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Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

There were many more books historically than most people uninterested in history suspect up do deep antiquity.

Books were very precious. A 5th century monthly salary of a scribe was enough to buy a house.

Yet, 99%+ of written data from Greece, and Rome is lost. We lost both archival data, and literature. First to rot, second to book burning.

Literature was state sponsored for most of classical period, and "casual" writing all about propagating Greek culture to "not-so-Greeks" (Thracians, North Africans)

Literature was subsidised not so much for elites, but to create more elites

Luddites, and book burners are your typical strongman elite who rule by swinging a club.

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Luddites were not strongman elites. They were working class labor rights activists, protesting the grossly unfair balance of power induced by rapid industrialization.

You are bringing up a beautiful question.

Were Luddites pro-elite, or anti-elite? Factory technology was definitely something both hated, and intentionally propagated.

Violent conflicts were fought by different stacking frame manufacturers for making them cheaper, and more efficient than one other.

Similarly Saddam attacked Kuwait on the premise of selling oil cheap, and diluting his power.

Knowledge, sophistication, and culture was an alternative to "eliteness" given by having the biggest stick around.

What Greek, and Roman elites realised naturally 2000 years ago, and what we do not now is that knowledge, and culture were power, and that power must be prevented from being monopolised.

Scholars, historians, artisans, and scribes were patronised by the state to prevent "eliteness" being monopolised by clans, and powerful families.

A good way to prevent a man with the biggest stick from seizing power is to give more sticks to other people. And similarly "cultural eliteness" was kept accessible to foreign gentry to drag them into Greek society, so they don't try to reach "elitness" by swinging the stick.

Human civilization depends on cooperation, which can be obtained through numerous mechanisms -- everything from violent coercion to mutual aid to shared ideals. The more effective forms of cooperation depend on a shared imaginary space (culture). I especially appreciate what you've written about the danger of monopolization of this imaginary space.

Today, we talk about "information bubbles", but it seems the effect is that we've simply carved up this imaginary space into little city states so that two people of the same age from the same town can disagree on who won the last presidential election.

Is there something I can read about that, especially the population of books (number, content, etc.)?

> most people uninterested in history

No need to denigrate people who don't know some things that you do! Thanks for sharing it.

I didn't read that as denigration at all—"uninterested" isn't disparaging, right? It's not even insult-adjacent-in-colloquial-use-but-not-elsewhere like "ignorant", is it?

IMHO the clear implication is 'ignorant' - that's what connects the dots of 'uninterested' and 'don't know this fact'. Also, for intellectuals / geeks / whatever, being uninterested in history is not a compliment!

Not the worst insult ever, but why even go to the place of presuming things about other people? Still, I hope I expressed my objection proportionally to the comment; sorry if I didn't.

I think it's only (unintentionally) mildly/potentially offensive to someone who's interested, but still ignorant of the fact, or under some misconception etc.

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