• Striker@lemmy.worldM
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    1 year ago

    It’s likely that people were selectively documenting information since the beginning of time.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Yes, but not necessarily maliciously. No one person, no matter how good they are at being objective, can possibly see and hear and experience everything. Most of what historians wrote down would have been second or third hand information at best.

      I usually assume that there’s a lot of telephone-game style information passing built into any written record.

      • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No one person, no matter how good they are at being objective, can possibly see and hear and experience everything.

        Except Patrick Stewart.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      That’s what basically all of history has been, honestly. Our problem (or salvation, depending on how you look at it) will be that everyone’s random opinion is archived and will be viewable by our descendants. Previous generations had the advantage that their most asinine, pigheaded, and ludicrous ideas were filtered by history, since the more serious minds didn’t record in documents how a sizable portion of us were the absolute worst.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Previous generations had the advantage that their most asinine, pigheaded, and ludicrous ideas were filtered by history, since the more serious minds didn’t record in documents how a sizable portion of us were the absolute worst.

        You may be overestimating ancient writers and texts.

          • PugJesus@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Okay but have you read Shakespeare? Or, for the Roman graffiti you referenced, Plautus? Or Suetonius if you want some good tabloid fodder? They’re similarly crude, and while there is a much higher level of literacy and wordplay, it’s… not that much different at its core. Even that graffiti, funny enough, has an example in the other direction - there are instances of graffiti in Pompeii which demonstrate a knowledge of classical literature amongst the urban masses.

            My point in the end is simply that history is written by writers, and writers are not necessarily less insane, less gullible, or less prejudiced than the general population.