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Comment by Rodeoclash | Hacker News Reader

This might be a bit odd but I'm going to try and link this with Steven Seagal of all people.

Currently Steven Seagal is getting raked over the coals on Reddit due to some of the extraordinary claims he's made about his martial arts abilities, they don't quite line up to our current understanding of what is effective (think, less Aikido and more Ju-Jitsu, at least in the ring).

I think what has happened to Steven Seagal (and here to Jim Cramer) is that we're now in the era where it's possible to (somewhat) easily fact check the claims that you make and prove that they're wrong.

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Your Seagal story reminds of a bit further back, in 1995. That was when Hillary Clinton went to Nepal, and along the way made the claim that she was named after Edmund Hillary. Ignore that she was born six years before his famed climb, and her mother unlikely to have heard of him in the U. S. Make of it what you will, that isn't my point.

My point is that in 1995, my first thought was, "you know, we can instantly check this stuff now, as the words leave your lips." I don't know that politicians have been made more honest as a result, but it's an improvement anyway.

In the case of Cramer, who cares enough to trade on his recommendations? Doesn't matter, that isn't the point (but thank you, TFA author, for the effort). The point is that instead of vague memories of how it turned out, like we'd have to make do with 40 years ago, we have folks that can make sense of 20K records and tell you whether Cramer is full of shit, generally speaking.

People have known Steven Seagal and most traditional martial arts have been largely ineffective (in comparison to things like boxing and later BJJ and MMA) for a long time. I'm not going to say they're useless as many of their techniques made it into things like BJJ (thinking of traditional jujitsu), but they certainly don't live up to their reputation from movies and what people like Seagal would have you believe with rediculous exhibitions where he effortlessly flips people around that offer no resistance and immediately take a rolling break fall.

You're absolutely right that the internet in general has made this much easier though. There's even an entire website that's been around for probably 20 years called bullshido that is a play on "Bushido" and "bulls**" that covers this topic in detail iirc.

Oh man, Bullshido! That was a classic 00s message board. Thanks for the throwback.

I think more than fact checking is the ability to share the results. 30 years ago, you would have needed to be a reporter or known one to have analysis reach that many people.

In the 90s, I thought that was a purely good thing but now I’m wishing we had an in-between version where stuff just shy of time cube has millions of fans.

Wait. What the heck? What's wrong with Steven Seagal? Under Seige is a great movie.

It is, but not because of Seagal's skill as a martial artist. Great castings for the villains, unique setting providing memorable action setpieces, grounded/realistic directing, and Erika Eleniak popping out of a cake half-naked all make it memorable. Seagal's bullshido? Meh.

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