I tend to agree. The title put me off as well. The attitude that existence depends on the event being recorded is too relativist for my personal preference.
The central point, that civilizations tend to underrate their ancient predecessors because the historical record becomes degraded or misinterpreted is easy to agree with. However, the claim that our distant descendants won't have a clue what we really achieved is one-eyed. Five hundred years ago, Europeans had lost much knowledge of the history of European civilizations, and their knowledge of civilizations on other continents varied from total ignorance upwards. Five hundred years of progress in historical research and research methods, together with scientific progress in archaeology, geology, paleontology, climate science, medical science, etc., has allowed us to uncover much that we didn't know about the past, despite the fact that there is still much more that is lost forever. If our civilization suffers a catastrophic event, a future civilization may still be capable of uncovering many facts about us.
Given the amount of knowledge that archaeologists can deduce from fragments of pottery, fragments of human remains, fragments of ancient settlements, etc., and given that the products of nuclear technology can have very long half-lives, I think the author of the article draws a long bow in claiming that thousands of years hence there will be scant evidence that we had A-bombs in the 1940's.
I tend to agree. The title put me off as well. The attitude that existence depends on the event being recorded is too relativist for my personal preference.
The central point, that civilizations tend to underrate their ancient predecessors because the historical record becomes degraded or misinterpreted is easy to agree with. However, the claim that our distant descendants won't have a clue what we really achieved is one-eyed. Five hundred years ago, Europeans had lost much knowledge of the history of European civilizations, and their knowledge of civilizations on other continents varied from total ignorance upwards. Five hundred years of progress in historical research and research methods, together with scientific progress in archaeology, geology, paleontology, climate science, medical science, etc., has allowed us to uncover much that we didn't know about the past, despite the fact that there is still much more that is lost forever. If our civilization suffers a catastrophic event, a future civilization may still be capable of uncovering many facts about us.
Given the amount of knowledge that archaeologists can deduce from fragments of pottery, fragments of human remains, fragments of ancient settlements, etc., and given that the products of nuclear technology can have very long half-lives, I think the author of the article draws a long bow in claiming that thousands of years hence there will be scant evidence that we had A-bombs in the 1940's.