The state of the now, from the future
Jun. 24th, 2009 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueOne of the things I was musing on over the last few was history.
History is ... sort of a detective story. We piece together what happened. From the mundane 'what clothes did vikings wear' to 'when did William the Conquerer land?'.
But it's always a question of interpretation of evidence. We gather together fragments of the past and try and see what picture they make.
But here's the thing. Over the last ... well, hundred years or so, we've vastly expanded our ability to record what's happening.
We've seen literacy become more and more common.
We've seen actual pictures going from 'posed portraits in paint' to the state where ... well, a large fraction of the population have not just a photographic camera, but actually a video camera in their pocket right now.
News programs are getting footage from 'men on the street' who happened to think to whip out their camera when they saw e.g. planes crashing into skyscraperse.
And we have mobile web access - I could post thoughts on what's happening right now from my phone.
Indeed, we see this happening - the 'public record' of what's happening in Iran, is in no small part escaping through the cracks in the censorship via Twitter. Not so much the revolution being televised, as twitterd and facebooked.
If you look back onto Usenet, you see fascinating insights from the people who carried on to shake the world. http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html
And so it goes. The volume of information in the 'collective' brain that is the Internet is vast. Capacity increases steadily, as does our ability record.
So a hundred years from now, we'll not so much be wondering at the incompleteness of our evidence. More we'll be trying to sort the signal from the noise.
I wonder what sort of picture they'll get?
History is ... sort of a detective story. We piece together what happened. From the mundane 'what clothes did vikings wear' to 'when did William the Conquerer land?'.
But it's always a question of interpretation of evidence. We gather together fragments of the past and try and see what picture they make.
But here's the thing. Over the last ... well, hundred years or so, we've vastly expanded our ability to record what's happening.
We've seen literacy become more and more common.
We've seen actual pictures going from 'posed portraits in paint' to the state where ... well, a large fraction of the population have not just a photographic camera, but actually a video camera in their pocket right now.
News programs are getting footage from 'men on the street' who happened to think to whip out their camera when they saw e.g. planes crashing into skyscraperse.
And we have mobile web access - I could post thoughts on what's happening right now from my phone.
Indeed, we see this happening - the 'public record' of what's happening in Iran, is in no small part escaping through the cracks in the censorship via Twitter. Not so much the revolution being televised, as twitterd and facebooked.
If you look back onto Usenet, you see fascinating insights from the people who carried on to shake the world. http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html
And so it goes. The volume of information in the 'collective' brain that is the Internet is vast. Capacity increases steadily, as does our ability record.
So a hundred years from now, we'll not so much be wondering at the incompleteness of our evidence. More we'll be trying to sort the signal from the noise.
I wonder what sort of picture they'll get?
