come from somewhere.

 

[FightenGnome]

I bet I can guess exactly what Rudy's big brain idea was that made him obsessed with the rat utopia.

It says some of the males started pretending to be female to survive.

Autists become trans to get dates when they can't get them because of "society"

Therefore mouse utopia explains the entire world, and he just confirmation biased his way from there. I literally had this same idea once about LA specifically. I doubt it's a revolutionary idea at all if my dumb ass can think of a version of it.

To me it just seems like another one of those 20th century psychology experiments where they tortured something and then extrapolated nonsense from it to make their careers.

As a fellow mouse utopia enjoyer, I would suspect his interest is more centered around the "Beautiful Ones" which were the mice that checked out of society and sat in their rooms all day grooming themselves, eating and otherwise NEETing.

That tends to be the focus of autistic types since they feel they can relate to that segment of the mice population on an intimate level, and tend to see them as "smart" for avoiding the chaos when they're seen as a pitiful aberration of mice who refuse to compete. Kind of like Hikikomori.

The greater interest surrounding the experiment is mammalian social response to abundance and a lack of incentive. It gets complicated trying to translate it to humans, due to our longer gestation times, not limited to an enclosure, and ability to entertain ourselves or find a sense of meaning outside our base instincts, but it's probably one of a handful of experiments from last century that is genuinely worth reflecting on.

Rudyard, and people like Rudyard, are always trying to find complicated explanations because they refuse to accept the idea that many problems in society are already identified by others. They want to be big brains and discover the one thing no one thought of yet and hailed as a great intellectual mind.

 

[Nachos Bell Grande]

The highlight reels are starting to come out

 

[Computer God Autism]

Claims Khazars converted to Judaism to troll the Byzantines and the Islamic Caliphate and remain independent.

A former history professor of mine once said the same, it's not really that schizo a claim.

Holy shit, he is using the stories of the Torah as objective evidence of history!

Depends on the stories he's using and what he's drawing from them - it used to be popular in intellectual circles to deny the existence of Nineveh on the basis that it was in a Biblical story before archeology felted them, for example.

Now he brings up that the Jews weren’t always monotheistic. But how can he know that if he puts more trust in the Bible as a source of history?

Probably because the most recurring story in the Bible is a Prophet castigating ancient Hebrews for falling into polytheism and idolatry? The idea that monotheism was uniformly enforced in ancient Israel and that Yahweism or whatever academic canard used to describe pre-70 A.D. Judaism was unchanging from its inception to the modern day is a silver bullet only for people who haven't actually read the Old Testament.

Constantly uses video game terminology. Israel started off in the worst spawn point, Israel is about to get powned by history.

Clearly Rudy doesn't understand that the Jews used Hebrew magic to toggle on advance start and just invested all their starting points into unlocking a religion early for the culture bonus.

“I think Herod was an ethnic Edomite”

Not an outrageous claim either, really the biggest question is why this even needs to be mentioned.

 

[Jaws Of Hell]

The highlight reels are starting to come out

"When he inseminated me" made me laugh out loud.

The woman hate is so acidic that it's unbearable tbh, it's like he's trying to be the incelest one can possibly be. If he were really disgusted by porn as he pretends to be that would be based, but he's clearly a hairy palmed coomer.

 

[Rimanah]

30 minutes in, says we know nothing about the time period of when the Jews were formed; the Bronze Age.

This right here demonstrates a fundamental problem with the style of videos he’s putting out on History 102.
He’s covering massive swathes of history in about two hours. This video on the Jews is covering AT LEAST 3200 years of history, and that’s one of the most conservative estimates based on current archaeological evidence.
Is that possible? Sure. Will it be possible to cover it in any meaningful depth? Fuck no, not with that video length.
But more importantly, he’s trying to cover stuff that could be at least a semester’s worth of material for a multi-credit class. There is no way he, not already having the requisite expertise, will be able to properly research and educate himself about everything he needs to. So instead he doesn’t, and then makes silly claims like this.

Rudy, in case you ever read this, here’s some constructive criticism. Cut down the breadth of these videos. Do a series on the Jews or Mesopotamia or India or whatever instead. Make a SINGLE video on just the Bronze Age Jews, then do the proper research on that topic so you don’t look dumb. That alone will improve both your video quality and reputation a hundred fold.

 

[AMHOLIO]

That alone will improve both your video quality and reputation a hundred fold.

It would be nice if he tried this but I'm guessing his brain is too fried from drugs to have an attention span.