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Something I've been thinking about lately is how World War Two is receding from our collective memory and how "archaic" it will eventually come to be seen? The

Something I've been thinking about lately is how World War Two is receding from our collective memory and how "archaic" it will eventually come to be seen? The last veterans will pass away within the next few years. In less than twenty years, WWII will have happened a century ago. It will be as ancient as the Franco-Prussan War of 1871 to someone who was alive in 1971, or to World War One to people today. Humanity will move into the 22nd century and WWII will be two centuries old. Two centuries ago, you had the Napoleonic Wars. In the 23rd century, it will be 300 years old. 300 years ago, you had the War of the Spanish Succession (a war only nerds know about at this point) and the Seven Years War. Will Hitler continue to be the go-to example of prime evil in people's minds then? I'm not so certain. Pupils in the 22nd century will read about the Enigma machine and the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, think to themselves "how primitive they were then", then send their friend a text using an unbreakable post-quantum encryption algorithm. West Point cadets will read about how German and Soviet commanders got creative with Panzers and T-34s, then go into a virtual simulation where they press a few buttons to coordinate a multi-domain kill chain to direct a smart cruise missile from a destroyer in the South Atlantic to a tank force in Pakistan, thousands of miles away. Aerospace engineering students will read about the V2 rockets, then start their summer internships on Lunar Base 3 (on the actual Moon). And eventually, will they even stop learning about it? Are there any lessons to draw here about our view of the past and the lessons we can learn from them? Our ancestors were just as creative and smart as we, they just had more limited means.

mschuster91 3y ago
> Something I've been thinking about lately is how World War Two is receding from our collective memory and how "archaic" it will eventually come to be seen? Yeah, we're already seeing this with Holocaust denialism - as ever more and more witnesses die, revisionists have an ever easier game denying or downplaying what happened, and with no small "thanks" to the US who never bothered to follow the European example and criminalize Holocaust denial. At least for the Holocaust, we have the physical evidence kept alive in the former death camp sites... but what about those atrocities that didn't leave much physical evidence?
- hgsgm 3y ago
  Criminalizing lies is dangerous, because the government can decide what it thinks are lies. If government wants to fight lies, money is better spent funding the spread of good information.
  - hedora 3y ago
    The US used to get this right by outlawing media consolidation and foreign ownership, then simply not having a domestic government-run propaganda outlet. Of course, those rules were all repealed, and now we have things like Fox News which simultaneously violates all three of those rules (it isn’t government funded, but it is a de facto mouthpiece for the federal GOP). The left wing media has been playing catch up ever since.
    - Xeoncross 3y ago
      At least there is one conservative conservative TV source left. I would feel very uncomfortable in a one-sided situation with no liberal or conservative news sources. It's bad enough that only a few companies own basically every source already. One evening party's worth of people control what is basically the 'truth' in our nation.
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        One? Lol. OANN and Newsmax still exist.
        Xeoncross 3y ago
        I've never seen OANN or Newsmax. Must be some obscure channels. Fox News is the only TV source I've heard of mainstream conservatives watching.
scotty79 3y ago
I think World wars won't be easily forgotten because they have amazing branding through the use of the word "world" that is timeless. Unless we seriously screw up something about naming World War III I think we can keep the franchise fresh for ages. > Will Hitler continue to be the go-to example of prime evil in people's minds then? I think so, as long as people believe in holocaust and no one else tops him. > And eventually, will they even stop learning about it? We do still learn about pharaohs ... and cowboys for some reason. Some history just gets immortalized in tropes.
- euroderf 3y ago
  I suspect that in the year 4000, Madonna will still be a known quantity. Michael Jackson, not so much.
pjc50 3y ago
The interesting thing to me is how much less subsequent wars have made it into popular culture. Vietnam is still pivotal in the US, but the Iraq war and twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan have kind of vanished? There's a sort of layer of "generic middle Eastern war" in popular culture, via Call Of Duty and action movies, but not anything more realistic? > Will Hitler continue to be the go-to example of prime evil in people's minds then? I'm not so certain. Prior to this it seems to have been https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg (someone once asked the question on Reddit "what the go-to example of war horror was before WW2") Once the TV cameras re-enter eastern Ukraine perhaps we will see. Or perhaps not, given that it will be too horrific to show on social media or TV anywhere.
FridayoLeary 3y ago
>then send their friend a text using an unbreakable post- quantum encryption algorithm. You're wrong there. They won't because governments will move to ban them so that they can carry on snooping. It's more likely that the texts will be simutaneously uploaded onto a publicly accessible database, which will be encouraged because "only criminals have something they want to hide".
saalweachter 3y ago
In another context, I gave a back of the envelope calculation that WWII comprised approximately 1% of human history -- roughly 20 billion person-years were lived during that time, and heavily influenced by it, compared to around 2.3 trillion person-years lived since anatomically modern humans first arose a couple-three hundred thousand years ago. Vietnam lasted longer, but only was a salient issue for a much smaller fraction of the world's population at the time, so probably less than a tenth of the person-years lived in the shadow of WWII were similarly affected by the Vietnam War. Unless there is a WWIII, the second World War will probably be the war of the human species, and a significant part of our history for centuries to come.
- eggsome 3y ago
  Just to further back up your point when you look at the cost of US wars here: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money_huge.png http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money_huge.png WW2 is head and shoulders above everything else.

mschuster91 3y ago

> Something I've been thinking about lately is how World War Two is receding from our collective memory and how "archaic" it will eventually come to be seen? Yeah, we're already seeing this with Holocaust denialism - as ever more and more witnesses die, revisionists have an ever easier game denying or downplaying what happened, and with no small "thanks" to the US who never bothered to follow the European example and criminalize Holocaust denial. At least for the Holocaust, we have the physical evidence kept alive in the former death camp sites... but what about those atrocities that didn't leave much physical evidence?

hgsgm 3y ago
Criminalizing lies is dangerous, because the government can decide what it thinks are lies. If government wants to fight lies, money is better spent funding the spread of good information.
- hedora 3y ago
  The US used to get this right by outlawing media consolidation and foreign ownership, then simply not having a domestic government-run propaganda outlet. Of course, those rules were all repealed, and now we have things like Fox News which simultaneously violates all three of those rules (it isn’t government funded, but it is a de facto mouthpiece for the federal GOP). The left wing media has been playing catch up ever since.
  - Xeoncross 3y ago
    At least there is one conservative conservative TV source left. I would feel very uncomfortable in a one-sided situation with no liberal or conservative news sources. It's bad enough that only a few companies own basically every source already. One evening party's worth of people control what is basically the 'truth' in our nation.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      One? Lol. OANN and Newsmax still exist.
      - Xeoncross 3y ago
        I've never seen OANN or Newsmax. Must be some obscure channels. Fox News is the only TV source I've heard of mainstream conservatives watching.

scotty79 3y ago

I think World wars won't be easily forgotten because they have amazing branding through the use of the word "world" that is timeless. Unless we seriously screw up something about naming World War III I think we can keep the franchise fresh for ages. > Will Hitler continue to be the go-to example of prime evil in people's minds then? I think so, as long as people believe in holocaust and no one else tops him. > And eventually, will they even stop learning about it? We do still learn about pharaohs ... and cowboys for some reason. Some history just gets immortalized in tropes.

euroderf 3y ago
I suspect that in the year 4000, Madonna will still be a known quantity. Michael Jackson, not so much.

pjc50 3y ago

The interesting thing to me is how much less subsequent wars have made it into popular culture. Vietnam is still pivotal in the US, but the Iraq war and twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan have kind of vanished? There's a sort of layer of "generic middle Eastern war" in popular culture, via Call Of Duty and action movies, but not anything more realistic? > Will Hitler continue to be the go-to example of prime evil in people's minds then? I'm not so certain. Prior to this it seems to have been https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg (someone once asked the question on Reddit "what the go-to example of war horror was before WW2") Once the TV cameras re-enter eastern Ukraine perhaps we will see. Or perhaps not, given that it will be too horrific to show on social media or TV anywhere.

FridayoLeary 3y ago

>then send their friend a text using an unbreakable post- quantum encryption algorithm. You're wrong there. They won't because governments will move to ban them so that they can carry on snooping. It's more likely that the texts will be simutaneously uploaded onto a publicly accessible database, which will be encouraged because "only criminals have something they want to hide".

saalweachter 3y ago

In another context, I gave a back of the envelope calculation that WWII comprised approximately 1% of human history -- roughly 20 billion person-years were lived during that time, and heavily influenced by it, compared to around 2.3 trillion person-years lived since anatomically modern humans first arose a couple-three hundred thousand years ago. Vietnam lasted longer, but only was a salient issue for a much smaller fraction of the world's population at the time, so probably less than a tenth of the person-years lived in the shadow of WWII were similarly affected by the Vietnam War. Unless there is a WWIII, the second World War will probably be the war of the human species, and a significant part of our history for centuries to come.

eggsome 3y ago
Just to further back up your point when you look at the cost of US wars here: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money_huge.png http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money_huge.png WW2 is head and shoulders above everything else.