[X] My Assistant

[spfrss]

As usual, NASA is embarking names onboard DAWN for the trip to Vesta and Ceres

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/DawnCommunity/Sen...teroid_blt.aspx

live long and prosper

Mauro

[mike]

Realistically no one ever really knows what it was like to be anyone but themselves, but you state well things that I've thought myself forever.

You don't write a book about the 'boring things' that everybody already knows about - the things that EVERYBODY does. It makes me wonder just how much we really know about Roman life, Greek life, and even life in Victorian times, etc. etc. etc. Of course, no one will ever know, because I am highly doubtful that time travel into the past will ever exist, but you see, that's just how things work. I dare say things are even set up that way on purpose, because, let's face it, there's not a whole lot to do, and if everyone knew that we were all just doing virtually the exact same things as cavemen.. well, actually, they wouldn't care, because, ultimately, sex is fun, food tastes good, and drugs are enjoyable.

[dvandorn]

In reality, more about how we live has been captured in the past 100 years than has ever been captured by previous generations. True, the media of storage are not as permanent as we might like, and most of the information captured is at least "flavored," if not actually skewed, depending upon the reason for the capture (news, entertainment, amateur photography, etc.).

What it comes down to, I guess, is what you define as "what it's like to live in these times." That's a really variable thing in the first place -- it depends on where you live, how much money you have, how well connected you and your family happen to be, etc., etc. In fact, "what it's like" varies from person to person, and I doubt we have the desire or the resources to record fine details about six billion lives.

The things that will give future generations a better idea of what life was like in these times are the cultural elements that are shared by larger and smaller groups. Those tend to be captured on film and video more often than not, if only because film and video are the primary means by which people experience the world beyond their own neighborhoods. So, since what we share as a people is already disseminated by film and video, it's already captured.

As much as we might not want future generations to judge us by episodes of Seinfeld, it's a fact that Seinfeld both disseminated and reflected elements of culture that are shared by millions of Americans. A small fraction of American culture, yes, but Seinfeld was a small fraction of the information captured during its run.

I have just recently celebrated my 50th birthday. I can tell you that American media has not always reflected the ways in which I have lived over that half-century, but it has provided the backdrop for the world in which I live. Future anthropologists will have worse things to look at than the volume of media stored from film and video.

I'm not the guy y'all probably would want to pick and choose what we should save for future generations -- but then again, no one else is, either. That's why we want a LOT of people making those decisions, and saving what seems important to them. That way, what is saved will better reflect who we were and what we went through...

-the other Doug