Comment by wegs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wegs | Hacker News Reader

I see a lot of similar stuff on Youtube these days.

A recent Economics Explained walked through wealth inequality in some Scandinavian countries (TL;DR: it's high). This is different from income inequality, which is quite low. It walked through the wealth of Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, who has a net worth of $13B, by virtue of having inherited Heineken. Her family bought (not founded) Heineken 200 years ago, and the family fortune dates back a half-millennium.

There are really neat documentary channels like that. I'm not downplaying Burke, who was brilliant, but two bits of progress:

- In 1978, he didn't have the Internet. Research is much easier today.

- In 2020, anyone can produce high-quality documentaries. In 1978, you needed a massive investment.

I'm not trying to imply it's easy, but we've gone from where you need a video editing studies, reels of film, and a research team, to where you just need to spend a few years as a super-nerd to pick up the requisite skills, and drop perhaps $2000 on cameras and microphones. Indeed, if you're scrappy, you can do pro-quality with just a better cell phone and computer, with a lot more work.

I'd guess a lot of channels were inspired by Connections.

I know Mechanical Universe inspired a lot of (now better) Youtube channels, like 3Blue1Brown. So these early documentaries were pivotal, but we've also come a long ways from there.

If I am not mistaken, you are saying that technical entry barriers into documentary filmmaking are much, much lower today than in 1978, and therefore it is much easier to create such a series today. The former is definitely true, but consider the following:

- "Connections" used a substantial amount of acted historical scenes. Creating them in such a quality (and not some sketchy animation or a re-cut of existing work) is still a challenge today. You need half-decent actors.

- Technical quality is secondary to content. "Connections" is not just a collection of interesting and well-made bits about how technology evolved, there is an entire and compelling theory behind it, which Burke tries to bring accross. Such aspirations, executed with such intellectual and inspirational confidence, need something more than just technical ability and financial resources. Just because paper and ink got much cheaper since the 16th century, we didn't suddenly produce a Shakespeare every 2 years.

So far, I haven't seen any historical documentation on YouTube which even compares to the depth and width of "Connections".

You also, as I recall, had a fair bit of location shooting including places like Navy ships that probably took some producer a bunch of time to arrange. The technical barriers are certainly much much lower--younger interested in film me would have killed for an iPhone much less even a $500-ish videocam--but it still takes a lot of work to film a professional looking documentary.

Connections was savvy in finding faires, working museaums, and access to the BBC's film vaults for providing much (though not all) such footage. Burke describes going to reenactment festivals to film many of the medieval life scenes.

And his journalist background and connections enabled him to have the access necessary to shoot single-take sequences such as this:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2WoDQBhJCVQ

(Hardly the only impressive on-location scene in his work.)

Agreed with your comments on the primary importance of writing and research. I'd argue that Chris & Evan Hadfield's "Rare Earth" is getting close, Tom Scott is doing quite well, and Derrek Muller's "Veritasium" and Destin Sandlin's "Smarter Every Day" have promise.

Several YouTubers have been picked up by traditional broadcasters/production organisations, notably Hank Green ("Crash Course"), with PBS, and Emily Graslie ("Prehistoric Road Trip"), with the Chicago Field Museum. YouTube as a training and recruiting ground has merits.

One reason Connections is so hard to compare to is that it's pretty incomparable: forty years on we're still discussing it in glowing terms. It was produced by someone well-established and experienced at least within the BBC, and backed by the organisation. Notably, little from either national/public broadcasting or commercial production has even approached it. My short list includes Sagan's Cosmos, Burke's own The Day the Universe Changed, Ken Burns. Daniel Yergin's The Prize. And of course Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation and Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, which had paved the way for Burke himself. I might include Adam Curtis's works.

The role of the author or creative voice --- a Burke, Sagan, Burns, Bronowski, Clark, Curtis --- cannot be overstated. That talent seems rare, perhaps also the ability to simply get out of its way. Also realising when it's circled too hard back in on itself --- Burke had 2--3 good series in him, but he hasn't matched himself in at least three decades.

Related HN thread with additional recommendations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2698026

Part of that is a more crowded field: there's more produced, it's harder to get noticed. Part my own near-total avoidance of broadcast television. But I don't think that's all of it.

And yes my HN history shows I'm quite the fan of Burke: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I'd like to give a shout out to Alistair Cooke's "America".

Agree. I would add too, it seems likely that James Burke more or less created the idea too of connectedness across disciplines, historical events, etc. as opposed to the linear, "homo-disciplinary" approach we were used to. Or at least he brought the idea to the masses in a compelling way.

> it seems likely that James Burke more or less created the idea too of connectedness across disciplines

Is there a name for this idea?

Idk, interdisciplinary?

That word alone doesn’t quite capture the narrative of science as something non-linear, meandering and somewhat accidental.

Well, let's consider these one at a time:

> - "Connections" used a substantial amount of acted historical scenes. Creating them in such a quality (and not some sketchy animation or a re-cut of existing work) is still a challenge today. You need half-decent actors.

But is this core to the value? I find a lot of the animated versions, Ken Burns, and stock footage on Youtube to be way more than good enough. It's exactly as you said: It's about the content.

> Just because paper and ink got much cheaper since the 16th century, we didn't suddenly produce a Shakespeare every 2 years.

We kinda did, actually. He's hidden among a massive pile of stuff, but he's there. Brilliant books come out far more frequently than I can read. I'd place many well above Shakespeare, not in fame, but in quality.

> So far, I haven't seen any historical documentation on YouTube which even compares to the depth and width of "Connections".

My favorites are Extra History (history) and 3Blue1Brown (math). I think both have at least the same depth and width, albeit in a different direction.

I can't speak specifically to "historical documentation", but in a field that interests me, which I suppose we could call "music, musicking and music theory", YT is better than anything I'm aware of from TV with the possible exception of the Bernstein lectures.

For a TV station/network/organization to have exposed us to just one of (for example): David Bruce, 12Tone or Adam Neely would be remarkable enough, but we actually get all three and then a whole bunch of others who are in the same general ballpark.

For example, the "David Bennett Piano" channel, produced by a young UK piano player, has a 15 minute segment that is hands-down the best explanation of why many musical cultures settled on dividing the octave into 12 tones. It's better than anything I've ever seen on TV.

It is true that these tend to be shorter and more focused presentations than series like Connections. I'm not sure I see anything inherently wrong with that. It's also true that they don't score always hit it out of the park for every "episode" they produce (unlike much the more collaborative processes that would have led to each episode of Connections). But I'm not sure I see much a problem with that either.

> In 1978, he didn't have the Internet. Research is much easier today.

Lowering the barrier to entry to anything just makes it easier to create crap. Even when not taken on its own terms, Connections is still a massive achievement given this lack of ease. If you look at the book supplement to the series you can see the depth of research that went into the show.

The Internet making research "easier" is false economy since it's cluttered with misinformation and even more crap. To get good information on the Internet requires more effort that you give it credit for (see the practice of OSINT).

With millions of videos on Youtube, it's sometimes hard to find the top 99.99th percentile, but it's there. I've posted references in other posts.

The better question is if the 99.99th percentile on Youtube maps over, in quantity or quality, the 99.99th percentile of old TV documentaries.

Mechanical Universe is so awesome! It's one of the best series to watch to get an broad understanding of the history of science and science itself. I've watched and rewatched them since college in the 90s. All of the videos are on YouTube and they're still incredible.

Though Connections is entertaining, an afternoon down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on any topic will give you sooo much more information and context than Burke could have dreamed of in 1978. My issue with many of those YouTube channels you're talking about is they do little but read for the viewer (NOT 3Blue1Brown, his work is the gold standard of course).

This isn't a horrible thing, but it would be nice if those channels put a bit more work into synthesizing their content, rather than just regurgitating Wikipedia for views.

MU is presented by my Caltech physics professor!

Poor Goodstein was never the same after the stroke. Incidentally, I have to wonder if he and Jearl Walker ever had a personal rivalry.

Oh, I am so sorry to hear that happened to him. My favorite physics co-professor of Goodstein's was Prof Ricardo Gomez, who pretty much single-handedly saved me from flunking out. Prof Gomez was one of those people who made Caltech a special place.

The Western Tradition by Weber is another great series giving an overview of world history (but not from a technological point of view).

The quality is not necessarily there. Anyone can put their handheld Egyptian travel footage up on Amazon and call it a documentary.

It's like his claim continues to ring true even through his own works.

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