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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;V. Kurt Bellman, post: 2109573, member: 71723&quot;]Funny you would put it quite that succinctly, because it leads me to two comments.</p><p><br /></p><p>1) The functional or practical end of the large-scale appreciation of history is PRECISELY what I believe is just around the corner. In fact, I think it goes far BEYOND a lack of appreciation, all the way to large-scale disdain, at least to the extent it could, and I believe WILL, hollow out the core of what has been the mainstream of numismatics. Your current and still mainstream &quot;normal&quot; appreciation of history, I&#039;d suggest makes you the &quot;double negative&quot; of a mutant among the mutants, hence contemporaneously (for a limited time only) still normal.</p><p><br /></p><p>2) I am utterly immune from ANY argument that includes appeals to &quot;it&#039;s been that way for 5000 years&quot;. Why? Well, just for starters, marriage has meant exactly one thing for 5000 years, and now seemingly over a metaphorical weekend the institution has been fundamentally altered significantly at the political and cultural behest of the very same generation that is the topic at hand. I don&#039;t find my thesis as &quot;ridiculous&quot; as I do &quot;self-evident&quot;. Underestimate the significance of the Digital Generation at the risk of your own relevance.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, I am aware of the historical risk of the tempting belief I&#039;m stating herein that &quot;this time it&#039;s different&quot;. Yet how can we not believe so, when we reflect on the momentous changes we have seen, and observe that not only is the pace of change maddeningly fast, but also that the rate of change, AND the rate of the change in the rate of change are increasing (1st through third derivatives are all positive)?</p><p><br /></p><p>No, to me, it is the belief that the 5000 years of history contains enough metaphorical &quot;pull of gravity&quot; to counter a technological revolution that exceeds any metaphorical &quot;attainment of escape velocity&quot; that strikes me as ridiculous.</p><p><br /></p><p>We used to say the first generation makes the money, the second spends the money, and the third studies art history. What I&#039;m suggesting here is nothing less than there will soon be essentially zero demand for schools of art history. I&#039;m aware how radical that sounds. I still believe it with every fibre of my being.</p><p><br /></p><p>That funny sound in the background is the death rattle of the academic study of the Liberal Arts and Humanities, and I write as a 1977 graduate of one of the finest Liberal Arts and Humanities schools on the planet.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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