Murtaza Hussain pfp
Murtaza Hussain
@mazmhussain
It’s really crazy how premodern historians used to just completely make things up. Even if the exaggerations and fibs are not as extreme I have a private suspicion that most of recorded history is essentially false.
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horsefacts pfp
horsefacts
@horsefacts.eth
Big time. Have you read David Deutsch or Karl Popper? Reframing history and science as a long process of error correction to wrong but useful models makes the most sense to me. Everyone’s always been wrong and they still are.
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HH pfp
HH
@hamud
It makes the process of Quranic and hadith preservation all that more special
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Vanessa Williams pfp
Vanessa Williams
@fridgebuzz
From the history books I’ve read, when they quote old sources (Roman, or European Dark & Middle Ages, for example), it’s a lot of ignorance, fantasy and speculation. About the only meaningful bits can be gleaned by comparing many texts and seeing the rare places they agree. Complicated because they rely on each other—confabulations on top of fantasies. And then there’s flattering themselves, or the Emperor, or aggrandizing the Church. So yes, a whack ton of written history is certainly false.
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Michael of St. Joseph 🔏 pfp
Michael of St. Joseph 🔏
@michaelofstjoe
I'm not sure what this excerpt is in reference to, but I think premodern historians were much more honest than we give them credit for. However, the ancient world had a fundamentally different way of seeing and describing the world around them. If you take everything at face-value it will sound like a fantasy story.
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Icetoad 🎩 🍕 🎶 🐈 💚 pfp
Icetoad 🎩 🍕 🎶 🐈 💚
@icetoad.eth
Can't really call them historians then, can we?
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Maretus pfp
Maretus
@maretus.eth
It’s even crazier how much of human history was probably lost due to rising sea levels. 10,000ish years ago, prior to the end of the younger dryas, sea levels were 400 feet lower. Where do humans normally live? By the water. Underwater archaeology is still very new. I suspect there are human settlements and possibly even megalithic structures lost to sea level rise. Same for the Sahara desert which was also green during this period. There were most definitely cultures and possibly even larger civilizations that existed during this time but have been lost to the sands of the Sahara. Places like Gobekli Tepe make me think that human history and civilization goes back further than Sumer.
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Callum Wanderloots ✨ pfp
Callum Wanderloots ✨
@wanderloots.eth
Definitely, makes you question a lot of things we “know” about history
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Rando pfp
Rando
@chasing-pointers
Just like postmodern historians do.
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Derek pfp
Derek
@badadvicehq
It was easy for them because they didn't have people to fack-check them. It'd interest many to know the many things that are lost to time and what they think they know are just the figments of historians imaginations, rather than actual history
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downshift pfp
downshift
@downshift.eth
scrubbed, altered, destroyed...unverifiable. deciding what to read and believe is daunting 🤷‍♂️ (perhaps Thoreau was on to something...)
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lawrenceroman.eth 🎩🎭 pfp
lawrenceroman.eth 🎩🎭
@lawrenceroman
One only has to take a look at the growth of literacy … once upon a time the history books were written by the winners, there are barely any history on the losers. Kings and the very few that knew how to write wrote history
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Dean Pierce 👨‍💻🌎🌍 pfp
Dean Pierce 👨‍💻🌎🌍
@deanpierce.eth
I mean, gotta get paid though right? I remember when I learned about Marco Polo and how it's still very unclear if he even existed and if the literature about him was intended to be historical or pure fantasy. Apparently in several accounts he meets magical beasts etc like it's the Odyssey, or Gulliver's Travels or something. Historians throughout history did their writing to make money and be recognized, and unfortunately those that spice up their work with a good story will have wider distribution. Super easy to justify embellishing when you're hungry. Those old historians were all still just people trying to get by. I definitely don't envy modern historians working to piece all that together.
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JestemZero pfp
JestemZero
@jestemzero
Isn't this likely a result that the humans at the time did not care much about fabrications? Much like now, tbh.
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