[piroux]

Except that the Library of Alexandria never actuelly burnt ! That is a very good ol' myth ;)

- https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2010/06/the-perni...

- https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/making-myth-li...

- https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/677/what-knowled...

But anyway, no one should delete human littérature, be it inadvertently or by lack of effort.

[jedberg]

From Wikipedia: "Scholars have interpreted Cassius Dio's wording to indicate that the fire did not actually destroy the entire Library itself, but rather only a warehouse located near the docks being used by the Library to house scrolls"

If anything this would make the analogy even more apt, since only part of Yahoo is being destroyed. :)

Regardless, it's mostly used as a metaphor for the destruction of knowledge at this point.

[glenstein]

Too often historical events turn out to be perfectly true, but claimed to be myths due to dizzying semantic distinctions.

Just looking at the third link, the most upvoted answer agrees that humanity suffered a significant loss of important information. And the 'myth' is just an asinine distinction regarding whether loss was due literally due to fire, or whether the information was lost due to some other cause. I think declaring it a myth in a conversation like this misses the point (it certainly isn't a distinction relevant to the original comparison made here to Yahoo Groups) and just serves to confuse people.

[jdsully]

It's quite clear the library is no longer here. How exactly it was lost does matter as its destruction has been used to paint various groups as anti intellectual barbarians since ancient times. Eliminating the story as a weapon to attack others would do humanity some good.

[aspaceman]

These articles seem more concerned with detailing how important it is that it wasn't Christians. Makes sense for a organization centered around "religion and public life", I guess. Quite the angle.

[wyattpeak]

It's quite important that it wasn't Christians. A large part of the public understanding of history is based on a belief that progress through the early Middle Ages was held back primarily by Christian repression of free thought. There are people who very seriously believe that we'd be flying between stars by now if Christianity had never become predominant.

You don't have to be a Christian apologist to think that it's important for people understand history correctly.

[OnlineGladiator]

Whoa. I guess what they say is true - say a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth.

[phendrenad2]

Wait the library wasn't lost due to that fire, but the contents were slowly lost due to the passage of time and people not caring or having access to copy it's contents? That makes the analogy way better, but the "burning" part is sadly wrong.

[piroux]

Yes, that is exactly what I wanted to convey by "lack of efforts".

2000 years ago, as a civilization, even if we failed to care enough for the Works stored in the Library, their loss would not have happened if access was not limited, which would have helped in their dissemination and issuing of copies.

Today, as a civilization, if we fail to implement to right process to backup on time what matters to us, we will repeat the same errors as our ancestors.

I guess many historians today would prefer to see those non-existent backups of the Alexandria Library rather than those of Yahoo Groups, but who knows what is more important after all ;)