> Digital culture is already so ethereal, fragile, that you have to wonder if millennia from now our descendents may posit this period as another "dark age" bec

> Digital culture is already so ethereal, fragile, that you have to wonder if millennia from now our descendents may posit this period as another "dark age" because none of what we've generated since the 90s will remain (or be decypherable). Mark Lawrence kinda explores this idea in his Prince of Thorns universe. Former AI researcher, now fantasy author. Without spoiling the books too much: There’s a lot of stuff left over from The Ancients who had these weird rectangular things that sometimes pop to life and do magic, but are otherwise inert, useless, and have no moving parts you can analyze. Very strange black rocks that seem to do things when you hold them just right but nobody knows what makes the assembly work, or how, or when it might suddenly pop into life. You kinda just fiddle with it until something happens and hope for the best. Oh and The Ancients had a lot of “liquid stone”, which is very strong and would come in handy for building forts, if anyone knew how it works or how to make more.