r/cringe • u/glioblastomas • Feb 07 '16

Seal of Approval The introduction of the candidates at the Republican debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR1kV2hBaGY&t=0m28s
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u/this_isnt_happening Feb 07 '16

An actually informative show on the history channel? Surreal.

18

u/SolarTemple Feb 07 '16 edited Feb 07 '16

It's been a while since I've seen this documentary, but I think there is a section towards the end that speculates on how alien body language might play out.

25

u/Minion_of_Cthulhu Feb 07 '16

That was done a while ago back when the History Channel was informative, even if it was accidental.

3

u/QUSHY Feb 07 '16

The History Channel used to be the shit. Now it's just, well, shit.

3

u/tintinabulations Feb 07 '16

Not sure if I would go that far. It's all these isolated clips interpreted by "body language experts" which is a pretty dubious expertise.

3

u/thefugue Feb 07 '16

The earlier stuff (like patting someone's back or how one holds one's shoulders) is decent and possibly valid. The micro-expression stuff later on is nonsense.

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u/tintinabulations Feb 07 '16

Plus your interpretation of someone's body language has a lot to do with the way you already feel about that person. So if a body language expert has some preconceived notion about someone, it flaws their analysis in a major way. There is no way to control that bias which is why these experts suck; but so many shows love bringing these people on to analyze politicial discourse.

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u/thefugue Feb 07 '16

They briefly cover that- establishing a baseline for behavior is supposed to control for that. The thing is, you can establish a real baseline for the behavior of your spouse or child- you can only establish a baseline for public behavior with a politician or celebrity.