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Comment by hobo_in_library | Hacker News Reader

On the flip side, in the year 1200 the average person would likely not have considered the people living 800 years before them to be all that different from them (unlike many of us today).

Perhaps that's a way in which we're less educated than those who came before us

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Some people living in the 13th-14th century in Europe considered the people who lived prior to the fall of the Roman Empire to be more civilised and advanced, if not actually more intelligent than they were. From their perspective the world had gone through a a dark age of ignorance and sin, and was only starting to recover.

It wasn't until much later, in the 15th and 16th century onwards, that people began to think that they were more advanced and accomplished than the ancient Greeks and Romans.

We have some pretty interesting family records, and if I look back 200 and 500 (and sometimes longer..) years ago, the information we have about family members feels remarkably current. There were divorces, economic and political challenges, times of prosperity and times of struggle. Property changed hands, taxes were levied, sometimes family members quarreled and sometimes they started new ventures together. The particular skills one might need in any one era or the social and political environment might change, but the human condition is remarkably common throughout the ages.

>in the year 1200 the average person would likely not have considered the people living 800 years before them to be all that different from them

How do you know this?

And does the average person today really think someone living in the year 1200 to be all that different from them living in 2025? If so, in what way does this person think people 800 years ago are different from us? (I'm asking because I don't share your assumptions if this hypothetical person were to think on this matter for more than 5 seconds)

Seconded!

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