Charles Stross' Diary (RSS Feed)
07-10-2007, 01:09 PM
I've got an article on the BBCs technology website today: a short polemical piece on the future of history (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6287126.stm):
We've had agriculture for about 12,000 years, towns for eight to 10,000 years, and writing for about 5,000 years. But we're still living in the dark ages leading up to the dawn of history.
Don't we have history already, you ask? Well actually, we don't. We know much less about our ancestors than our descendants will know about us.
Indeed, we've acquired bad behvioural habits - because we're used to forgetting things over time. In fact, collectively we're on the edge of losing the ability to forget.
And in other news, here's the first review of HALTING STATE (http://greenmanreview.com/book/book_stross_haltingstate.html) (my next SF novel) to hit the web.
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/07/15_minutes_of_fame.html)
We've had agriculture for about 12,000 years, towns for eight to 10,000 years, and writing for about 5,000 years. But we're still living in the dark ages leading up to the dawn of history.
Don't we have history already, you ask? Well actually, we don't. We know much less about our ancestors than our descendants will know about us.
Indeed, we've acquired bad behvioural habits - because we're used to forgetting things over time. In fact, collectively we're on the edge of losing the ability to forget.
And in other news, here's the first review of HALTING STATE (http://greenmanreview.com/book/book_stross_haltingstate.html) (my next SF novel) to hit the web.
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/07/15_minutes_of_fame.html)