The greatest tragedy in human history

Ivan Seeking

This idea came up in another thread and I thought it might make for an interesting discussion. So, what are your thoughts? I have always believed that the loss of the library at Alexandria may be one of the greatest tragedies of all time. Of course we can't know what we are missing, but there is reason to believe that this was a monumental loss to humanity.

Of course loss of life is hard to compare to loss of information, but who knows how much we had to re-discover; say for example medical information that could have saved the lives of millions through the ages.

TheStatutoryApe

I always have a hard time with these sorts of questions. I think it really depends on the way in which you look at the event's. I agree that the library was a great tragedy but not every one values books and information so highly.

Moonbear

Well, it depends on whether you mean the short-term or long-term. Lives cut short seems tragic, but in the larger time scale, people have a pretty short shelf-life; everyone who died in a tragedy was destined to die eventually anyway. Information, on the other hand, can last a long time and possibly benefit many generations. So, I'd have to agree that on the assumption we really did lose valuable information, loss of the information is a greater tragedy to humanity on the larger time scale.

Danger

trying very hard not to mention your last couple of elections...

Pengwuino

lol gotta love em. *pets the canadaian*, good boy

Danger

I'd prefer that Evo do that, if you don't mind.

zoobyshoe

There's the rub. Had the library not been destroyed physics may have advanced to the nuclear age in 1345 and some castle-dwelling tyrant may have precipitously blown all his competitors to ashes. We can't know if we missed something even worse than what did happen.

Ivan Seeking

good point. Vlad the Impaler, or Genghis Khan with a nuke; now there's a thought.

Kakarot

sounds like a good scifi movie. bill and ted go back in time and save the library and then ghengis khan nukes the world

kaos

Or the catholic church. Convert or die!!!!

kaos

And maybe the muslims as well.....

matthyaouw

How about fall of the Roman Empire? It took hundereds of years to regain some of the skills lost with the Romans.

arildno

The emergence of Judaism/Christianity&Islam.

dextercioby

I fully agree with Arildno.

Daniel.

Jimmy Snyder

Judaism arose amid a culture of human sacrifice and temple prostution. I doubt the world would be better off without the Jewish reform.

Astronuc

Or one could say, the emergence of religion, or is that the emergence of organized or institutionalized irrational thought - that being the concept of 'faith' or 'belief' in the absence of evidence or fact.

I would have to say the greatest tragedy is the Holocaust and World War II, and following closely the purges and pogroms of Stalin, the Cultural Revolution, and period of Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia (Kamupchea). The level of inhumanity and evil is profoundly sad. Then one could add the Crusades and the Inquisition.

arildno

There are some massacres of natives in California&Texas during the 19th century which ought to be mentioned..