In the year 10234..

[McBell]

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?

I remember reading somewhere long long ago about a billboard...

Let us say that there is a billboard put up that has a picture of a frog on it.
Let us say that this billboard was vandalized by someone drawing a huge penis on the frog.
let us say that there was some sort of disaster that wiped out the population in that area and then 500 years later that the vandalized billboard is discovered.

Perhaps those who find the billboard will think that we worshiped some fertility frog?

 

[sniper762]

The zaeger and evans song "in the year 2525" may turn out to be an acurate prediction

 

[Reptillian]

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.

I would imagine that quite a bit of digital information will survive....especially videos. There may not be a "Dead Sea Scrolls" moment, but all it would take is a digital rosetta stone that would allow ancient information to be understood in terms of a more modern device.

 

[bobhikes]

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..

I work with digital information. I have been responsible for restoring old system data, its very rarely possible. We have actually had to provide new computers and software to get equipment running.

I had a computer in my apartment in NJ during Hurricane Floyd 1999. Everything was backed up and in a safe, I even had some paper data. Only some of the paper data could be restored. 9 feet of water bad for computers and safes.

Even on the internet. I stored photo's for a while. One of the sites went belly up I wasn't notified in time and can no longer get my photo's.


Electronic information will not last even 100 years let alone 10,000. I don't have and can't recover any of my TRS-80 computer programs that I wrote. People will tell you it isn't important but it is what built today's computers.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

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

That Angellous is your daddy.:beach:

 

[Revoltingest]

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

Some 8 millennia in the distant future, students of history will learn....
- It's still Bush's fault.
- So that's when the current Palestinian vs Israeli conflict started.
- People were so exploitative & bigoted towards ancestors of our robot masters.
- The Angeloustan vs Revoltistan war was instigated by Reptillianada.

 

[McBell]

I work with digital information. I have been responsible for restoring old system data, its very rarely possible. We have actually had to provide new computers and software to get equipment running.

I had a computer in my apartment in NJ during Hurricane Floyd 1999. Everything was backed up and in a safe, I even had some paper data. Only some of the paper data could be restored. 9 feet of water bad for computers and safes.

Even on the internet. I stored photo's for a while. One of the sites went belly up I wasn't notified in time and can no longer get my photo's.


Electronic information will not last even 100 years let alone 10,000. I don't have and can't recover any of my TRS-80 computer programs that I wrote. People will tell you it isn't important but it is what built today's computers.

Sounds like you should have burned your photos to CDs or DVDs.

I have CDs that have gone through floods, a house fire, magnets, and even a microwave and guess what?
I can still look at them after 10 years.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Sounds like you should have burned your photos to CDs or DVDs.

I have CDs that have gone through floods, a house fire, magnets, and even a microwave and guess what?
I can still look at them after 10 years.

I've gotta ask: why would you put CDs in the microwave?

 

[McBell]

I've gotta ask: why would you put CDs in the microwave?

I didn't.
But my daughter (then 4) thought to use it as a plate.

Took me forever to clean the melted caramel cubes off of it.

 

[Falvlun]

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.

We've deciphered hierglyphics and dead languages before. I see no reason why bright people in the future (assuming that we aren't living in caves) wouldn't be able to design a new machine to read the data.

 

[croak]

Would we have history books?

Follow the ravens into the future!

 

[Valjean]

Considering that the English of less than 1,000 years ago is today decipherable only by academics, I'd expect the same a thousand years hence.

I fear the bigger problem will be the societal collapse we seem to be speeding toward. A soaring population, resource depletion and environmental degradation could make the Dark Ages look like a minor recession.
If we're living in caves and foraging for food I doubt we'll have any interest in reconstructing our past.

 

[bobhikes]

Sounds like you should have burned your photos to CDs or DVDs.

I have CDs that have gone through floods, a house fire, magnets, and even a microwave and guess what?
I can still look at them after 10 years.

You got lucky with fire. Fire will do a number on CD's however at the time I had floppies and back up drives no CD's.

Even that being said CD and DVD's have a life expectancy of 50 to 200 years. Yours won't be usable in 10234.

 

[McBell]

You got lucky with fire. Fire will do a number on CD's however at the time I had floppies and back up drives no CD's.

That sucks.

Even that being said CD and DVD's have a life expectancy of 50 to 200 years. Yours won't be usable in 10234.

If you say so.
Guess we will just have to wait and see.