Claim: Knowing about the past cannot help people to make important decisions today.Reason: We are not able to make connections between current events and past events untilwe have some distance from both.

To claim that knowing about the past cannot help people in the present time to take important decisions, as the statement above does, is generally an untenable claim because in myriads of cases, knowing about the past makes us resourceful to take important decisions and only it is in exceptional cases that such a knowledge might not be helpful.

To begin with, there are times that the gap between generations is unbridgeable regarding certain aspects, especially with the advent of the virtual space in this century. Afterwards, the present generation is experiencing integrally different situations not conformable to past situations. Hence there are aspects of life that knowing of the past might not be helpful and toward taking decisions it is needed to analyze the present situation and refer to logic. For example, consider when people on Facebook are seeing each other and they decide to make relations without being physically in contact in continental distances. While such relations could not exist in past, it is not helpful to resort to knowing about the past.

Nevertheless, the human story yet remained as human history. Technological advancements aside, we have not changed drastically from the human beings from the initiation of history. Therefore, history can help us in myriads of ways. It is with knowing about the past and history that we can predict the future as history is like a spiral of events that with each turn it returns to the same phase which is further in time. This is the reason why Edmond Burke quotes “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” Having Known about past of attacking Iraq and Afghanistan, American authorities become cognizant that they should not involve directly with the issues of Syria and Islamic Government in Iraq. Otherwise, Americans were doomed to pay the same price which does not worth it regarding the casualties of such wars. Past experience helps them not to perpetrate the same mistake, hence human being always should possess knowledge of the past as a resource to take important decisions.

Finally, As far as reason is concerned, although with the time passing a higher resolution about where we stand can come, analogies with the past can obviate the necessity for passing of time. When people are equipped with the information about analogous situations, they can connect current events to the past without the need of time passing. Consider the last example about American involvement in the Middle East. Both human casualties and economic losses of the United States of America is no more repeating in the war against terrorists in Iraq, and furthermore, the opportunity is provided for the local people to be more independent rather than to chiefly rely to foreign powers. When we experience an event in the past, by analyzing similarities, there is no need of time passing to connect present situation and take decision.

In short, there are few occasions that we should analyze the situation with the current information, and knowledge of past cannot help us in taking decisions. In general, there are myriads of cases that history comes to help humans drastically in both faster cognizance of the situation and proper decision making.