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While historians love to peer into the minutiae of daily lives because, well, historians, how much does knowing Great-great Aunt Ethyll’s thoughts on Karl Marx

While historians love to peer into the minutiae of daily lives because, well, historians, how much does knowing Great-great Aunt Ethyll’s thoughts on Karl Marx actually affect us on a daily basis? How much will your predilection for the song stylings of Kim Kardashian affect future generations in a meaningful way? While the aggregate opinions of the dead, while alive, might provide context for people yet to be born, let the individuals Rest In Peace, slowly to be forgotten. We don’t need to keep these profiles around for eternity (for one, that will get expensive). Beyond an interesting point at some family reunion, they won’t matter in any material way.

matz1 8y ago
Well you don't want to see it but others might, they can have their own reason no matter how absurd its to you.
ddebernardy 8y ago
> how much does knowing Great-great Aunt Ethyll’s thoughts on Karl Marx actually affect us on a daily basis? How much will your predilection for the song stylings of Kim Kardashian affect future generations in a meaningful way? I'd expect a lot in both cases. The first is part of ongoing conversations in society. The second, well... An AI historian or at the very least an AI-assisted historian will likely be the one reading it all, and it'll be extremely interested to get the precise pulse of what went on in people's minds in our day and time. Contrast this with, say, 200 years ago. We have diaries, letters, newspapers, pamphlets, books, etc. But the data is spotty, and won't allow you to comb through what went on in a typical person's mind. Data from Facebook, Google, Amazon, and so forth allows to do just that for better or worse. The real problem with this, besides the privacy considerations for as long as we and whoever we interacted with live, is the risk that the data is lost in some way or another before historians get to analyze it. 50 years from now we'll either be in a historian's utopia (ubiquitous data) or in a modern day regression into the dark ages (with much less data than before everything became digital).
kristianc 8y ago
> While historians love to peer into the minutiae of daily lives because, well, historians, how much does knowing Great-great Aunt Ethyll’s thoughts on Karl Marx actually affect us on a daily basis? How much will your predilection for the song stylings of Kim Kardashian affect future generations in a meaningful way? Potentially quite interesting. A lot of older people alive today will disavow any connection with imperialist regimes of the mid to late 20th century. They're likely not all telling the truth. Understanding how attitudes then evolved over time may well help us avoid the same mistakes in the future.
pilsetnieks 8y ago
There are branches of archeology and paleontology studying ancient feces (look up coprolites and paleofeces,) and deriving a lot of information about ancient societies and animals. So you never know what will be deemed valuable in the future. My guess is that this will need a new kind of archeology. Much like the postings, a lot of the research will be automated.

matz1 8y ago

Well you don't want to see it but others might, they can have their own reason no matter how absurd its to you.

ddebernardy 8y ago

> how much does knowing Great-great Aunt Ethyll’s thoughts on Karl Marx actually affect us on a daily basis? How much will your predilection for the song stylings of Kim Kardashian affect future generations in a meaningful way? I'd expect a lot in both cases. The first is part of ongoing conversations in society. The second, well... An AI historian or at the very least an AI-assisted historian will likely be the one reading it all, and it'll be extremely interested to get the precise pulse of what went on in people's minds in our day and time. Contrast this with, say, 200 years ago. We have diaries, letters, newspapers, pamphlets, books, etc. But the data is spotty, and won't allow you to comb through what went on in a typical person's mind. Data from Facebook, Google, Amazon, and so forth allows to do just that for better or worse. The real problem with this, besides the privacy considerations for as long as we and whoever we interacted with live, is the risk that the data is lost in some way or another before historians get to analyze it. 50 years from now we'll either be in a historian's utopia (ubiquitous data) or in a modern day regression into the dark ages (with much less data than before everything became digital).

kristianc 8y ago

> While historians love to peer into the minutiae of daily lives because, well, historians, how much does knowing Great-great Aunt Ethyll’s thoughts on Karl Marx actually affect us on a daily basis? How much will your predilection for the song stylings of Kim Kardashian affect future generations in a meaningful way? Potentially quite interesting. A lot of older people alive today will disavow any connection with imperialist regimes of the mid to late 20th century. They're likely not all telling the truth. Understanding how attitudes then evolved over time may well help us avoid the same mistakes in the future.

pilsetnieks 8y ago

There are branches of archeology and paleontology studying ancient feces (look up coprolites and paleofeces,) and deriving a lot of information about ancient societies and animals. So you never know what will be deemed valuable in the future. My guess is that this will need a new kind of archeology. Much like the postings, a lot of the research will be automated.