4 ms·

You now mentioned something important: older generations have left behind journals, magazines, books, all kinds of documents that represent their generation. Wh

You now mentioned something important: older generations have left behind journals, magazines, books, all kinds of documents that represent their generation. When our generation is gone, there will be very little physical traces left. Someone will have to search archive.org or similar to find anything.

mjburgess 6y ago
It's the function of historians to do the archeology and summarise for a broader audience.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  It's the function of historians to do the archeology and summarise for a broader audience Those summaries will be written in a similarly ephemeral format. A book in a library can sit there and be rediscovered in a hundred years. A scroll or an engraving in a thousand. But we create things that have evaporated in a mere decade.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    I’ve been thinking of backing up a few dozen megabytes of my most important files in like QR codes or maybe something simpler like dual-parity data matrix with instructions in plain text and printed out FORTRAN code. Printed on long lived (waterproof?) paper with a laserjet. Along with plain text printouts of text and pictures. Even thought of etching that on stainless plates or something. Could be scanned with a smartphone or even decoded by hand (include an ASCII lookup table).
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  Maybe, but most people won’t have the equivalent of boxes in the attic containing their or their family memorabilia
  - jrumbut 6y ago
    We may be a lot like the much older generations that left behind only a handful of prized possessions. I have a wedding photograph printed on non-biodegradable material (not intentionally for preservation, it's decorative), and perhaps that will eventually be the only tangible evidence of me in the same way that wedding photographs are all I've seen of some relatives born before 1900.
- echelon 6y ago
  How many generations are even left before we don't have anymore humans? I'd wager we're 20 - 30 years out from regenerative cloning, and 50 - 75 out from reproductive cloning. We could start that process today if we weren't so squeamish. ML is coming to a head, and we'll potentially have machines that outclass us in basic tasks in 25 - 50 years. Within 200, I'd say the human experiment is at an end. What then? Either we evolve along with our machines, we become one with the machines, or the machines take over. We're living in the last stages of the human species right now, and not many people think to contemplate that and integrate it into their worldview. Climate, space exploration, etc. is all incredibly human-centric. Fighting for resources, defining legacies, ... I mean, it's what we as humans do. One day it'll just suddenly end, and it's probably only a handful of generations until the pieces fall into place.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    > ML is coming to a head, and we'll potentially have machines that outclass us in basic tasks in 25 - 50 years. Just this line makes me skeptical of the rest of your thinking as well... what I've seen of ML application leaves me strongly convinced that every usage of ML will need human supervision and override control. Every case of "can't reach a human to get this corrected" is a call for boycotting / suing to force a human override channel for any automated system. The "human experiment" is not an experiment, it is the fundamental reality, and no automation will ever truly replace human thoughts plus emotions plus inherent irrational priorities / preferences / biases.
- vidarh 6y ago
  Maybe, but one of the things that frustrates me is that I know picked up a lot of things because of the books my dad had on the shelves for example. Of course he showed me many of them, but I discovered many more myself because they were there in front of me. My Kindle books etc. are not visible to my son in the same way. Spatial, in your face, visibility matters in transferring culture.
  - ableal 6y ago
    But you may be slightly sad that a newer generation, growing with shelves full of books right in front of their eyes, is never seen picking up and leafing through a single one of them. They were into some children's books on their way to being teenagers, but now they read and watch videos on their phones, and only read on paper for school. Then you get over it. They're whip smart and doing things their way, trying to force them into yours probably would not work anyway. Mostly over it.
    - rfrey 6y ago
      It's not universal. I recently discovered that some weird behaviors in my kid were because he was emulating Richard Feynman, having discovered Surely You're Joking on the basement bookshelf.
    - vidarh 6y ago
      The thing is, it's not about forcing it, but about creating the opportunity. Maybe it wouldn't happen, but it certainly won't happen if the books aren't there
hooande 6y ago
That said, archive.org is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. This is good for those who don't have access to private libraries or family that have science magazine subscriptions. Future generations will have a different experience than those in the past. Theirs will be slightly more fair

mjburgess 6y ago

It's the function of historians to do the archeology and summarise for a broader audience.

goatinaboat 6y ago
It's the function of historians to do the archeology and summarise for a broader audience Those summaries will be written in a similarly ephemeral format. A book in a library can sit there and be rediscovered in a hundred years. A scroll or an engraving in a thousand. But we create things that have evaporated in a mere decade.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  I’ve been thinking of backing up a few dozen megabytes of my most important files in like QR codes or maybe something simpler like dual-parity data matrix with instructions in plain text and printed out FORTRAN code. Printed on long lived (waterproof?) paper with a laserjet. Along with plain text printouts of text and pictures. Even thought of etching that on stainless plates or something. Could be scanned with a smartphone or even decoded by hand (include an ASCII lookup table).
KineticLensman 6y ago
Maybe, but most people won’t have the equivalent of boxes in the attic containing their or their family memorabilia
- jrumbut 6y ago
  We may be a lot like the much older generations that left behind only a handful of prized possessions. I have a wedding photograph printed on non-biodegradable material (not intentionally for preservation, it's decorative), and perhaps that will eventually be the only tangible evidence of me in the same way that wedding photographs are all I've seen of some relatives born before 1900.
echelon 6y ago
How many generations are even left before we don't have anymore humans? I'd wager we're 20 - 30 years out from regenerative cloning, and 50 - 75 out from reproductive cloning. We could start that process today if we weren't so squeamish. ML is coming to a head, and we'll potentially have machines that outclass us in basic tasks in 25 - 50 years. Within 200, I'd say the human experiment is at an end. What then? Either we evolve along with our machines, we become one with the machines, or the machines take over. We're living in the last stages of the human species right now, and not many people think to contemplate that and integrate it into their worldview. Climate, space exploration, etc. is all incredibly human-centric. Fighting for resources, defining legacies, ... I mean, it's what we as humans do. One day it'll just suddenly end, and it's probably only a handful of generations until the pieces fall into place.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  > ML is coming to a head, and we'll potentially have machines that outclass us in basic tasks in 25 - 50 years. Just this line makes me skeptical of the rest of your thinking as well... what I've seen of ML application leaves me strongly convinced that every usage of ML will need human supervision and override control. Every case of "can't reach a human to get this corrected" is a call for boycotting / suing to force a human override channel for any automated system. The "human experiment" is not an experiment, it is the fundamental reality, and no automation will ever truly replace human thoughts plus emotions plus inherent irrational priorities / preferences / biases.
vidarh 6y ago
Maybe, but one of the things that frustrates me is that I know picked up a lot of things because of the books my dad had on the shelves for example. Of course he showed me many of them, but I discovered many more myself because they were there in front of me. My Kindle books etc. are not visible to my son in the same way. Spatial, in your face, visibility matters in transferring culture.
- ableal 6y ago
  But you may be slightly sad that a newer generation, growing with shelves full of books right in front of their eyes, is never seen picking up and leafing through a single one of them. They were into some children's books on their way to being teenagers, but now they read and watch videos on their phones, and only read on paper for school. Then you get over it. They're whip smart and doing things their way, trying to force them into yours probably would not work anyway. Mostly over it.
  - rfrey 6y ago
    It's not universal. I recently discovered that some weird behaviors in my kid were because he was emulating Richard Feynman, having discovered Surely You're Joking on the basement bookshelf.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    The thing is, it's not about forcing it, but about creating the opportunity. Maybe it wouldn't happen, but it certainly won't happen if the books aren't there

hooande 6y ago

That said, archive.org is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. This is good for those who don't have access to private libraries or family that have science magazine subscriptions. Future generations will have a different experience than those in the past. Theirs will be slightly more fair