Fifth Law: All history is relevant, but the history of technology is the most relevant.
updated 8mo ago
Fifth Law: All history is relevant, but the history of technology is the most relevant.
That’s a theoretical argument. An observational argument is that we know that the technological innovation of the Renaissance began by rediscovering history. And we know that the Founding Fathers cared deeply about history. In both cases, they stepped forward by drawing from the past. So if you’re a technologist looking to blaze a trail with a new
... See morefrom The Network State: How To Start a New Country by Balaji Srinivasan
This is one of the distinguishing marks of history as an academic discipline – the better you know a particular historical period, the harder it becomes to explain why things happened one way and not another.
from Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- History, which contains literally everything that has happened to human civilization, is the data of the social sciences.
As The Scholar's Stage puts it: The problem with history is that it is too big. It is impossible to get a fine grained picture of every people and era on the planet. There is just too much of it.
TWO DIMENSIONS OF HISTORY:
The fir... See morefrom History in the Space-Time Continuum by Étienne Fortier-Dubois
Keely Adler added
History is not just the evolution of technology; it is the evolution of thought. By understanding the reality of the people who came before us, we can see why we look at the world the way we do, and what our contribution is toward further progress. We can pinpoint where we come in, so to speak, in the longer development of Civilization, and that gi
... See morefrom The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.
from Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
History comes into play because you’ll need to (a) write a study of that moral deficit and (b) draw from the past to find alternative social arrangements where that moral deficit did not occur. Tech may be part of the solution, and calculations may well be involved, but the moment you write about any societal problem in depth you’ll find yourself w
... See morefrom The Network State: How To Start a New Country by Balaji Srinivasan
History is mostly the study of surprising events. But it is often used by investors and economists as an unassailable guide to the future. Do you see the irony? Do you see the problem?
from The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness by Morgan Housel
History isn’t the study of the past; it is the study of change. History teaches us what remains the same, what changes, and how things change.
from Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari