Date: 2015-04-02
Note on history
1. No one lived ancient history, so there is no wonder when different countries have different stories to tell about the history at each one of their conveniences, even though there is only one truth. Even with plenty of evidence and witnesses, it is hard to unveil the truth and make it a common knowledge.
2. History education should remain as an important part of core education curriculum, because some painful lessons can be taught as a tool for catastrophe prevention. Most of the time, history education is in place for a wrong purpose of stemming nationalistic sentiment from youth.
3. Free interpretation of history is a useful weapon for politicians.
4. Population scale is probably a reliable measure of the multiplication of the prosperity and the longevity of a civilization, because: (1) Settlement and farming are necessary condition for building a scale and proper population base, because it is not possible to grow the population substantially when you need to keep moving around. (2) Humans have never been able to mass-reproduce. It takes time to multiply. (3) Population decimations are rare events, even though they do occur.
5. Even though history is supposed to tell only what has already happened, ironically, it helps students' imagination. This is because life is too short. Because it is a second hand experience, history has a limitation in teaching people. More catastrophe of pre-existed style awaits us.
6. I find it difficult to draw a line between the consistency and versatility in a population's character, over the long span of time.