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by edanm 3739 days ago
There are things from 1000's of years ago that are still relevant.

But I think it's mostly survivorship bias. The very few things from long ago that we still read, are still relevant today. That's why we know about them! Take a random book from from most periods of history, and it will be uninteresting, if not outright unintelligible, to a modern audience.
2 comments
cJ0th 3739 days ago
> But I think it's mostly survivorship bias

I don't think so. Have you seen who wrote this piece? I'd say it is a classic case of the Barnum effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect

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im3w1l 3739 days ago
> Take a random book from from most periods of history

I'd be very interested in doing in doing just that. How would I go about it? Weighted by popularity in that era would be fine, but not weighted according to current popularity.

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aagha 3738 days ago
I'm sure you can find old books scanned online [0], or you could go to library--especially if you're in a town with a lot of history (Boston, NYC)--even better if you're in Europe.

Librarians are fantastic for this kind of thing. Tell them what you're trying to do, and they're marvelous and helping you find a way to use books and other resources to help you.

0 - https://www.google.com/googlebooks/about/

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