In the year 10234..

[BucephalusBB]

..what of the 2nd millenium do you think would still be in the historybooks as important?

 

[Breathe]

Wireless internet?

 

[Willamena]

..what of the 2nd millenium do you think would still be in the historybooks as important?

It's kind of early on to say, but of what we have so far to work with, I suppose the millennium might be characterized by hypocracy. People make a show of reaching out to their fellow man, nations make a show of reaching out to fellow nations, but everyone's still in it for a buck.

 

[bobhikes]

The world is getting away from premanent documents. Everything is going electronic. One major natural disaster, a loss of energy or one country taking over the world and all those electronic documents videos and music could be wiped out.

We are so pressed for space that we even take down our monuments for building other things. Unless we control the poplulation it is going to be worse. All the buildings of today replaced with efficiancy units.

There would probably be more stuff from the 20th century and before then from the 21st century and beyond

 

[Rainbow Mage]

I think there's a good chance humanity could have underwent some doomsday scenario by then and started over. So let me hazard a guess, based on that- New America invents sword and uses it to win battle against New UK. Then New Americans get drunk, sacrifice to their god, and have a bunch of women.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

..what of the 2nd millenium do you think would still be in the historybooks as important?

The beginning of the exploration of space.

... if we continue with it, of course. Otherwise, whichever future society does it again will get the credit, and only myth and rumour will persist from our travels into space. Neil Armstrong will become the new St. Brendan.

 

[McBell]

..what of the 2nd millenium do you think would still be in the historybooks as important?

Assuming the human race still exists then...

I suspect that it will depend upon how much was learned from the history.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
​

 

[Willamena]

It's kind of early on to say, but of what we have so far to work with, I suppose the millennium might be characterized by hypocracy. People make a show of reaching out to their fellow man, nations make a show of reaching out to fellow nations, but everyone's still in it for a buck.

Oops, my bad. I forgot that the second millennium is the one the ends in 2000.

I agree with others that the prior millennium might be characterized by industrialization and computerization, the dawn of the Information Age.

 

[Penumbra]

..what of the 2nd millenium do you think would still be in the historybooks as important?

If humans are still around to consider things important, and they have knowledge of the second millenium, then I think that the enlightenment and the internet are two pretty important things.

Humans today look back several thousand years ago and realize that things like the beginning of agriculture are extremely important on the time line of human events even if they might seem trivial today.

I think the ability to instantly share information around the world on a shared and standardized medium is quite important.

 

[BucephalusBB]

I was hoping for the internet to show up

Personally I think that the trip to the moon might also still be important enough.

Good to see that people think that the good things are going to be remembered. (As we also had 2 worldwars, nucleair bombs, terrorism, etc..)

 

[BucephalusBB]

The world is getting away from premanent documents. Everything is going electronic. One major natural disaster, a loss of energy or one country taking over the world and all those electronic documents videos and music could be wiped out.

We are so pressed for space that we even take down our monuments for building other things. Unless we control the poplulation it is going to be worse. All the buildings of today replaced with efficiancy units.

There would probably be more stuff from the 20th century and before then from the 21st century and beyond

You seem to think that digital information is easilly destroyed. But with the way backups work and feeds to offline systems I think it is way easier to preserve the digital information than paperwork or even stonecarving..

 

[Willamena]

If humans are still around to consider things important, and they have knowledge of the second millenium, then I think that the enlightenment and the internet are two pretty important things.

What is "the enlightenment"?

Edit: Nevermind, looked it up. Bunch of clever fellows.

 

[Valjean]

There will be legends of a magical civilization of wizards and warriors; flying machines, castles a hundred feet high, self-propelled machines and moving pictures; a civilization that flew too close to the sun, destroyed itself and turned Eden to a desert.

We will be back to living in caves

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You seem to think that digital information is easilly destroyed. But with the way backups work and feeds to offline systems I think it is way easier to preserve the digital information than paperwork or even stonecarving..

Preserve the information itself... maybe. Preserve it in a readable form... maybe not.

I read an article a few years ago that gave a hypothetical scenario: say your grandfather, being a forward-thinking and technically-minded person, decided to "computerize" his will... and put it on a reel of 9-track tape. Would you have the means to read it? I wouldn't, and this is a technology that was in use in my lifetime. I think 10,000 years will make the problem of obsolescence even more serious.

Edit: though obsolescence is probably a moot point anyhow, since I doubt any information on a magnetic storage medium would survive for 10,000 years, seeing how we live on a big magnet.

 

[Reptillian]

Preserve the information itself... maybe. Preserve it in a readable form... maybe not.

I read an article a few years ago that gave a hypothetical scenario: say your grandfather, being a forward-thinking and technically-minded person, decided to "computerize" his will... and put it on a reel of 9-track tape. Would you have the means to read it? I wouldn't, and this is a technology that was in use in my lifetime. I think 10,000 years will make the problem of obsolescence even more serious.

Edit: though obsolescence is probably a moot point anyhow, since I doubt any information on a magnetic storage medium would survive for 10,000 years, seeing how we live on a big magnet.

You've got to figure that there'll be people copying the old information into the new medium...like future versions of the medieval monks that diligently copied manuscripts by hand. Then some future equivalent of the printing press will be invented. But yeah, 10,000 years is a long time civilizationwise. Looking at what survived to the present day from 10,000 years ago gives one a good idea of how much information might last.

 

[Reptillian]

The other day I was discussing with a friend of mine which songs and music from the 20th century might still be around in five hundered years. I was of the opinion that at least one Elvis song and "Sweet Home Alabama" would make it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You've got to figure that there'll be people copying the old information into the new medium...like future versions of the medieval monks that diligently copied manuscripts by hand. Then some future equivalent of the printing press will be invented.

That lets us keep widely published works, but it means that no future archaeologists will ever have a "Dead Sea Scrolls" moment where they find a sheltered, untouched storehouse of stacks and stacks of beautifully preserved data tape, floppy disks or CDs and read all sorts of new information about the people who created them.

But yeah, 10,000 years is a long time civilizationwise. Looking at what survived to the present day from 10,000 years ago gives one a good idea of how much information might last.

Well, 10,000 years before now would be around the dawn of writing (or proto-writing, probably more accurately), so there's a lot less written material from that era that could've survived in the first place. Today, writing practically covers every surface we can put it on, so I hope that quite a bit more of our time will survive.

 

[McBell]

That lets us keep widely published works, but it means that no future archaeologists will ever have a "Dead Sea Scrolls" moment where they find a sheltered, untouched storehouse of stacks and stacks of beautifully preserved data tape, floppy disks or CDs and read all sorts of new information about the people who created them.


Well, 10,000 years before now would be around the dawn of writing (or proto-writing, probably more accurately), so there's a lot less written material from that era that could've survived in the first place. Today, writing practically covers every surface we can put it on, so I hope that quite a bit more of our time will survive.

CD/DVDs do not suffer from the magnetic curse.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

CD/DVDs do not suffer from the magnetic curse.

But they do suffer from the curse of obsolescence, which was the main concern I was talking about.

 

[McBell]

But they do suffer from the curse of obsolescence, which was the main concern I was talking about.

I tend to agree that 10,000 years from now if they find a copy of this here forum, it will likely be inaccessible.

One wonders though, even if they were to be able to accurately depict the words and images from this forum 10,000 years from now, how much will the language have changed?