A Comm for Historymemes

I’ve read some spicy history papers, but usually the insults are a bit less foaming at the mouth.

Less cursing and more academic language, but otherwise similar if you ever read back-and-forth letters between academics on actual contentious topics. Academics also rarely dismiss events with "About something that happened thousands of years ago and has zero modern day relevance."

I don’t think it’s “tone policing” to ask you to avoid insults in a conversation about history.

Jesus Christ, do I have to define tone policing for you too?

A tone argument (also called tone policing) is a type of ad hominem aimed at the tone of an argument instead of its factual or logical content in order to dismiss a person's argument. Ignoring the truth or falsity of a statement, a tone argument instead focuses on the emotion with which it is expressed.

This isn’t a “STEM” versus history thing.

"And I have to wonder what knowledge you think was actually lost? It isn’t like the ancients were known for their application of the scientific method. Some of the things the ancients did were really impressive and cool, but they didn’t have a whole lot of knowledge compared to the past 100 years. No doubt some cool stories and poems were lost, which is a shame, but not something to get this worked up about."

You're absolutely right, nothing here that devalues history and the humanities by placing STEM as the only matter of importance, no sir. /s

The way that texts were preserved was by copying - important texts were copied more.

At no point has that been disputed, and I already clearly laid out why the loss of the Library of Alexandria was damaging to textual transmission. Are you even reading what I'm saying?

but folks have almost turned this into mythology.

Cool, so obviously the correct response is to dismiss the loss of tens of thousands of texts in the ancient world as no big deal. That's how bias works, right? If there's an equal amount of bias on the opposite side, the end result is truth. /s

Instead of writing whatever screed you are typing at this moment, why not spend that time reading that book I linked?

As I wrote:

EDIT: I was curious, so I actually did check out Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher. It’s quite good. It’s also quite explicit in placing her killing within a religious context, so, thanks for reinforcing my point, I guess.

But hey, who needs verification when you can make arbitrary claims and hope that your opponent won't actually check your source?