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Comment by hdivider | Hacker News Reader

A classical philosopher once told me that many ultra-wealthy people have ancient papyrus scrolls hidden away in their collections -- full of ancient Greek and Roman knowledge currently unknown to the outside world.

Keep the value up by keeping it secret. Or at least keep your bragging rights with fellow ultra-rich apex parasites.

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If I heard someone brag about depriving the public of historical documents, I'd see them as nothing more than slime. Even the Vatican Secret Archive is finally getting digitized https://digi.vatlib.it/

So nation states and colonist regimes are allowed to accumulate wealth/booty but a private citizen is "depriving the public of historical documents"?

Depends on if either put theirs on display.

Sounds like the kind of thing children tell each other in the playground.

If you're ever in Kyoto, be sure to check out the Miho Museum to see what one billionaire family's private collection of works from antiquity looks like. I don't recall any papyri, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they have things tucked away that aren't ever on display.

https://www.miho.jp/en/

I dunno—quite a few things that are true about (at least some set of) rich people also have that kind of ring to them. I wouldn’t be surprised.

It is in some ways equivalent to a One Piece. Ultiamtely, people want legacy, and what better way to have people talking about you centuries later than by suggesting you have this huge treasure buried somewhere that no one can ever find?

Wouldn’t the value be a lot higher if it wasn’t secret? Or is it the risk confiscation/opprobrium?

Example of something valuable with secret contents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Shaolin

That's importantly different, unless the existence and authenticity of the scrolls is public and only the contents are secret (which is not what I understood the commenter to be suggesting).

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