4 ms·

We don't think it's necessary to preserve everything that's ever spoken verbally. We don't lament that everyday conversation is ephemeral. People are conflatin

by gdulli 7y ago

We don't think it's necessary to preserve everything that's ever spoken verbally. We don't lament that everyday conversation is ephemeral. People are conflating internet discussion content with written content because it's stored as text. Whereas the more legitimate comparison is to verbal communication.

JadeNB 7y ago
> We don't lament that everyday conversation is ephemeral. I imagine you're not a historian. Neither am I, but I cannot imagine that there is a historian out there who hasn't lamented the ephemerality of everyday conversation (and even of apparently more durable forms of communication).
sincerely 7y ago
>We don't lament that everyday conversation is ephemeral. Linguists definitely do.
jonathanstrange 7y ago
Historians would love to preserve spoken communication and there are many projects recording everyday conversations. There are even projects of recording the typical sounds of the environment in certain areas at a certain time. However, many forms of spoken everyday conversation fall under restrictive privacy laws, which poses strict limits to such preservation efforts. The texts on the internet at a given time, on the other hand, are public and reflect the opinions and ways of living of a large number of people at that time. There is no doubt that these could be analysed in the future to give us historical insights in ways we cannot even conceive yet. (Think e.g. about getting them data mined and analysed by advanced A.I. to give new insights into the time period.) The worth of the data is so obvious that it's really hard for me to understand why you and some other people don't think these are interesting data points for research on how we lived in, say, 200, 500, or even 10000 years from now. The data is not only interesting to historians, but also to economists, political scientists, and linguistics, btw.

by gdulli 7y ago

JadeNB 7y ago

> We don't lament that everyday conversation is ephemeral. I imagine you're not a historian. Neither am I, but I cannot imagine that there is a historian out there who hasn't lamented the ephemerality of everyday conversation (and even of apparently more durable forms of communication).

sincerely 7y ago

>We don't lament that everyday conversation is ephemeral. Linguists definitely do.

jonathanstrange 7y ago

Historians would love to preserve spoken communication and there are many projects recording everyday conversations. There are even projects of recording the typical sounds of the environment in certain areas at a certain time. However, many forms of spoken everyday conversation fall under restrictive privacy laws, which poses strict limits to such preservation efforts. The texts on the internet at a given time, on the other hand, are public and reflect the opinions and ways of living of a large number of people at that time. There is no doubt that these could be analysed in the future to give us historical insights in ways we cannot even conceive yet. (Think e.g. about getting them data mined and analysed by advanced A.I. to give new insights into the time period.) The worth of the data is so obvious that it's really hard for me to understand why you and some other people don't think these are interesting data points for research on how we lived in, say, 200, 500, or even 10000 years from now. The data is not only interesting to historians, but also to economists, political scientists, and linguistics, btw.