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EDIT: Yay, title's been fixed. I'll leave my post here for context. The title isn't very accurate, or at least it assumes a lot about the reader. I expected to
by cryptoz 16y ago
EDIT: Yay, title's been fixed. I'll leave my post here for context.
The title isn't very accurate, or at least it assumes a lot about the reader. I expected to begin about 4 billion years ago, for the entire history of our world. Or perhaps the beginning of humans, a few million years ago. Or perhaps human civilization, a few tens of thousands of years ago. Not a measily 2500 years ago dealing with the West.
- danw 16y agoThe title appears to be a play on the BBC's popular A History of the World in 100 Objects: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/. Also the bias highlights the flaw in the underlying data which is the English version of wikipedia
- godawful 16y agoYou're right about the title. As for the chosen time period, it's really very simple. We had limited time, and English-language Wikipedia has year pages going back as far as 500BC. Before that, years are grouped into decades and centuries - it would have been possible to parse those too, but hey, limited time.
- arethuza 16y ago"a few tens of thousands of years" Have we really had anything that qualifies as civilization for that long? I'd have though that 7000 years was more like it.
- zeteo 16y ago"I expected to begin about 4 billion years ago, for the entire history of our world." "History" means written records. That's why 3.999994 of those 4 billion years fall under prehistory.