Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "No, the Historical Truth is Subjective (and Reddit is LYING about me)" video.

@johnkeeports8795 " There is an objective truth of the matter in history, but thinking that we can get there scientifically is ridiculous " You people keep conflating "objective truth" with "absolute truth". Of course we will never know everything, but it does not mean that we can't know something for sure. History, when done right, is a hard science.
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@kagtavieponi9722 " History is not objective because it is not made by objective people " All human knowledge is made by subjective people, therefore the existence of electrons is dubious and we can't discuss such matters over the Net? That's reductio ad absurdum, if it's not clear enough.
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@kelvincasing5265 " Dunning Krueger effect " Doesn't even exist. People consistently overestimate their abilities regardless of the level of their expertise.
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@TheImperatorKnight " "Truth is objective. It happened or it didnt." There was a turning point of WW2. When was it?" That's all speculative. Let's start with a simpler question. Was there WW2 or not? It happened or it didn't?
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@TheImperatorKnight Re: They lie about me, because they want to silence me. That's what their philosophy leads to. If objective truth does not exist, then winning is everything that matters. Winning by sophistry and slander is just as valid as winning by reason and data. And it all started with the assumption, that objective truth is an illusion of a subjective mind. Slippery slope... ;-)
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@johnkeeports8795 The examples you gave for those more interesting questions seem to fall into two categories: very broad and very detailed. Regarding the broad questions (why Nazis went to war?), it's likely that those questions might not have a straight answer. Sometimes they might have a straight answer, though. Like, for example, I do believe that I know why Bronze Age collapsed and why Rome collapsed. I do think there existed the main reason for it, so sometimes it might work. But often it won't, simply because the question is not precise enough to have a precise enough answer. Precise enough to be considered either true or false, in a meaningful sense. Regarding the detailed questions, the number of correct answers is inversely proportional to how detailed the question is. It's the problem of deterministic chaos, or the butterfly effect. Too many stars had to align in the exact right places in order for some detail to happen, so that asking "why" is not very productive. So yes, we will never know everything, even in math (that's been proven). Does it mean we will never know anything? Of course not. As we see, history is not special at all. Math, physics, chemistry, biology - all knowledge - is exactly the same. If historical truths can only be subjective (not really true), then all truths can only be subjective. While we know, from experience, that is not the case. We really know something about how nature works!
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@janehrahan5116 " how we define things is entirely subjective " Entirely subjective? Like in, we can't tell if some event is war or it's a ball? That's nonsense. Regarding the rest of your argument, blurry borders do not invalidate the core concept, just like contested borders do not invalidate the concept of a country. Or, we might not agree on how which exact shade on a color palette is supposed to be called, but it does not imply that "green" is entirely subjective. What you guys don't understand, and it's crucial , is that uncertain premises might result in very certain conclusions. That's how your computer works, for example. Error correction is a thing and we do it in all fields of research, that includes history.
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Post-modernists do not claim that "their truth" is objective. They claim that since we can never agree, we can never establish the objective truth, so it doesn't even exist, or might as well not exist at the very least. Because of that, the only thing that remains is "wining". In a debate, for example. Which is what you are actually proposing, are you not? (Obviously, post-modernists are demonstrably wrong. I have fiber optic network in my village now and if all the "truths" on which this technology relies were mere illusions, or petty "wins" in petty "debates", then it all wouldn't be able to work. So we really know something , even if we'll never know everything. History is the same. It can be treated as hard science with its ability to cross-check and establish some ideas as facts, even if a lot of it will always remain speculative, hence subjective.)
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@TheImperatorKnight " the end goal. It's getting to the truth about history " I know that's whom you are. If so, be honest with yourself and admit you actually believe in objective truth. Which is not the same as the absolute truth. It's impossible to know everything, but it's very possible to know something. I'll just add that boolean logic (truth or false, no middle ground) does not describe how we use language. There is better logic, which allows for partial truths. Like in "there was a turning point during WW2 at Stalingrad" can be considered to be mostly true by some people, mostly false by others, and even meaningless by yet another set of people. However, it doesn't mean we will never be able to understand this issue, does it?
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