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+====== WhatIfAltHist ======
+**WhatIfAltHist**, or Rudyard, was an [[lb:alternate history]] YouTuber and current right-wing((:fn:>His own description of himself.)) political commentator/self-proclaimed prophet.\\
+His videos were relatively okay until he completely lost his mind...then he tripped balls and likely unlocked his latent Schizophrenia. Though I stopped watching him long before that point.
+{{tag>creators}}
+===== Personal Evaluation =====
+WhatIfAltHist can broadly be placed into three eras. Of those, one was good, one was okay and the current one I don't know much about.
+The first era was his Alternate History era, where he simply took certain scenarios and then speculated about them.\\
+What differentiated him from, for example, [[lb:AlternateHistoryHub]] was that: he'd be more detailed; he'd consider more aspects than AHHub; his interpretations were darker/more cynical (though this is only obvious when it's pointed out).\\
+The height of this era and a last gasp of sorts was his video on a medieval America, where he speculated about transplanting modern-day American culture and geography into a medieval setting. This video I //do// recommend watching.
+The second era was the one where he expanded outside of Alternate History...politics, (actual) history, anthropology and whatnot.\\
+This era was okay. The main problem is that he would speak confidently about topics he didn't actually understand that well...but the upside is that whenever he touched on a subject he //did// understand, it would be pretty alright. Though which ones these are is a big question mark. He would often predict the future and these predictions should not be taken super seriously.\\
+This era was extra special in that he finally started citing the books he read in bibliographies: located either within the community tab, video descriptions or within the videos themselves. These book recommendations are probably the main thing WhatIfAltHist is useful for...because he's read a frankly insane amount of books. Though, having read just a (tiny) fraction of them...another flaw of his pops up where...he doesn't seem to be good at evaluating those books critically. One book he recommended was //Debt: the First 5000 Years//...and, as far as I can remember, he took much of the information there somewhat uncritically. After I actually checked other responses to the book and thought about the content, I realized that a lot of the information was inaccurate. Like, to the point that it's hard to say what //is// or //isn't// true if you aren't familiar with any of the topics.\\
+This isn't really that big of a deal though as it just means you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt, plus you have to be wary of what you read in those book recommendations.\\
+Though what makes the specific example of //Debt// odd is that the book is written by someone WhatIf would consider //left-wing//, so it's extra strange that he seemed to take it uncritically.\\
+Of course, looking back //now// it's very difficult to know how much of what WhatIf said is actually accurate or not due to that tendency to be uncritical of books //and// his tendency to be overly confident about what he learned.
+The third era started around the time he started losing his mind for reasons unknown. I think it pre-dates the //incident// where he took drugs and had a trip so bad he became Schizophrenic. That's not a joke or anything, his family (per his own claims) has a history of Schizophrenia, so he really should have seen this coming. Whether he's fine now or not I don't know, because I stopped watching him way before that point.\\
+If I had to speculate about what it was, I think WhatIf just got overly self-centered and egotistical. He conflated success on YouTube with his level of ‘correctness’ and who knows what-else.
+There were a few reasons I stopped watching WhatIf. The main one was practical: his videos ballooned in length to such a point that I just didn't have the patience to spend time watching them (or even listening to them in the background). The other reason is that I just kinda decided to look for info myself. The final reason was that I kinda got annoyed by his views...and the things he was talking about. Though I won't get into specifics too much.
+What's sorta important for me to note specifically is that there was an era where I respected him and //mostly// agreed with him, but never a point where I agreed with him 100% and, at this point, I've learned enough to know that he and I are not exactly the most compatible.\\
+What I did like, back when I watched him, is that I could discuss the topics of his videos with a few other people around me who //also// saw those videos, or just wanted to weigh in. That isn't really a thing anymore, but in hindsight I'd say that's what was most valuable to me specifically.
+Do I recommend watching him? **Not really, no**. His book recommendations are good, though, so read those. His earlier Alternate History videos are fun too, to a certain degree.
+==== Trivilinks ====
+  * [[youch>UC5Dw9TFdbPJoTDMSiJdIQTA|YouTube Channel]]
+  * I may add a link to the Medieval America video at some point.
+  * Another thing of note is that his maps are not very good at all. He makes them himself and it shows, but how they look that bad is anyone's guess.