Lewis said someone could be both evil and stupid (referring to Hitler). I’m not going to make the Hitler comparison, but I will focus on one subject, taken together, today: deletion and remaking.
The discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism raised the question of what happened to that civilization? What else had that civilization done?
Was it someone purposefully destructive of culture and technology that had sunken that ship? Was it some politician who had shattered norms and exalted himself? The historic statues on Buddha in Afghanistan were considered blasphemous and were destroyed.
You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. As the flames of Alexandria leapt, the librarian wept.