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  3. Hypothetically, if governments wordwide just suddenly became authoritarian and deleted all records of history, how much history can you recall from memory to re-teach to the next generation?

Hypothetically, if governments wordwide just suddenly became authoritarian and deleted all records of history, how much history can you recall from memory to re-teach to the next generation?

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  • mydarkesttimeline01@ani.socialM [email protected]

    I have a stack of Encyclopedia Britannica in my parents storage.

    F This user is from outside of this forum
    F This user is from outside of this forum
    [email protected]
    wrote last edited by
    #29

    All records of history have been deleted.

    B mydarkesttimeline01@ani.socialM 2 Replies Last reply
    1
    • D [email protected]

      Hypothetically, if governments wordwide just suddenly became authoritarian and deleted all records of history, you and some survivors escape to a remote area outside of government control, they all can't remember much from history (either didn't pay attwntion in class, or suffers memory loss from the governemtn attacks) and so you are designated as this community's official historian. How much can you remember? What's gonna be the official narrative of your little rebel community?

      F This user is from outside of this forum
      F This user is from outside of this forum
      [email protected]
      wrote last edited by
      #30

      IIT: People who don't understand the premise.

      1 Reply Last reply
      1
      • F [email protected]

        I think those dead trees would be considered "records of history."

        M This user is from outside of this forum
        M This user is from outside of this forum
        [email protected]
        wrote last edited by
        #31

        Good luck hunting down every last book that people mighr have. Especially when The Bible falls under the purview

        F 1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • T [email protected]

          If you think the tale of mosses is real history then we really are screwed.

          A This user is from outside of this forum
          A This user is from outside of this forum
          [email protected]
          wrote last edited by
          #32

          It’s not necessarily a real historical event, but an incredibly important story about liberation of the oppressed that influenced countless real historical movements.

          Herodotus’ histories is mostly fictional but you wouldn’t want to forget it. Same with the Iliad/Odyssey, Epic of Gilgamesh, etc

          T 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • D [email protected]

            Hypothetically, if governments wordwide just suddenly became authoritarian and deleted all records of history, you and some survivors escape to a remote area outside of government control, they all can't remember much from history (either didn't pay attwntion in class, or suffers memory loss from the governemtn attacks) and so you are designated as this community's official historian. How much can you remember? What's gonna be the official narrative of your little rebel community?

            M This user is from outside of this forum
            M This user is from outside of this forum
            [email protected]
            wrote last edited by
            #33

            "Look kid, all you need to know is that up until 2016 the world was simpler, but then they killed a gorilla which lead to the rise of fascism in 2025"

            M 1 Reply Last reply
            10
            • F [email protected]

              All records of history have been deleted.

              B This user is from outside of this forum
              B This user is from outside of this forum
              [email protected]
              wrote last edited by
              #34

              You can’t delete a book

              F F mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldM 3 Replies Last reply
              1
              • B [email protected]

                You can’t delete a book

                F This user is from outside of this forum
                F This user is from outside of this forum
                [email protected]
                wrote last edited by [email protected]
                #35

                “Hypothetically”

                Quick question - did you have breakfast this morning?……

                1 Reply Last reply
                2
                • M [email protected]

                  Good luck hunting down every last book that people mighr have. Especially when The Bible falls under the purview

                  F This user is from outside of this forum
                  F This user is from outside of this forum
                  [email protected]
                  wrote last edited by
                  #36

                  “Hypothetically”

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  1
                  • D [email protected]

                    Hypothetically, if governments wordwide just suddenly became authoritarian and deleted all records of history, you and some survivors escape to a remote area outside of government control, they all can't remember much from history (either didn't pay attwntion in class, or suffers memory loss from the governemtn attacks) and so you are designated as this community's official historian. How much can you remember? What's gonna be the official narrative of your little rebel community?

                    F This user is from outside of this forum
                    F This user is from outside of this forum
                    [email protected]
                    wrote last edited by
                    #37

                    This topic is a perfect example of “The Breakfast Question” in action.

                    Are there really this many people that struggle with hypotheticals?

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • B [email protected]

                      You can’t delete a book

                      F This user is from outside of this forum
                      F This user is from outside of this forum
                      [email protected]
                      wrote last edited by
                      #38

                      That's missing the entire point of this hypothetical question.

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • B [email protected]

                        You can’t delete a book

                        mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldM This user is from outside of this forum
                        mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldM This user is from outside of this forum
                        [email protected]
                        wrote last edited by
                        #39

                        You can’t delete a book

                        nonsense, raise it's temp to 451f and it'll delete easily.

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • D [email protected]

                          Hypothetically, if governments wordwide just suddenly became authoritarian and deleted all records of history, you and some survivors escape to a remote area outside of government control, they all can't remember much from history (either didn't pay attwntion in class, or suffers memory loss from the governemtn attacks) and so you are designated as this community's official historian. How much can you remember? What's gonna be the official narrative of your little rebel community?

                          B This user is from outside of this forum
                          B This user is from outside of this forum
                          [email protected]
                          wrote last edited by [email protected]
                          #40

                          So... US History, I've got you:

                          Okay, in 1607 we started a colony in a place that would later be famous for having a lot of racists. For about a hundred years we were happy fucking over Native Americans, then people wanted to stop paying taxes, so we had a war with England. We won, with a lot of help from the French, but we don't give them much credit.
                          We spent another 3/4 of a century fucking over Native Americans, building shit, and importing slaves, mostly from Africa. Then we had a Civil War about the slaves, killed each other a bunch, and in a huge surprise that no one saw coming, the part of the country that had all the industry won. We set the slaves free, so we could continue to treat them like crap. Then we went back to fucking over Native Americans, built a bunch of stuff (some of it was pretty cool), and started fucking around with the rest of the world. We started bringing in immigrants when things got shitty in other parts of the world, because we needed people to expand and someone else to be prejudiced against. We had some economic issues because some people wanted to be really rich, I'm sure taxes factored in there somewhere, but we pulled ourselves out of that with a couple of big wars and then we sorta took over half the world. We went to the moon, and appointed ourselves as "all around cool guys", although there were still a lot of issues with minorities and a big fracas about civil rights that some folks still haven't gotten over. But we thought we had to be tough guys to keep the USSR from making communism a thing, so we kinda ignored all that and started spending money on nukes and proxy wars instead of going to the moon. Rich people decided they didn't want to pay taxes again, and Reganomics mindfucked a generation of people into thinking you can run a country anywhere other than right into the fucking ground that way. After the Soviets made a mess of their half of the world and fucked off, we decided that things were too quiet and really started fucking stuff up in earnest. We pissed off a fresh batch of people in the middle east, because oil, and just kinda stirred the shit pot everywhere else because we were the biggest kid on the block. We also started the habit of surveilling everyone after some terrorists attacked us. Some of what we did might have been helpful, but there's so much chaos and so many pissed off people now it's hard to tell. Fast forward and some of us have figured out that we're causing problems, but we're neck deep in the sunk cost fallacy and busy letting people continue to promise us they can run the country better if rich folks pay less taxes.

                          TL;DR: It's taxes all the way down.

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          1
                          • D [email protected]

                            Hypothetically, if governments wordwide just suddenly became authoritarian and deleted all records of history, you and some survivors escape to a remote area outside of government control, they all can't remember much from history (either didn't pay attwntion in class, or suffers memory loss from the governemtn attacks) and so you are designated as this community's official historian. How much can you remember? What's gonna be the official narrative of your little rebel community?

                            B This user is from outside of this forum
                            B This user is from outside of this forum
                            [email protected]
                            wrote last edited by
                            #41

                            I literally have multiple copies of Wikipedia offline. Including one on a USB stick.

                            I don't think it would ever be possible to delete all records of history short of blowing up the entire planet at which point its quite moot.

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            5
                            • A [email protected]

                              It’s not necessarily a real historical event, but an incredibly important story about liberation of the oppressed that influenced countless real historical movements.

                              Herodotus’ histories is mostly fictional but you wouldn’t want to forget it. Same with the Iliad/Odyssey, Epic of Gilgamesh, etc

                              T This user is from outside of this forum
                              T This user is from outside of this forum
                              [email protected]
                              wrote last edited by
                              #42

                              Fair, but the context that they are not real historical events is critical.

                              A 1 Reply Last reply
                              1
                              • D [email protected]

                                Hypothetically, if governments wordwide just suddenly became authoritarian and deleted all records of history, you and some survivors escape to a remote area outside of government control, they all can't remember much from history (either didn't pay attwntion in class, or suffers memory loss from the governemtn attacks) and so you are designated as this community's official historian. How much can you remember? What's gonna be the official narrative of your little rebel community?

                                B This user is from outside of this forum
                                B This user is from outside of this forum
                                [email protected]
                                wrote last edited by
                                #43

                                This is why books are so important. Real, physical, paper books. The scenario you are proposing is precisely what Fahrenheit 451 is about.

                                D C A 3 Replies Last reply
                                8
                                • B [email protected]

                                  This is why books are so important. Real, physical, paper books. The scenario you are proposing is precisely what Fahrenheit 451 is about.

                                  D This user is from outside of this forum
                                  D This user is from outside of this forum
                                  [email protected]
                                  wrote last edited by
                                  #44

                                  How do I print the 100GB English Wikipedia?

                                  How do I even transport something that big without the authoritarian governmwnt noticing?

                                  somethingburger@jlai.luS mudman@fedia.ioM 2 Replies Last reply
                                  1
                                  • mydarkesttimeline01@ani.socialM [email protected]

                                    I have a stack of Encyclopedia Britannica in my parents storage.

                                    hupf@feddit.orgH This user is from outside of this forum
                                    hupf@feddit.orgH This user is from outside of this forum
                                    [email protected]
                                    wrote last edited by
                                    #45

                                    I have a stack of the Animorphs in my attic. Yours is just speculative fiction.

                                    mydarkesttimeline01@ani.socialM 1 Reply Last reply
                                    1
                                    • B [email protected]

                                      This is why books are so important. Real, physical, paper books. The scenario you are proposing is precisely what Fahrenheit 451 is about.

                                      C This user is from outside of this forum
                                      C This user is from outside of this forum
                                      [email protected]
                                      wrote last edited by
                                      #46

                                      the catch is that the Fahrenheit 451 scenario nowadays just require a storage device to fail... very ecological, Greta must approve it

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • hupf@feddit.orgH [email protected]

                                        I have a stack of the Animorphs in my attic. Yours is just speculative fiction.

                                        mydarkesttimeline01@ani.socialM This user is from outside of this forum
                                        mydarkesttimeline01@ani.socialM This user is from outside of this forum
                                        [email protected]
                                        wrote last edited by
                                        #47

                                        .......huh?

                                        hupf@feddit.orgH 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • F [email protected]

                                          All records of history have been deleted.

                                          mydarkesttimeline01@ani.socialM This user is from outside of this forum
                                          mydarkesttimeline01@ani.socialM This user is from outside of this forum
                                          [email protected]
                                          wrote last edited by [email protected]
                                          #48

                                          Like others, I question the ability to delete a book. And while a regime would be able to change digital literature easily, and educational literature like school books being a close second; changing a book in someone's storage unit is a lot harder.

                                          It also handwaves away the other ways we keep history as well. Would people's family photo albums be deleted? What about a great grandma's diary? In some rural areas the family bible has some insanely well kept family records.

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