4 ms·

> As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic Maybe, but it is not because we tend to be overly pessimistic in general, that serious problems cannot happen

> As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic Maybe, but it is not because we tend to be overly pessimistic in general, that serious problems cannot happen to us. Entire civilizations have diapered in the past, so we should remain vigilant. After all, another bias that humans have, is a strong tendency to believe that what is true now, will remain true forever.

rendall 6y ago
Very, very, very true. The light of civilization is a flickering candle in the darkness I often think about the city-states along the Silk Road: healthy, peaceful, cultured, unprecedented prosperity for their time. All defeated when the hordes of Genghis Kahn rode by, many utterly destroyed The Empire of Mali. The Kingdom of Lithuania. Macedon. Tyre. Babylon. Carthage. Samarkand. Assyria. All once mighty, all gone, perhaps a place-name remains, if that
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  > The Empire of Mali. The Kingdom of Lithuania. Macedon. Tyre. Babylon. Carthage. Samarkand. Assyria. All once mighty, all gone, perhaps a place-name remains, if that Aside from perhaps Macedon and Carthage (indirectly via Rome) most of those don't even warrant a mention in the high school history curriculum (in the US, at least).
  - nytgop77 6y ago
    history starts at 1700 when columbus discovered indians?
    - InitialLastName 6y ago
      Not far off. IIRC, my freshman year history course (at a high-achieving school, no less) covered world history from the agricultural revolution until 1500 CE. That's ~14000 years (call it 4000 of knowable history). There's not a lot of time for anything other than "Don't forget, there were lots of other extraordinarily successful civilizations we know about that were less influential on our intellectual forebears".
  - rmah 6y ago
    I've seen the high school world history books of my nieces and nephews and all of those (except maybe lithuania), were at least mentioned in US schools. Other civilizations ranging from the maya to the khmer were also included. By necessity, none of them are examined in depth but they all got at least a few pages. The simple fact is that pre-industrial history has had literally thousands of different thriving civilizations around the world. It's simply not possible to even briefly cover anything but a fraction of the more "important" in a non-university setting.
- rendall 6y ago
  >> The Kingdom of Lithuania For anyone still paying attention, I should have written "The Grand Duchy of Lithuania", which was a powerful state for hundreds of years in the Middle Ages The Kingdom of Lithuania, while also powerful, lasted about 2 years

rendall 6y ago

Very, very, very true. The light of civilization is a flickering candle in the darkness I often think about the city-states along the Silk Road: healthy, peaceful, cultured, unprecedented prosperity for their time. All defeated when the hordes of Genghis Kahn rode by, many utterly destroyed The Empire of Mali. The Kingdom of Lithuania. Macedon. Tyre. Babylon. Carthage. Samarkand. Assyria. All once mighty, all gone, perhaps a place-name remains, if that

InitialLastName 6y ago
> The Empire of Mali. The Kingdom of Lithuania. Macedon. Tyre. Babylon. Carthage. Samarkand. Assyria. All once mighty, all gone, perhaps a place-name remains, if that Aside from perhaps Macedon and Carthage (indirectly via Rome) most of those don't even warrant a mention in the high school history curriculum (in the US, at least).
- nytgop77 6y ago
  history starts at 1700 when columbus discovered indians?
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    Not far off. IIRC, my freshman year history course (at a high-achieving school, no less) covered world history from the agricultural revolution until 1500 CE. That's ~14000 years (call it 4000 of knowable history). There's not a lot of time for anything other than "Don't forget, there were lots of other extraordinarily successful civilizations we know about that were less influential on our intellectual forebears".
- rmah 6y ago
  I've seen the high school world history books of my nieces and nephews and all of those (except maybe lithuania), were at least mentioned in US schools. Other civilizations ranging from the maya to the khmer were also included. By necessity, none of them are examined in depth but they all got at least a few pages. The simple fact is that pre-industrial history has had literally thousands of different thriving civilizations around the world. It's simply not possible to even briefly cover anything but a fraction of the more "important" in a non-university setting.
rendall 6y ago
>> The Kingdom of Lithuania For anyone still paying attention, I should have written "The Grand Duchy of Lithuania", which was a powerful state for hundreds of years in the Middle Ages The Kingdom of Lithuania, while also powerful, lasted about 2 years