So, this night the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, one of the largest museums in Latin America and the whole Southern Hemisphere, has gone up nearly completely in flames, burning to ashes an unknown ammount of the nearly 20 million objects stored there. This is a cultural tragedy to my country comparable to what the loss of the Louvre would be to France, or the Smithsonian to the USA.

Amongst the objects stored, there were:

- The oldest Amerindian remains in Brazil;

- Egyptian mummies and artifacts;

- Greco-Roman and Phoenician art;

- Artifacts from a wide array pre-Columbian, African and Pacific cultures;

- Dinosaur and plant fossils from the Mesozoic;

- 470,000 books, some of them rare and unique works.

- Not to mention the building itself, a landmark of early 19th century imperial architecture.

So, here I register my lament for the way some have been treating our (humanity's) past and also a note of protest to austerity reforms that have been the norm in the country since the centre-right assumed back the government three years back or so. Unfortunately, in a world which often favours only economic growth and productivity, that's a stark reminder of how it goes for our environment and our cultural past.

Oh thank god, I thought this was going to be a thread about Battlefield 5, full of Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 references.

Anyways I agree with you. Museums are a core and important part of any society. I should visit them more and appreciate them while I can.

That is quite unfortunate. Hopefully, most of the important stuff was stored in such a way that it doesn't burn up. I guess we'll know more over the coming days. Luckily though, most information these days is not stored in a single location. So, while the items themselves may be destroyed, much of their value remains.

I'm not sure why you muddied the waters of this thread with your complaints about less-bad fiscal policy in Brazil though. Your country is broke (as are most others). The only option is austerity, and a whole lot more of it than just about any country has implemented. I can only hope that the USA will get to some of that, before were just as broke as everyone else. I won't be holding my breath though. Governments (and the people that put them in place) seem to lack the ability to think long term, and think only about what is good in the moment. People whine about a need for this or that, and governments try to provide it, doing so very inefficiently. This takes money that countries do not have, so they borrow it. Then the bills come due, and the people whine about the budget cuts that are necessary to service and repay the debt that was incurred because of their previous whining.

I hope those items were insured.

That truly sucks. The loss of tangible historical relics is always a blow. Take solace in the fact that some day, the very Earth will be wiped from existence when our star turns into a red giant, and nothing anybody ever did will have mattered. Nothing.

This is terrible.

We will have colonized another planet by then so no this still sucks...

Sure, that sucks, but everything in this world perishes sooner or later, so don't cry over it.

Damn that sucks. Lots of history has been lost as a result of fire (Library of Alexandria for example), and its sad to see stuff like this happening.