this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025
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History Memes
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I think its interesting that we are also very biased towards long lasting societies, because they leave more stuff for us to study, and literate ones, because they can tell us with their own words what events there were. We still dont have a complete picture of the battle of Cannae, one of the consequential in all of history, whose effects we are still living with. Writing was only invented 4500ish years ago, and humans are as a species are way way older.
Its fucked up to think about Catal Hayuk, or Utsie.
It's also interesting how short these time frames actually are. 2000 years are just 80 generations.
All but the most important bullet points of history from that time is wiped out.
And our intuitive understanding "how the past was" is just from maybe 4-5 generations ago.
The past is a vast place and we only ever scratch the very surface of it.
No one even really knows what their great grandparents were like, unless they were famous or something. I have no idea who my great, great grandfather even was. It stops in 1872
Aren't great grandparents the parents of your grandparents? I knew them, and a lot of people did know theirs. Mine were nice people.
What about your great, great grandparents then? Do you know what they were like?
True, depends on the age when everyone got kids. But the point of the person you replied to still stands: You know the people you met, you might know one or the other story of the people they met, but then it stops.
One of my great grandparents is still alive. They told me a handful of stories from their parents and grandparents. That's it. There's no history beyond a few birth and marriage certificates from beyond that.