To be or not to be; that is the eQuestion...
Something struck me the other day and it wasn’t the rocks that children traditionally throw at me either. I have realised, perhaps significantly later than many others, that our era is historically irrelevant. Ok, maybe not irrelevant, maybe... invisible?
Think about it. We are slowly eschewing the tactile physicality of media for the ephemeral nuance that is electronic information. As we abandoned vinyl so are we abandoning CD’s and to what replacement? Media players and downloads.
But what good is an iPod to tomorrow’s archaeologist? Sure, they have a physical object that can be poked and prodded and dissected, but to what end?
As we rapidly run out of oil, plastics with the half-life of Uranium become scarce, and new equipment will be made from bio-oil, grown on plantations around the world predominantly at the expense of the indigenous wildlife and until Orang-utans get a bank account are pretty much persona non grata. Bio-oil has the added disadvantage of attracting swarms of mice and rats to the electronics graveyards as the little critters feast upon version 6 of the iPad. So we will, as we have done in the past, leave scant physical evidence of our entertainment.
Maybe somewhere, in a moisture-free cave deep within the French countryside will be hidden a treasure trove of today’s toys-for-boys (and girls... chortle) and our descendants will, in, say, a thousand years, discover this time capsule and rejoice at the artisan that fashioned such a wondrous device.
But what is the point? Granted, the battery will probably be flat but that can be overcome by a quick boost from the portable thermo-nuclear recharger they carry as a matter of fashion. But once the machine is charged, then what? Ultimately, electronic devices are not going to maintain their state indefinitely so the state of the “toons” or “vids” will be degraded or perhaps just not even there. This is for solid state equipment, but even the old pit-and-plateaux of CD’s/DVD’s would, in that thousand years, become pit-and-more-pits as the metals oxidise or the plastic melts allowing the platinum to leach out at the speed of the ultimate tomato ketchup.
So they can power it up; maybe. Actually... this is unlikely too as time is the great leveller in many respects. Once a sufficient time has passed all the baby atoms in a material, straining like Charles Atlas on steroids (...!) calling out “look at me! Look at me!” and after a thousand years of no-one looking are likely to suddenly, one day say “ah, fuck it. What’s the point?” and relax causing a chain reaction amongst its atomic brethren who all follow suit and what was once bright shiny resistors and capacitors in day-glow colours or moody black become sad tramp-like blobs with their arses hanging out and their taupe duffel coats on back to front.
At least with vinyl you had a chance of playing it back. At least with vinyl you could see, under a microscope (ever done that?) the grooves and deep within those grooves the mountains and valleys that represented the pinnacle of musical talent such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles or... The Sex Pistols. So long, of course, as the temperature remained at a steady state; i.e. room temperature on typical English summers day (not too hot and not too cold but with the threat of rain...). Too cold and the records will become brittle and possibly not recover, and not too hot or you could pretty much drape the bloody things over your arm and create Roman gladiator wristbands (ever done that?)
And then... to be topical for this website... we have books. Books, for their delicate material have a proven track record of, in limited cases granted, survival. Of course, ignoring combustibility, both physical and metaphorical, with content igniting prejudice slightly earlier in the day than the prejudicial igniting a bonfire...
But what of eBooks? Like eMusic, eFilms and eByGum (I made that last one up so don’t go looking for it) the issue for me is, as a wannabe author, fame and fortune today are fine but will become quickly passé, so immortality through prose is my ascendancy. I can rise amongst the immortal and take my place in the pantheon next to Socrates (curiously... does anyone else call him so-crates? No? Must just be me then...), Plato, Homer (the hirsute historian not “Duff!” the tragic buffoon) and JK Rowling (I really must commend her on her choice of moniker; naming herself after an already famous and widely marketable musician was inspired; even I was fooled into picking up the wizard books in the mistaken belief it was Jamiroquai’s (or JK as he is known... for those of a classical bent) autobiography recanting his days as a scarred orphan with a cupboard fixation...)
So what chance do I stand when, one thousand years hence, the media upon which we are currently fixated will need someone to fix its current? The chances of an archaeologist of the future being able to critique my tome and declare “schmah, could do better...” are rapidly disappearing.
And if you think the Internet is eternal, think again. Check out http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. It is the first ever web page and it no longer exists in situ. A copy exists, granted, that is two years old, but even that bastion of everything web, Google, does not contain an original copy – but then, why would it? Google didn’t exist in those days. In fact Google didn’t exist in the days of my first foray onto Internet. Now there is scary! (Also Google, whilst phenomenally comprehensive, falls short of having the whole Internet at your fingertips.)
Just a thought.
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28 Comments
I agree with Tony it's very entertaining
I can imagine the archaeologists of the future may be armed with digi-reading equipment rather than dig equipment. Skills in a different kind of digging through layers of poo would be required.
Maybe our era will be called the pointless information overload age? Whether it is nobler in the eMind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous eFortune...
On a musical note, if vinyl, tapes, cd's and iplayers have all gone, we'll just have to go back to the traditional way of playing an instrument and performing live and books will have to be hand-written once again, except there probably won't be any trees to make the paper...............
Right...
Tony! Thank you, as always. I am sure that there will be a mass extinction of the electronic kind at some point; whether it is the weather, solar flares/mass ejections or the success of one of those insidious slimy bastards that think its clever to write viral code, I am confident that we, at some point in the future, will lose up to 75% of the online content. This would not be an issue were it not for the commercial vacuum that would prevent a "reload" - so much information would be lost excepting where someone with the moolah's thinks it is important. So, my advice? Grab all that you can, when you can, store it locally and when eDoomsday comes maybe you'll be a saviour?
:o)
The solar storm is a concern, and no mistake. Am I right in thinking we are coming to the end of a quiet 11 years? So we'll be due 11 years of activity? And its associated consequences; whilst the Northern lights might come down as far as Bournemouth and look pretty, think of all those old people thinking its a message from God... He's going to have a busy few weeks and no mistake...?
Thankfully, the powers that be have had a chat about the impending blackouts and made a decision on what to do; they have decided not to make a decision...
:o)
Reminds me of an old joke; when a woman has to have treatment for, say, thrush always remind her to ask for a "pessery" not a "peccary" which is a small South American pig. So we're clear, repeat after me; "Peccary, no, pessary, yes..." :o)
Ah yes. I have a sci-fi novel in plan that takes prosthesis to the limits; if *everything* is artificial are you alive...?
:o)
What I find fascinating is the allegation that 90% of internet traffic is spam. How the hell did a deliciously tinned mix of pork and ham get on the Internet in the first place...? Hmmm?
This is history repeating itself; it will die out when it's artisans die out and not before.
:o)
Hmmm, I may be out of my comfort zone here, but I am fairly sure that fossilised poo is still rock hard...?
I prefer pointless-information-age to the naughties. For no other reason than at least it has a ring of truth to it. When's the last time anyone got really naughty? We could be sued by future historians under the trade descriptions act...
Never, in the field of human communication, has so much spam been sent to so many by so few...
As for musical instruments, I agree. Whilst I love my vinyl collection - the flat round one, not the specialist clothing one - and my CD's and even, yes I admit it, my iPod and its many and varied downloads - there is *nothing* that beats (geddit? :o) ) actually being there, seeing and hearing in person. Unless it's a Peter Andre concert. In which case I was only accompanying EzBird as she has a deep founded mistrust of crowds. Honest...
This reminds me so very strongly of a science fiction short story about archeologists digging up artefacts of our time and coming up with explanations for their finds that are as far removed from our lives as possible and yet still somehow logical conclusions. Usually I think of this story when I read about archeologists making spectacular new finds that shed new light on the past, or when they reinterpret radically exisiting artifacts.
I never before pondered the possibility that the very nature of our modern lives in these fast changing times may just be so intangible as to leave no lasting imprint of our culture. At school I photographed a 12th century bible (for international scholars who couldn't come to study the original) and even at 15 I realised what a priviledge that was. Somehow I always expected that there will be tangible, enduring evidence that we were here, too.
Well, and as for your work, Ez, you will just have to write such an utterly brilliant and commercially successful book that it will be copied into whatever medium our descendants will use and your words will live on.
Oh that is fucking brilliant Tenacityflux! (can't I just call you Flux?) Now we have the makings of a Word Cloud competition for the sci-fi group! A 2000 word piece from a future society discovering one small, specific, segment of today's Internet. Any part of the Internet content can be used but the idea is that the future society gets the wrong impression! (A classical farce, almost, isn't it?) Brilliant! Love it! There has to be comedy gold available for the likes of Viagra (isn't it Kanagra on t'web?) or penis enlargements or epic fails on YouTube or some kind of mass suicide planned and orchestrated on Facebook. Oh my god, the list is almost endless! LOL!
Didn't they dig the time capsule up in 2000?
(Sorry, forgot your first, very good, point; I was laughing at the thought of a mis-diagnosis of any fragmental evidence of our lives being left for future generations and doesn't it make you stop and do that slow turn around and look at all the things we have decided based upon tiny fragmented evidence of our ancestors lives...? What if the rosetta stone was the ancient worlds equivalent of Private Eye magazine... hmmm...)
I may have to try and write a story now, will go and muse - and yes, Flux is fine Ez!
As for the brilliant writing... well... the word I'm thinking of is "unlikely"... LOL
I have to say that I am acutely unaware of any historical high jinx!
Oh god, I don't believe this but I'm going to do it...
As far as I can work out the hieroglyphics on the sarcophagus of the golden boy king read, from right to left, "Knock, knock" "Who's there?" "Toot 'n" "Toot 'n who?" "Toot 'n come in..."
... I'll get me coat...
Will give the short story idea a try, have to get out of my writer's stupor somehow.
Do you realise that my competition idea is actually defunct?
If we believe the hype that 90% of the internet is porn or spam then extrapolate the odds of what information would exists post our "delimiting" exercise the odds are pretty much heavily weighted. Towards porn. Ergo the competition can be far more succinct, say less than 50 words...
Archeologist 1: "Well, well, so this is the typical life of a second millennium citizen."
Archeologist 2: "Indeed. Aha! So that's how they died out!"
Archeologist 1: "How so?"
Archeologist 2: "Looks like they wanked themselves to death..."
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