Re: Re: Goo prophylaxis:consensus
Kennita Watson (kwatson@netcom.com)
Sat, 6 Sep 1997 08:19:07 -0700
>> >> As one who considers the burning of the Library at Alexandria to be
>> >>the most enormous crime in history ....
>> >
>> >Wow! Someone else thinks so too!
>>
>> I would disagree only in that there have been many other cases of mass
>> destruction of information in history, like Alexander's destruction of
>> Persion records, the first Emperor's destruction of pre-existing Chinese
>> records, the Hindu destruction of the writings of the Indian Atheists, and
>> the Spanish destruction of Aztec records. So I'm not entirely sure that the
>> burning of the Library was the worst, although it might have been.
>
>And aren't we forgetting the Holocaust? The knowledge, skills, culture,
>art, businesses, and history of the Jewish people was arguably a greater
>amount of information lost than Alexandria. The decimation of the
>Americas is probably comparable as well.
When I think of "a crime", I think of a single act/event. I still think
the burning of the library wins out on a percent-of-world's-knowledge-
destroyed-per-minute basis.
Kennita
Kennita Watson | The bond that links your true family is not one of blood,
kwatson@netcom.com| but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do
| members of the same family grow up under the same roof.
| -- Richard Bach, _Illusions_