And let's not think about prehistory

3 months ago by CobraCommander to c/historymemes

Context: While the 90% figure is made-up, the premise is true in that most of human history has gone unrecorded. History is considered to have begun with the start of proto-writing (earliest being the Jiahu symbols in China circa 6600 BCE) to writing (3200 BCE), and thus the advent of recorded history.

luthis 22 points 3 months ago

So it's more like 99.9%?

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CobraCommander 15 points 3 months ago

Realistically, yeah most likely. Our species has been around for so long, and so little was ever recorded down.

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nialv7 11 points 3 months ago

life stories of people like you and me will never be told

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baguettefish 4 points 3 months ago

you're telling it right now

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aeronmelon 21 points 3 months ago

Worse still, how much of recorded history was subsequently lost?

Everything from the Library of Alexandria to lost episodes of Doctor Who. So much of what little WAS recorded is also gone.

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iocase 11 points 3 months ago

Or is still in the ground. Less than 1% of all clay tablets have been recovered around the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians. There's an enormous amount of information that's still sitting there untouched due to politics, extremists, or lack of funding.

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CobraCommander 10 points 3 months ago

Thankfully we are having some luck in restoring lost content.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...

https://www.theguardian.com/...

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harambe69 9 points 3 months ago

If we could ever figure out FTL and create super-telescopes, I want them to point it at earth from 200,000 light years away and hit record.

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