[VLM]

Scary that its recursive, in that "historical examples are irrelevant is modernity" is in itself modernity. Ignorance of history leading to disaster is old as dirt. Err, its as old as written history anyway LOL. Soon as some dude wrote a good story about a tactical maneuver some other dude promptly ignored the story and gets killed, every time. Don't matter if its sarissa carrying heavy infantry or knights or tanks or air craft carriers or spaceships someday.

I think the belief lives in the modern mind because when a modern does something that would have resulted in Alexander the Great spanking him severely, the modern feels better when claiming "not my fault that my culture doesn't respect the past" etc etc.

For example the Vikings used to F over the British locals centuries after Alexander the Great via the good ole feigned retreat. Trick a tough defensive shield wall into thinking you're running for it and they should chase you, because booty, then once they break their wall at a predetermined practiced point reform your own shield wall, flank the freshly unorganized soldiers and slaughter them. Oldest trick in the book. The book that no military readers read, I mean. Yeah yeah I realize the general population didn't sip tea while reading Plutarch in that era, anymore than British do today, but you wouldn't expect a King of England to fall for that even in the late dark ages.

[AstralStorm]

Hume actually says why this kind of thing happens. Any one person or entity can be shown to not have complete knowledge of the world with a simple example. Proving you actually know something completely is instead a hard inductive proof likely to fail.

Most modern physics fails this proof as it cannot show convincingly that it is the only true version of physics. And that is quite rigid, well tested and proven knowledge about the world...

[faktorialas]

Indeed.

With regards to science, it seems like at least young people respect it, so we're going to have progress in that sense.

Unfortunately, philosophy doesn't produce life-changing tech or neat gadgets, so reading philosophy that would change one's outlook on politics, ethics or epistemology is ignored.

[emodendroket]

> With regards to science, it seems like at least young people respect it, so we're going to have progress in that sense.

What basis do you have for saying this?

[faktorialas]

Just my general experience with it when talking to young people and seeing their expression online etc. At least when it comes to the hard sciences, they may not have the patience to do them, but they sure profess to liking it. Probably different with the softer sciences. That's not rigorous evidence, I'll admit.

I'm curious as to what you think.

[emodendroket]

I'm not so convinced that there is a great difference among people of different age groups.

[maxerickson]

On the other hand, Truman did drop the bomb.