A while ago, I made a post on here about a Ted-Ed video being, how may we say... economical with the truth? Anyway, I was bored this bank-holiday weekend and I said to myself, "Hey AceHodor, why don't go trawl through Ted-Ed's videos and try and find another stupid history one?" Then of course I replied "Why am I calling myself AceHodor, that isn't my real name, and secondly why am I talking to myself?" To escape my clearly imminent descent into madness, I decided to plunge head-first into the Ted-Ed bargain-bin of history lectures to see what I could find. And I found a good one.

Hoo boy, was it a good one.

Like, holy shit, I honestly can't believe how a video this flat-out wrong was ever allowed to grace the channel.

Don't get me wrong, the 'Wars of the Roses' dealie I took apart last time was pretty danged flawed, but this video is a god-damn train wreck.

I am talking about 'The Upside of Isolated Civilizations', presented by Jason Shipinski and animated by Tinman Creative Studios. There's so much bad history in this video that I don't feel quite educated enough to comment on all its claims, so if anyone wants to chip in in the comments, please feel free to do so. As with last time, I will place a claim in an indent, along with the relevant time it was made so you can see it for yourselves.

0:15 You must think being alone is a punishment.

This is our teacher, Mr J Shipinski himself, portrayed as a turtle in a tropical locale for no discernible reason.

0:25 Prepares to eat a lettuce

Come on! You're on a tropical island, where the eff is an effing iceberg lettuce going to come from? It's like you're not even trying! (which, incidentally, is the theme for this video)

0:21-0:31

Shipinski waffles on about how isolated civilizations come to be. Personally, I think that for isolation to develop, more is required than food, security and 'alone time' (whatever that means, like, surely the 'alone time' develops as a consequence of being isolated?), but then I'm not an anthropologist or a political scientist, so whatever.

0:30-0:40 Let's look at three civilizations

This is where the focus of the video lies (no pun intended): a comparative study of three 'isolated' civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Pre-Columbian Maya and Medieval Japan.

0:40 All of them were isolated from invaders

You could argue that point for Japan and the Maya. Japan is a challenge to invade on account of it being a very mountainous island and the Mayans' home area is mostly dense jungle. However, Egypt was very much not isolated from invaders. Ancient Egypt was invaded (and conquered!) multiple times, such as by the Hittites, Sea People, Persians, Babylonians...the list goes on.

0:44 Egypt had a large sea to the north and deserts to their west and east.

This is more of geography fail, but I'll lump it in anyway. While seas are an obstacle for invaders, they don't necessarily stop an invasion force in their tracks, especially when said seas are some of the most heavily used and easily navigable in the world (i.e.: the southern Med). The 'deserts' are utterly false: the fertile crescent lies directly to Egypt's east, and the west contains the Libyan coast, which is actually quite green. It's also telling that Shipinski doesn't mention the south, as that direction contained the Nubians and other African groups, all of which went to war with the Egyptian states at one point or another.

1:50 Because none of these civilizations had to invade other nations for resources, they remained relatively peaceful.

This is complete horseshit. As previously stated, Ancient Egypt was invaded multiple times and the Egyptians invaded other states as well, such as the Nubian kingdoms to their south. As for the Maya, well, their civilization was divided up into multiple city-states, like other Mesoamerican civilizations. Also, like other Mesoamerican civilizations, these city-states fought each other constantly. Shipinski is sort-of right about Japan, but the country was a war-zone immediately prior to the Tokugawa isolationist period, which itself only lasted for around 220 years.

2:00 [They] had no need to conquer new lands.

Apart from Egypt, which invaded Nubia and Palestine numerous times, partly to get their mits on the resources which you mentioned earlier that they were happy to trade for.

2:08-2:25 (lists a series of Egyptian inventions)

While it is true that the Egyptians did create all these things, I think it's more than a little misleading to say that this was a consequence of their isolation, because, as I stated previously, they were not isolated. Plus, it's not like all these things were invented in a short period of time either. For a frame of reference, papyrus was likely invented around 4000 BC and the Great Pyramid of Giza was built in 2560 BC.

2:30 the Macedonians, who lacked ample farmland, ended Egyptian rule by Egyptians.

While it is true that after the Macedonian conquest no further Egyptians would rule Egypt, it wasn't like this hadn't happened before, such as when the Persians conquered the region. I also think the farmland claim is wee bit suspect, but I don't know enough about Alexander's conquests to comment further. Shipinski lists more inventions here, and he'll do the same for the Japanese in a bit. To save some time, allow me to say that is very much conflation. While these civilizations did produce a number of interesting things, so did everyone who wasn't isolated, so this point makes no sense.

2:48 For some reason, in the 900s AD, their [the Maya] civilization disappeared under a veil of mystery.

While we don't know exactly why the Mayan city-states disappeared (it's worth noting that the Maya themselves do still exist), one of the prevailing theories has it that warfare between the city-states had become more extreme, as later settlements tend to be denser, have stronger defensive works and are generally constructed in more defensible locations. Of course, the Maya fighting each other would damage Shipinski's pet theory, so he simply ignores it.

2:58 [The Japanese] created a new type of religious Buddhism called 'Zen'.

No, they didn't. Zen Buddhism originated not only in a different time period to the Tokugawa Shogunate, but also in a different country, Tang-dynasty China. Also, please note how the bunny rabbit turns into a Ying-Yang symbol, which has nothing at all to do with Zen or Buddhism but is actually the symbol of Taoism. This is kind of like using the Crescent and Star to symbolise Christianity.

3:10 [The Japanese] invented an entirely new economic system called feudalism.

Hahahahahahaha, hahahaha, WHAT?

Seriously, WHAT?!

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?

The Japanese did not invent feudalism! I don't even know where to begin with a statement that fucking stupid! Feudalism was first developed in Europe around the 9th century and a similar system had been operating in Imperial China from earlier than that! Japanese feudalism emerged roughly in the 12th and 13th centuries, hundreds of years before the isolationist period of the Tokugawa shogunate, which began 1635 with the seclusion laws. Also, feudalism is not an economic system, it's a form of politics! Why the fuck would you say otherwise?!

3:26 Their isolation ended when they chose to work with others to gain new technologies.

This here is Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S Navy. In 1853 he sailed into Edo bay and told the Shogunate that if they didn't open Japan up to trade, he would start blowing up their capital with his warship. The Shogunate agreed, allowing other imperialist powers to engage in their own gunboat diplomacy to get what they wanted from the Shogun. Japan was forced into re-opening trade because it was so blatantly apparent to everyone how technologically backward they had become. It was change or die.

There a little bit more waffle before the video ends, but Shipinski is finished with his claims. I think the general gist here is the bizarre assertion that isolationist societies develop faster technologically than those that aren't. While this is clearly intended in a 'think about things a different way to broaden your minds, guise!' way, it doesn't disguise the fact that isolationism is a terrible strategy for societies in the long term. Isolated societies in general are politically stable internally, so innovation tends to discouraged as new inventions and ideas would upset the status quo. Unfortunately, this leads to isolationist states slipping further and further behind their neighbours until the outside world comes a knockin'. We can see this with Mali, Imperial China and Japan, all of which suffered terribly at the hands of more technologically advanced foreign invaders. I have no words for how utterly and completely incorrect this entire video is. It's just a constant barrage of falsehoods and lies, with Shipinski completely ignoring evidence that contradicts it! Why was this ever approved to be broadcast under the TED brand?

TL;DR: Elderly turtle pushes his own completely bollocks theory on how isolationism is, like, the best for countries, and completely ignores evidence that suggests it isn't.