[ExI] jarring change

[spike at rainier66.com]

> On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] jarring change

 

 

 

On Mon, Sep 14, 2020 at 11:41 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

I hate history because there were no theories presented to try to make sense of the things we were supposed to memorize.  I can remember ideas just fine:  names, dates, places, not so much.  Huge waste of time for something one can always look up.  

 

>…You didn't have a good history teacher if there was no overarching theme to tie it all together.  I love history as a complete hobby at this point, but a great history book (or educator) will tie it all together somehow through their particular lens.   I will admit that I generally try to read histories written before 1960 (give or take) because I find anything done beyond that point frequently has an overt agenda behind it (and I don't mean that in the positive way I mean it above).   I still read newer histories as well because they are frequently updated with the latest archaeological knowledge which may change things greatly, but it's very easy to see any bias in newer works.   Of course, even the older works have their own biases but I generally find the quality in general much higher in terms of writing and framing…

 

 

 

 

Dylan, check out Isaac Asimov’s take on history.  He goes about it not politically but from the point of view of technology and science.  It seems like a great approach: it doesn’t matter all that much which party or which country is winning the current battle but rather what scientific discoveries are made, what technology was developed and how did a particular country or culture embrace it or reject it, what was the result.

 

In my view this is a most enlighted way to write about history.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Chronology-World-History-Modern/dp/0062700367/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1 <https://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Chronology-World-History-Modern/dp/0062700367/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Isaac+Asimov&qid=1600103325&s=books&sr=1-2> &keywords=Isaac+Asimov&qid=1600103325&s=books&sr=1-2

 

spike

 

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