[glenstein]

Too often historical events turn out to be perfectly true, but claimed to be myths due to dizzying semantic distinctions.

Just looking at the third link, the most upvoted answer agrees that humanity suffered a significant loss of important information. And the 'myth' is just an asinine distinction regarding whether loss was due literally due to fire, or whether the information was lost due to some other cause. I think declaring it a myth in a conversation like this misses the point (it certainly isn't a distinction relevant to the original comparison made here to Yahoo Groups) and just serves to confuse people.

[jdsully]

It's quite clear the library is no longer here. How exactly it was lost does matter as its destruction has been used to paint various groups as anti intellectual barbarians since ancient times. Eliminating the story as a weapon to attack others would do humanity some good.

[glenstein]

It has been used that way, but not here. Here, it's a disorienting non-sequitur that makes it sound like the information was never really lost.