Burning resources to memorialize the past we only see through rose colored glasses of naive youth is vanity.
Biology is self selecting and that's all that's happening here. There's no intention or future value. It's plain old signal attenuation and entropy going on; memory is fading as those who experienced it churn out of existence.
A species still escaping banal worship of history ends up avoiding progress.
We're standing on the shoulders of many creative heroes; some technically brilliant, some better described as visionaries and designers. They all played a role in getting us this far.
