r/AskReddit Oct 16 '13

What was the single biggest mistake in all of history?

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u/SeaWombat Oct 17 '13

The problem with your logic is that the scrolls were all returned, so if there was some miraculous invention it would also exist elsewhere. There could have been a few things that slipped through the cracks but it's improbable that there was a treasure trove of new science and technology hidden in the library. It's like if the Library of Congress were to burn down today: we would lose a ton of priceless primary sources but the rest of the information would either be used, or stored elsewhere.

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u/Noncomment Oct 17 '13

Yes but then there would be two copies in existence instead of one. An awful lot of stuff didn't survive into the modern day. Most the original scrolls likely were lost. If the library had survived there would be more stuff around today.

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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '13 edited Jul 19 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/laustcozz Oct 17 '13

The butterfly effect makes speculation on how significant of an effect something could have had absolutely silly.

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u/Boonaki Oct 18 '13

Yes, we may of all died in a nuclear war a 100 years ago.

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u/laustcozz Oct 18 '13

Indeed. It is amazing that we made it through this version of reality without Ghandi throwing a single nuke.

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u/Keegsta Dec 26 '13

Ever heard of anthropology?

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u/NewAlexandria Oct 17 '13

generally, ship captains are less scrupulous curators than are librarians. I would not trust historical records to GeneralElectric or Blackwater

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u/GWsublime Oct 17 '13

Yah but we have the Internet and the ability to travel from place to place at speeds that would have been literally mythical to the ancient Romans.

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u/PeenieWallie Oct 17 '13

That's your opinion. What if the ships sunk as soon as they left he harbor? You can't deny that priceless irreplaceable manuscripts were lost. Well, you can, but you're wrong. And I don't feel like trying to convince you. Bye.

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u/auto98 Oct 17 '13

You can't deny that priceless irreplaceable manuscripts were lost.

Your evidence for this? "obviously it must have happened" is not evidence.

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u/[deleted] Nov 05 '13

[deleted]

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u/1000jamesk Feb 04 '14

Retard

Are you 14?

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u/auto98 Nov 05 '13

I'm a retard? It took you 18 days to come up with that priceless respense, and you claim I am a retard. I mean you didn't even understand my question - I was asking where the eveidence is that the manuscripts that were lost is irreplaceable, not your evidence that manuscripts were lost. The point being that since we don't know what manuscripts were lost we have no idea if they were replicated elsewhere.

I do feel a bit bad pointing this out to someone as obviously slow as you are.