8 Comments

Imagine the Petrarch of that post-apocalyptic civilization! Feasting on our discarded meme remnants, traveling to remote archives to find works by the Cicero and Lucretius of our age, whoever they judge that to be.

Expand full comment

Fun article!

But I’m not sure future blobs of ectoplasm will even read. They may be birthed with everything they need pre programmed in identical video loops so they suffer no deviance nor curiosity.

Expand full comment

they might do some sort of information consumption and digestion in whatever format it might be haha. if they don't suffer deviance or curiosity, that program that runs in their mind might also contain our modern nonsense. it's, in a way, a snowball anyway. even though in-between point aren't visible most of the time, somewhere in the latent space / collective unconscious, they are still stored, so the Universe "knows" a path from A to Z even if we can't discern all the intermediate steps. same, I reckon, might be applicable for ectoplasmic blobs's mindware. we might know how to grill a steak but we don't know how to set fire or build a grill or grow a cow, but somewhere in human knowledge, in the hidden pathways between chaos, it's still stored. I just hope those future ectoplasmic blobs will have at least access to Z if not to everything from A to Y. I'm not insane, I guarantee you.

Expand full comment

With that guarantee, I could not possibly doubt.... :)

Expand full comment

Your description of a useless tablet story is essentially Uncut Gems in the Roman Empire and I would def watch that movie.

I also liked the shade thrown at "The West is dying!" in your aside. Literal "Cool story, bro."

Expand full comment

> Uncut Gems in the Roman Empire and I would def watch that movie.

YES

Expand full comment

You know probably that they(I don't know who, "British scientists"?) were able to move the assumed date when Vesuvius erupted, because they found a new graffiti? Something like "Mike plus Katie=love", only Roman names. It had a date-almost half a year after they thought the eruption had happenned.

And I thought, upon reading-people really knew how to build back then..

What will survive even, in this 2 by 4 s land, what graffiti? Will go to hell in a century.

And I'm very sceptical about plastic:)

But I agree with the main premice..it'll be fascinating, just because everything is..

Unless people change of course. Some major change. Maybe they grow fins go deep underwater and become busy in other stuff. Maybe they become Simak's lilac flowers. On some other planet. Maybe they'll carry some knowledge in their extensive roots system. I don't know, my imagination is not vivid enough.

But if they stay, in their essence, people..yes, they'll be fascinated. If they ever find something.

Expand full comment

I want to believe they’ll find something! at least themselves haha

p.s. the use of plastic as an example was of course a post-ironic burp!

Expand full comment