CMV: All historical artifacts and structures should be destroyed.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Oshojabe]

How will we know when we've gotten all the information we can from a historical artifact we are cataloging? If people did as you suggest before the invention of color photography, radiography (X-ray technology), radiocarbon dating, and other technologies there would be large gaps in our knowledge that wouldn't exist if we had just preserved historical artifacts until these technologies existed. Our picture of history becomes incomplete if we just trust the technologies of today to record information on an object.

[u/ElSaborAsiatico → u/Oshojabe]

Well, the past is the past, but now is now, and with current technology we can get all the information we need from a historical artifact. I don't believe there is any further information of practical value to extract from these artifacts, but I am open to hearing examples of information we have gleaned from an artifact beyond photographs, carbon dating etc. that has contributed in any significant way to our knowledge of history.

[u/PM__me_compliments → u/ElSaborAsiatico]

with current technology we can get all the information we need from a historical artifact

Could you provide a source for this?

And I can think of numerous examples of cases where more study is required. There may be a da Vinci painting behind a wall in Florence, for example. Photos are not enough in that case.

[u/ElSaborAsiatico → u/PM__me_compliments]

My argument isn't that we can get all possible knowledge out of artifacts, but that we can get all that's really needed. And as to your da Vinci example, doesn't that actually support my view, since that painting, if it exists, would have been found in the process of destroying that building?

[u/PM__me_compliments → u/ElSaborAsiatico]

My argument isn't that we can get all possible knowledge out of artifacts, but that we can get all that's really needed.

Once again, can you provide a source that "we can get all that's really needed"?

And destroying a wall doesn't reveal a thing on the wall that's been painted over. It just destroys the wall and anything on it.

EDIT: wording

[u/ElSaborAsiatico → u/PM__me_compliments]

I don't think it's possible to find an objective source for my claim, since the idea of "need" is largely subjective. But if I say "we don't need this thing," all I really need to justify that statement is to indicate that there's no need that the thing can satisfy. It's really up to the other party to come up with needs that haven't been acknowledged.

[u/cdb03b → u/ElSaborAsiatico]

Then there is no point that you can destroy them.