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I seriously doubt there's very much highly relevant old knowledge locked away somewhere. Is there interesting stuff we don't have good access to? Sure, but ma

I seriously doubt there's very much highly relevant old knowledge locked away somewhere. Is there interesting stuff we don't have good access to? Sure, but mainly of interest to historians (pro or amateur). You're not likely to find the cure for cancer written down in some 1000-year-old book somewhere. And while a few people might really be interested in reading decades or centuries-old novels that weren't popular enough to be called "classics" now, the vast majority of people aren't going to find such stories about people in the distant past all that interesting. Of course, it's best to preserve past knowledge, but I think the idea that this is part of some kind of conspiracy to keep people buying new stuff is pretty silly. People are always going to want new stuff, as society grows and changes.

sersi 2y ago
> find the cure for cancer written down in some 1000-year-old book somewhere. While you're most likely right about the cure for cancer, I did want to note that this is kind of how the cure for malaria was found (artemisinin). Tu Youyou who won the nobel prize systematically investigated Traditional Chinese Medecine remedies until she came across one that was effective. That particular remedy was described in a 1600 years old text The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency Treatments, written in 340 by Ge Hong. Note: before anyone think that the fact that a remedy described in traditional Chinese texts mean that TCM is reliable and a viable alternative in all text, she screened over 2,000 traditional Chinese recipes and made 380 herbal extracts, from some 200 herbs which were tested on mice. So, yes one of the remedy were successful but the success rate of TCM was not particularly high :)
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  This is really interesting actually, but I do want to point out that I'm not saying all old knowledge is only of interest to historians: I was arguing against the idea that some old knowledge is "locked away" and not publicly available as part of some kind of conspiracy. Lots of old knowledge is readily available to the public. The complete works of Shakespeare are a good example here, as is Homer's epics The Odyssey and The Iliad. (I don't know if that TCM stuff is or not.) These kinds of things are considered "classics" and are frequently reproduced, now available online in countless places, etc. Obviously, lots of people besides historians think they're important, and so they're copied frequently and made available at large. As the famous rule goes, "99% of everything is crap", so probably all the best stuff from the past is well-preserved, and the rest, not so much. I seriously doubt that something as good as Shakespeare is locked away in someone's private library and virtually unknown to almost anyone. Of course, there's always exceptions and you never know when some overlooked tidbit of info from the distant past might be really useful, as you showed here, so I do think it's important to preserve and enable easy access to as many old works as possible.
hotspot_one 2y ago
> I seriously doubt there's very much highly relevant old knowledge locked away somewhere. Interesting take on what "knowledge" means and what makes knowledge valuable. If I understand "knowledge" as "information directly relevant to a technical problem", then: - the knowledge which remains relevant to that problem will stay available to practitioners (i.e. the properties of a Gaussian distribution, from Gauss, 1809) - the knowledge which is no longer relevant to that problem will probably be lost (how to compute the integral of a Gaussian using a slide rule. Slide rules first developed circa 1620, last used circa 1970) In other words, yes, your point is profoundly true. Knowledge relevant to a specific task stays available, not relevant gets pruned quickly. My question would be if we want to use that definition of relevant and that understanding of what drives value. i.e. I'm not asking if you are correct, I've just shown that you are correct. My question is if the assumptions/values which make this correct are assumptions/values we are comfortable with. In other words, is is wise?
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  It's not just technical knowledge either: look at Shakespeare's works. They're centuries old, but there's absolutely no danger of those disappearing. Lots of old stuff is well-preserved and highly duplicated for easy access.
lanstin 2y ago
My video streaming data supports this idea even tho I rewatch all Star Trek series (except TOS).

sersi 2y ago

> find the cure for cancer written down in some 1000-year-old book somewhere. While you're most likely right about the cure for cancer, I did want to note that this is kind of how the cure for malaria was found (artemisinin). Tu Youyou who won the nobel prize systematically investigated Traditional Chinese Medecine remedies until she came across one that was effective. That particular remedy was described in a 1600 years old text The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency Treatments, written in 340 by Ge Hong. Note: before anyone think that the fact that a remedy described in traditional Chinese texts mean that TCM is reliable and a viable alternative in all text, she screened over 2,000 traditional Chinese recipes and made 380 herbal extracts, from some 200 herbs which were tested on mice. So, yes one of the remedy were successful but the success rate of TCM was not particularly high :)

shiroiushi 2y ago
This is really interesting actually, but I do want to point out that I'm not saying all old knowledge is only of interest to historians: I was arguing against the idea that some old knowledge is "locked away" and not publicly available as part of some kind of conspiracy. Lots of old knowledge is readily available to the public. The complete works of Shakespeare are a good example here, as is Homer's epics The Odyssey and The Iliad. (I don't know if that TCM stuff is or not.) These kinds of things are considered "classics" and are frequently reproduced, now available online in countless places, etc. Obviously, lots of people besides historians think they're important, and so they're copied frequently and made available at large. As the famous rule goes, "99% of everything is crap", so probably all the best stuff from the past is well-preserved, and the rest, not so much. I seriously doubt that something as good as Shakespeare is locked away in someone's private library and virtually unknown to almost anyone. Of course, there's always exceptions and you never know when some overlooked tidbit of info from the distant past might be really useful, as you showed here, so I do think it's important to preserve and enable easy access to as many old works as possible.

hotspot_one 2y ago

> I seriously doubt there's very much highly relevant old knowledge locked away somewhere. Interesting take on what "knowledge" means and what makes knowledge valuable. If I understand "knowledge" as "information directly relevant to a technical problem", then: - the knowledge which remains relevant to that problem will stay available to practitioners (i.e. the properties of a Gaussian distribution, from Gauss, 1809) - the knowledge which is no longer relevant to that problem will probably be lost (how to compute the integral of a Gaussian using a slide rule. Slide rules first developed circa 1620, last used circa 1970) In other words, yes, your point is profoundly true. Knowledge relevant to a specific task stays available, not relevant gets pruned quickly. My question would be if we want to use that definition of relevant and that understanding of what drives value. i.e. I'm not asking if you are correct, I've just shown that you are correct. My question is if the assumptions/values which make this correct are assumptions/values we are comfortable with. In other words, is is wise?

shiroiushi 2y ago
It's not just technical knowledge either: look at Shakespeare's works. They're centuries old, but there's absolutely no danger of those disappearing. Lots of old stuff is well-preserved and highly duplicated for easy access.

lanstin 2y ago

My video streaming data supports this idea even tho I rewatch all Star Trek series (except TOS).