Decisions in the past have long running repercussions

The article talks about long forgotten reasons why things are as they are.

I have heard of a, probably now apocryphal story, of field on a Multinational's paper report that was always supposed to be 0. When the IT team that did the automation of the report, discovered field was the number of bombs that fell that week on a property owned by the company during the London Blitz. Not a big consequence to the company but the story had been lost.

If you take this approach to its logical conclusion, it becomes revolutionary. Essentially, this is an argument for rigorous history; rigorous history depends on rigorous real-time reporting; rigorous real-time reporting hurts the near-term narrative on which much of what we call progress depends. Good luck getting that off the ground. It's not that I wouldn't like to see what the world would look like if curious, courageous, patient honesty were the cultural norm - only that it's very hard to see that world from where we are.