history is irrelevant

Nobody likes to learn about history, because it's meaningless, and doesn't apply to anything or anyone at the current time. Just think, did such things as ipods, global warming, hpv, or bird flu even exist just 10 years ago, in 1999? They didn't, but they are now something that everyone thinks about every day.

They exist now, but not in the past. Nothing exists in the past, because it's not the present. Time is so hard to define, and some physicists now define the space time continuum as infinite dimensions, but what everyone agrees on is that the past is just that, the past.

What purpose does it serve to know that european imperialism caused the genocide of all the native populations, while I sit back and watch all these groups or similar ones around the world facing genocide now, whether it be genetic, political, or economic? There is nothing I could do about it, and if there was something I could do, I'd still sit back and watch, because just like everyone else in the world, I take great pleasure in others' misfortunes.

If history were actually meaningful, then there would have only been one conflict. Essentially, there would have only been one war, one genocide, one case of discrimination, one disease, one orphan, one rape, one case of child abuse- one problem.

The fact that history does repeat does not make it worth knowing, nor make a difference in the choice humans make to repeat it.

Technology and science has forced humanity to change at such a rapid pace, that the very recent past is now the only reference point. The distant past is anything longer than 5 years ago, although the distant past will be redefined over time to be more and more recent. Nobody born in the 80s can even begin to identify with their parents; partially this generation gasp is due to accelerating change, which constantly updates reference points to more and more recent in the past.

Has anyone ever speculated that history should be completely ignored instead of all these negative truths about humanity being reinforced in developing childs minds? Perhaps the only way to actually break the cycle is to refute it, kind of in the way that I pay no attention whatsoever to conservative religious groups; essentially, even acknowledging their existances gives them too much power.