Why is it important to conserve the past?

There are a number of reasons for preserving history. We like to study things and know stuff, and that's because we humans have a "curiOSity gene" that keeps turning our heads to things of interest. History is one of the things we investigate, and we do so in attempt to get a glimpse into the lives of the humans that lived in past times. We are alive now with all the trappings of the present. We keep bumping into the past, however. What was life like before the computer? Before electricity? Before the wheel? Humans lived then and under the conditions of the time. What challenges did they have? How did they meet them? We want to know just for the sake of knowning because we're funny that way. But there are some practical reasons for preserving history.

We can learn things that apply in the present from things that happened in the past, and this allows us to chart a course to avoid errors made in the past. Let's consider a situation where conditions arise, be they economic, social, cultural, religious or any other kind, and these conditions lead to war, chaos or other large-scale "disaster" for humans. If we see these conditions appearing again, we can choose to act in a way to avoid a similar negative outcome based on our understanding of the past. An adage that has been in circulation for centuries goes something like this: those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. There's more.

We can also better understand where we might wish to go based on where we've been. If something was working in the past, it may well continue to work in the present (though the variables have changed). When we look back into history and see that humans "had it good" when things went a certain way, we can choose to act to "set conditions" to keep things going that way (tempered with the variables of current dynamics), and this will keep things going well for us. As humans continue to evolve and develop as peoples, things are changing. And it takes visionaries with a knowledge of where we've been to point the way into a future where we have the best chance of being happy and living well together.

Use the link below to the related question and find some ideas that are on point with what you read here.