Alright, @sarahebond.bsky.social in her cruelty has made me aware of this remarkably incompetent talk Malcolm Gladwell gave and so I am going to inflict it on all of you by going through all of the mistakes he makes here in the hope that none of you will ever take him seriously again. 1/ - ThreadSky

bretdevereaux.bsky.social • 5 days ago

Alright, @sarahebond.bsky.social in her cruelty has made me aware of this remarkably incompetent talk Malcolm Gladwell gave and so I am going to inflict it on all of you by going through all of the mistakes he makes here in the hope that none of you will ever take him seriously again. 1/

Reposted from Sarah E. Bond

Yup. youtu.be/ziGD7vQOwl8?...

Comments

drviolence.bsky.social•5 days ago

I'm having painful flashbacks to first reading Pinker's Better Angels...

ritterteufeltod.bsky.social•4 days ago

My goofy fan theory is that since the Philistines were from the Aegean and Goliath was huge this is what actually what happened to Telemonian Aias/Ajax and everyone was just too embarrassed to admit it. Kind of surprised no one in the make shit up era of ancient historiography proposed this already.

jeffreybigham.com•2 days ago

i thought the whole point of malcolm gladwell was to emphasize how stories transcend pretty much everything else, like factuality haha

mikaelka.bsky.social•5 days ago

Spare me, I never took him seriously, for like twenty years now.

pemryjanes.com•5 days ago

Don't know the man, but the way he talks about Bronze Age army composition sounds like he got all his information from Total War.

nudraxon.bsky.social•5 days ago

The funny thing is, I remember reading David and Goliath when I was 16 or so, and even 16-year-old me, most of whose knowledge of ancient warfare came from Total War, thought that his "infantry, cavalry, and artillery" model sounded overly simple.

nudraxon.bsky.social•5 days ago

Unfortunately, my 16-year-old self's reaction was "well, most of my knowledge is from Total War, so this guy probably knows more than I do", rather than "most of my knowledge is from Total War, so if this is raising my eyebrows, then this guy *really* doesn't know what he's talking about".

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•5 days ago

Technically this is early iron age warfare but otherwise, yes.

pemryjanes.com•5 days ago

Yes, of course it is. Don't know why I was projecting it that far back.

andylee42.bsky.social•5 days ago

God he’s fucking useless

nategm.bsky.social•5 days ago

Basically any time you find a non-historian (especially a non-military historian) talking about some super weapon of the pre-modern battlefield it’s a safe bet they have no idea what they’re talking about (and have completely negated the roles of training and discipline)

jamesnoo.bsky.social•5 days ago

📌

fxshaw.com•4 days ago

this was the laugh i needed this morning.

crd37.bsky.social•5 days ago

And all of this misses the point as to why David wins.

It’s because the story needs David to win. It’s made up.

It’s like this great Stan Lee response to those questions about who’d win in a fight between two characters

packrat74.bsky.social•5 days ago

📌

deyasi.bsky.social•5 days ago

Great thread. Thank you for sharing your expertise on ancient weapons, Dr. Devereaux.

meirazk.bsky.social•5 days ago

Literally the whole point of the story is that Saul is afraid and bad at war and David immediately sizes up the situation, understands Goliath’s vulnerability, and takes advantage of it to maximum personal benefit

militantnerd.bsky.social•5 days ago

Thanks for the thread. I never read any of his books, but it is always a bit of a red flag when one person writes a lot of books on many wildly different subjects.

apophis426.bsky.social•5 days ago

Blink changed my life

i mourn the person i could have been

ascon.bsky.social•5 days ago

I stopped taking him seriously after reading Blink which never backs up claims and frequently just contradicts them. There's a point where he presents an incorrect snap judgement people make about doctors then forgets that its wrong and proceeds as if it is a valuable insight people have.

painttherosesred.bsky.social•5 days ago

No one should take it seriously because he’s treating a text recounting a legend shot through with technological anachronisms as if it was history. Everything else is superfluous.

davidpetraitis.bsky.social•5 days ago

Thanks for this takedown. Sharing!

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•5 days ago

So he opens with a long geographic discussion which doesn't go anywhere but I think he's mispronouncing Shephelah pretty badly? Not my area of expertise, though.

He then breaks down early iron age armies into 'cavalry, heavy infantry and 'artillery'' - by which he means archers and slingers. 2/

caravellin.bsky.social•4 days ago

Is it me or is this extremely Age of Empires/Civilisation-coded

caravellin.bsky.social•4 days ago

"You must also understand Sumerians had War Carts instead of Heavy Chariots, which really impacted their early-game meta"

francessmith.bsky.social•5 days ago

Weren't they mostly chariots rather than cavalry at this point?

turnerjoy.bsky.social•5 days ago

You can probably put them both broadly into the same category

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•5 days ago

And that's just...very wrong. Archers, slingers and other 'missile' troops are not analogous to artillery in any period (actually artillery won't be invented until the 4th century BC), but we're also missing some pretty key categories, particularly the near omni-present light infantry. 3/

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•5 days ago

But also lumping early iron age archers and slingers together like this is itself a bad mistake, given that - and we'll come back to this - the way that the best armies fight in this period in the Levant and broader Middle East is shield-bearers paired with archers or javelin troops. 4/

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•5 days ago

So archers and contact infantry aren't necessarily distinct 'arms' in the early iron age levant, but would be deployed together in matching, mutually supported pairs as part of larger units. You see this a ton in (neo-)Assyrian artwork. 5/

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•5 days ago

Then he goes on to talk about slings and every part of this is painful. He pantomimes the swinging of a sling to his side in a way that tells me he doesn't really understand how a war-sling is used.

You don't just 'spin it really fast and then release.' 6/

bretdevereaux.bsky.social•5 days ago

Instead, what you'll see is the sling is first spun in a 'vertical' spin behind the slinger (who is standing left-side forward), before being released in a horizontal motion (e.g. https://youtu.be/ZU7R_pw-4tY?si=OuaWLgD_QWx0EdpC), usually released on either the first half-circle of 1.5 circle of that horizontal motion.
7/

paulcareyjones.bsky.social•4 days ago

From what you're saying, I strongly suspect he's based most of this on playing Civilization.

antelopecat.bsky.social•4 days ago

So what is the difference between light infantry and other kinds of infantry? This is SO not my area of specialization.

tcbullfrog.bsky.social•5 days ago

"Heavy infantry". Why call them heavy? Why not just "infantry", Malcolm?

lilachshtein.bsky.social•5 days ago

Well, I'm a native, and let's just say that my ears are bleeding every time he refers to the Hebrew name of the place or describes the landscape in the area.

spiritusnox.bsky.social•5 days ago

I feel like opening on a mistake that would raise an eyebrow on even a halfway serious RTS player can only posssibly be a good sign lol

freydalpishti.bsky.social•5 days ago

He's always been a curiously successful fraud, but being taken down this brutally by you should be the highlight of his career.

clutch3-16.bsky.social•2 days ago

📌

lawzag.bsky.social•5 days ago

Jokes on you, Malcolm Gladwell was just hired to be a writer for Rings of Power season 3.

the15andthe45.bsky.social•5 days ago

The Rings of Power: Return of the Sling

dancinghorse.bsky.social•14 hours ago

510pat.bsky.social•5 days ago

Just another American grifter/charlatan. We have so many.

d-marquis.bsky.social•5 days ago

Canadian but you can have him.

510pat.bsky.social•5 days ago

I didn't know that. So a Canadian grifter/charlatan grifting in America. Too many grifter/charlatans to count here.

d-marquis.bsky.social•5 days ago

Poilievre is about to lose his seat in his own riding so you can take him too please.

510pat.bsky.social•5 days ago

Can't be worse here so fine by me

ccrary.bsky.social•5 days ago

Great thread.

by-mhrudolph.bsky.social•5 days ago

😊

rumanchu.bsky.social•5 days ago

I *almost* have to admire Gladwell's willingness to publicly show all of the things he hasn't spent even a fraction of 10000 hours learning about.

d-marquis.bsky.social•5 days ago

That's his m.o.

apophis426.bsky.social•5 days ago

1/10000 of an hour

sheriffbootsy.bsky.social•5 days ago

99% sure he's just doing a dramatic reading of this Cracked article.

https://www.cracked.com/article_22708_5-badass-stories-in-bible-explained-by-science

stephenspower.bsky.social•5 days ago

Brilliant! The crazy thing is, arrogance and stupidity are ideal subjects for a Gladwell book.

georgesnorewell.bsky.social•4 days ago

Malcolm Gladwell is the worst Vegetius.

hoobajoob.bsky.social•5 days ago

📌

dulcet-abyssal.bsky.social•5 days ago

unh uh, bret. you can't trick me into watching this.

tryg72.bsky.social•5 days ago

He's a story teller.

Unfortunately, he likes his imagination mixed in with reality. But he's focusing on telling a good story, more than educating people with facts.

Yeah, you gotta steer clear of listening to this guy on anything factual.