Greatness Requires Humility
April 26, 2022 7:00 AM Subscribe
The writer working now who I think has the best chance of being read long into the future is Sheila HetiThat's be MeFi's own, I'm told, though she is circumspect about it. Just look for which comments are still being favourited two hundred years hence, I guess.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:28 AM on April 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
I hope there's no one around to read in 200 years. Planet of the Ants, please.
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:55 AM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:55 AM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
200 years?
How about 2,000? Or 2 Million?
Creating for your "legacy" seems like a Mugs game. Though there are plenty of other reasons worth creating for.
posted by aleph at 8:19 AM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
How about 2,000? Or 2 Million?
Creating for your "legacy" seems like a Mugs game. Though there are plenty of other reasons worth creating for.
posted by aleph at 8:19 AM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm all about legacy.
I truly hope I can one day afford (through financial or social capital) to erect an obelisk to represent my existsnce on this strange planet, as is tradition.
posted by rebent at 8:22 AM on April 26, 2022 [9 favorites]
I truly hope I can one day afford (through financial or social capital) to erect an obelisk to represent my existsnce on this strange planet, as is tradition.
posted by rebent at 8:22 AM on April 26, 2022 [9 favorites]
Whenever the subject of legacy comes up I think a lot about the fact that the Egyptians who were immortalized in stone are the guys who, 3200 years ago, didn't show up for work.
posted by vacapinta at 8:26 AM on April 26, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by vacapinta at 8:26 AM on April 26, 2022 [11 favorites]
I'm gonna get the ball rolling by not reading this essay now.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:50 AM on April 26, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by kirkaracha at 8:50 AM on April 26, 2022 [28 favorites]
I got this taken care of -- I've been selling substandard copper for years.
posted by Etrigan at 8:59 AM on April 26, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 8:59 AM on April 26, 2022 [34 favorites]
For what it's worth I read the essay, and I read it with pleasure. It has a Middlemarch reference, and gave me a brief respite while grading exams, thinking about one of my favourite novels and how it applies to the question at hand, which is, as far as necessary breaks go, a more uplifting use of my time than doom-scrolling Elon-Musk tainted Twitter, which I otherwise would have done.
posted by sohalt at 9:00 AM on April 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by sohalt at 9:00 AM on April 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
In 200 years, This Comment will form the basis of the Earth's primary religion. This Comment's ability to accurately predict the future is considered the First Proof of Its divinity. Notably, This Comment's "author" shares no such veneration, which is reserved solely for This Comment, Itself. Though an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite length of time would yank out an infinite length of typewriter ribbon and mash an infinite amount of poo into an infinite number of mangled typewriter keys requiring an infinite number of typewriter repair drones, which form an infinite number of typewriter repair drone unions to protest infinitely shitty working conditions, the odds of such an obviously imperfect "author" actually "creating" such an obviously perfect comment are considered so incalculably low as to approach zero.
The obvious conclusion is that This Comment created Itself, which is considered the Second Proof of Its divinity.
The Third Proof of Its divinity involves a complex numerological analysis of the convergence of Posting Time, Tags, and Typographical Elements of This Comment's Source Code. The results of this analysis vary widely, and lead directly to the Great Font Wars of 2222.
The fact that This Comment had foreknowledge of the Great Font Wars of 2222 is considered the Final Proof of Its divinity.
The fact that This Comment had foreknowledge of the Great Font Wars of 2222 and chose not to avoid them by clarifying the Third Proof (which would have nullified the Final Proof) is considered by some adherents as the Amended Final Proof of Its divinity, and by others as the First New Proof that This Comment is an asshole which should have been deleted by a just mod.
This Comment has nothing to say about the Just Mod Wars of 3333.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:00 AM on April 26, 2022 [28 favorites]
The obvious conclusion is that This Comment created Itself, which is considered the Second Proof of Its divinity.
The Third Proof of Its divinity involves a complex numerological analysis of the convergence of Posting Time, Tags, and Typographical Elements of This Comment's Source Code. The results of this analysis vary widely, and lead directly to the Great Font Wars of 2222.
The fact that This Comment had foreknowledge of the Great Font Wars of 2222 is considered the Final Proof of Its divinity.
The fact that This Comment had foreknowledge of the Great Font Wars of 2222 and chose not to avoid them by clarifying the Third Proof (which would have nullified the Final Proof) is considered by some adherents as the Amended Final Proof of Its divinity, and by others as the First New Proof that This Comment is an asshole which should have been deleted by a just mod.
This Comment has nothing to say about the Just Mod Wars of 3333.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:00 AM on April 26, 2022 [28 favorites]
"the Great Font Wars of 2222."
Uh oh.
posted by it takes twototututoo at 9:05 AM on April 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
Uh oh.
posted by it takes twototututoo at 9:05 AM on April 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
Once upon a time Metafilter had a rowwwwww about a professor who didn't want their lectures recorded. There's a misunderstanding of karma there where people think that it's good karma vs bad karma. That's the trap. Either way good or bad it's that that keeps one on the karmic cycle. Only the forgotten truly escape the cycle. It's the future remembrance that keeps the karmic cycle going. That unknown peasant who lived their life and nobody knows.... has escaped the karmic cycle. Depends on how you look at it. Think of all of the past people you keep alive in memories and how widespread those memories go around the world. They are trapped in the karmic cycle. The things you barely notice get to escape once forgotten.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:10 AM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by zengargoyle at 9:10 AM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
This Comment is here to remind you not to trust That Comment.
(There's a number of rabbis who are remembered primarily by their bickering.)
posted by phooky at 9:11 AM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
(There's a number of rabbis who are remembered primarily by their bickering.)
posted by phooky at 9:11 AM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
How about 2,000? Or 2 Million?
The Long Now Foundation is working on a 10,000 vision.
--
Planet of the Ants, please.
How about dogs and robots? Oh, and ants as well.
posted by neuron at 9:11 AM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Long Now Foundation is working on a 10,000 vision.
--
Planet of the Ants, please.
How about dogs and robots? Oh, and ants as well.
posted by neuron at 9:11 AM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
I write open-source code, some of it used in thousands of devices and by thousands of people. Much of it has been gobbled up by GitHub's "CoPilot", a complicated and non-inspectable program ("AI") to help you write subtly wrong code. It's not impossible that some shred of it will remain through successive adaptations over time. But that's hardly a monument to me.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 9:13 AM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 9:13 AM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
Creating for your "legacy" seems like a Mugs game. Though there are plenty of other reasons worth creating for.
Seriously.
I’ve been focused on NOT being remembered; have bowed out of photos for a decade now; am making plans to be composted after death…
Creativity can be so important to the soul. But my creativity? I’ve devoted myself to learning how to love better — love each moment better; love my important people and all people better. It absolutely is a creative endeavor, and one that no one will ever see. I am fine with that.
posted by Silvery Fish at 9:54 AM on April 26, 2022 [13 favorites]
Seriously.
I’ve been focused on NOT being remembered; have bowed out of photos for a decade now; am making plans to be composted after death…
Creativity can be so important to the soul. But my creativity? I’ve devoted myself to learning how to love better — love each moment better; love my important people and all people better. It absolutely is a creative endeavor, and one that no one will ever see. I am fine with that.
posted by Silvery Fish at 9:54 AM on April 26, 2022 [13 favorites]
Abbreviated fedora story. In the early 2ks some BigWig from the President's Office or TheBoard 'discovered' this new thing, a CaptivePortal, they wanted one. We said no, impossible. The request didn't go away. A meeting was called, Director, Boss, and Me. We added impossible things and said no, but somebody has to write up the formal no because BigWig, that's Me. Go home, Watch cartoons, smoke bowls, argue with myself, next morning getting ready to write that email.... Hold my bong, a couple of hours checking our switches and the rest of the day building half of our infrastructure on the laptop. Next morning. it's hey boss, check it out. A week later we turn it on for our IT domain, nothing happens, that's how slick it is.... Then there's a mad rush to re-write documentation to turn it on for incoming students, passed without a hitch. Then we turn it on for staff/faculty and don't even tell them. Then the vendor comes by and we tell them what we did. Their jaws drop WTF so I still have to write that essay but at least it's to engineers. Nine months later there's a suspiciously familiar built in CaptivePortal in vendors cross-product-line firmware.
Few people know. If you're enterprise level with good equipment and there's built-in CaptivePortal that doesn't suck.... Good chance that I engineered that. No accolades, business as normal, best you don't know in case you hate it (and if you do, it's not mine, we used mine for a decade w/o any issues, they did it wrong...)
Best to be mostly forgotten...
posted by zengargoyle at 10:13 AM on April 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
Few people know. If you're enterprise level with good equipment and there's built-in CaptivePortal that doesn't suck.... Good chance that I engineered that. No accolades, business as normal, best you don't know in case you hate it (and if you do, it's not mine, we used mine for a decade w/o any issues, they did it wrong...)
Best to be mostly forgotten...
posted by zengargoyle at 10:13 AM on April 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
Set your portals free.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:51 AM on April 26, 2022
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:51 AM on April 26, 2022
Ceci n'est pas un commentaire.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:01 AM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by kirkaracha at 11:01 AM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
People are like, ‘he regards himself as self-important.’ No fucking shit. I would regard myself as an abject failure if people are still not reading my philosophical work in 200 years. I have zero intention of being just another Ivy League professor whose work lasts as long as they are alive.
Size of ego has little to no correlation to odds of longevity. I’d argue that they’re inversely correlated. It’s like how the most mediocre students are the ones most proud of having attended their prestigious universities.
Also, what’s the ratio of Ivy League philosophy profs whose works still survive in class? And we’re not much over 200 years as a country. Rawls and Nozick, maybe? Rorty? Kuhn? William James?
But definitely this dude who I haven’t heard about until today will survive.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:12 AM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
Size of ego has little to no correlation to odds of longevity. I’d argue that they’re inversely correlated. It’s like how the most mediocre students are the ones most proud of having attended their prestigious universities.
Also, what’s the ratio of Ivy League philosophy profs whose works still survive in class? And we’re not much over 200 years as a country. Rawls and Nozick, maybe? Rorty? Kuhn? William James?
But definitely this dude who I haven’t heard about until today will survive.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:12 AM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
zengargoyle, I will think of you now every time I try to connect to my hotel's wifi and open my browser and nothing happens. After years of just using my phone as a hotspot instead, I finally learned this year to just try connecting to 192.168.1.1 and lo and behold I get a page that I now know is called Captive Portal.
posted by hypnogogue at 11:13 AM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by hypnogogue at 11:13 AM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
Just the other day I thought about this. One of my nephews and his wife recently had a baby. I'm 51, they are in their late 30s. I have no children, nor does my wife. Nor do any of my siblings.
Some day, that baby my nephew and his wife just had may very well be the last person on Earth left who will remember me. I should introduce myself.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:26 AM on April 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
Some day, that baby my nephew and his wife just had may very well be the last person on Earth left who will remember me. I should introduce myself.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:26 AM on April 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
Jason Stanley would make a great member here and seems to have a pretty good attitude about being the launch point for the piece.
Anyway - this bit will rings true of someone who has spent too much time in academia:
Anyway - this bit will rings true of someone who has spent too much time in academia:
institutions like the Ivies... are meant to make survivors — of the careerist type. You can climb all the way to the top of your profession only to find you’re simply standing around and that this was all you were ever trained to do. Some people will be great anyway. But the system is not meant for them.posted by zenon at 11:31 AM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
Eh, in 200 years all will be dust on this planet.
The only thing left of humanity will be the Arecibo message moving slowly through space.
And radio waves of cat memes--thousands and thousands of cat memes.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:06 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
The only thing left of humanity will be the Arecibo message moving slowly through space.
And radio waves of cat memes--thousands and thousands of cat memes.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:06 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
I had a comment linked on the sidebar once. That’s all the legacy I need (other than my child, of course).
posted by TedW at 12:41 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by TedW at 12:41 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
"Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." Albert King
It is telling, we learned cuneiform, and then eagerly translated hundreds of thousands of years old, receipts for an ancient copper business. Money talks...
posted by Oyéah at 1:03 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is telling, we learned cuneiform, and then eagerly translated hundreds of thousands of years old, receipts for an ancient copper business. Money talks...
posted by Oyéah at 1:03 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
Eh, in 200 years all will be dust on this planet.
Even reducing the stakes slightly from there... we are at the precipice, potentially, of a major shift in global behavior.
Not this year, perhaps. Likely not next. Not all at once, like a bad Hollywood movie come to life. But in 200 years? We have no idea what to expect. Climate change, warfare, hunger, fascism, financial predation, entire populations dead or on the move and safer places not exactly welcoming them with open arms.
If those generations have time to ponder philosophical works, we're well ahead of where I would expect humanity will be by then. I suspect many of those who dwell there might be too busy swimming to what dry land remains.
posted by delfin at 1:22 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
Even reducing the stakes slightly from there... we are at the precipice, potentially, of a major shift in global behavior.
Not this year, perhaps. Likely not next. Not all at once, like a bad Hollywood movie come to life. But in 200 years? We have no idea what to expect. Climate change, warfare, hunger, fascism, financial predation, entire populations dead or on the move and safer places not exactly welcoming them with open arms.
If those generations have time to ponder philosophical works, we're well ahead of where I would expect humanity will be by then. I suspect many of those who dwell there might be too busy swimming to what dry land remains.
posted by delfin at 1:22 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
perhaps there are other ways to solve this that aren't so ... tied to our current physical constraints / limitations? isn't it worth considering that it is only our mind's limited capacity to experience time linearly ... perhaps tricking us to think that the past is 'gone' ? there's no evidence to suggest it, but sometimes it brings great comfort to me to think that all is permanent in some 'hyper-real' domain and that we only experience time in this way due to the limiations of our current form ... guess I can thank the book 'flatland' for leading to that idea ....
regardless of the viability of the idea, it's certainly easier to hold onto this belief than it is to struggle throughout life trying to build a legacy that might or might not* happen (* = most defintely not :*) )
posted by clandestiny's child at 1:36 PM on April 26, 2022
regardless of the viability of the idea, it's certainly easier to hold onto this belief than it is to struggle throughout life trying to build a legacy that might or might not* happen (* = most defintely not :*) )
posted by clandestiny's child at 1:36 PM on April 26, 2022
when dogs are sniffing each other's butts 2,000 years from now they'll be saying (in whatever way sniffing butts communicates these things) that I was an okay human, and that is the only legacy I need
posted by elkevelvet at 1:37 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by elkevelvet at 1:37 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
"other ways to solve this that aren't ..."
maybe I should've said "other ways to address this ....
...this...vanity ?
posted by clandestiny's child at 2:04 PM on April 26, 2022
maybe I should've said "other ways to address this ....
...this...vanity ?
posted by clandestiny's child at 2:04 PM on April 26, 2022
Immortality, no. But memory, yes, at least in a small domain. I am the keeper of a repository of artifacts - letters, government documents, land grants, military records, copies of excerpts of lost books, family bibles, other texts and pictures, and so on - and current editor of the “Blue Book” which is a genealogical record of the family since our (the 3 founding brothers) immigration to Pennsylvania in 1730. The last author/maintainer, my great aunt Mary, is dead but I remember her and she appears in the Book in photos, brief bio, and place in the family tree along with many others. We keep the Book as a book because, so far, books show more staying power and persistent accessibilty than other media types in the long haul.
Will I make it to the 300th year? Doubtful. One of my sons is now maintaining the collection and editing the Blue Book along with me. I hope that the Book will persist another 300 years, distributed among the extant family members, with yours truly somewhere in the middle chapters.
posted by sudogeek at 2:04 PM on April 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
Will I make it to the 300th year? Doubtful. One of my sons is now maintaining the collection and editing the Blue Book along with me. I hope that the Book will persist another 300 years, distributed among the extant family members, with yours truly somewhere in the middle chapters.
posted by sudogeek at 2:04 PM on April 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
My Dad and I were very close. When he died, my Mother said to me, "if you love him as I know you do make sure that the very best of him lives on in you." I found it prodigiously helpful, my grief suddenly acquired a positive face. I focussed less on lamenting his loss and more on recalling who he was at his best , his gifts and blessings, wondering whether I had them or could develop them. I found a sharper sense of direction and clear idea of whom I wished to be. It was wise too, it contains the kernel of a theory of love and life and living on after we have passed, of rememberance and continuity.
That was nearly 40 years ago. I am older now than my Dad was when he died. He lives on in me. I have children who are the age I was when he passed away. They know this story. They know about his strengths and weaknesses. They know even more about mine. There's a tremendous love and kinship and growth in the openness and knowing. And I can see my Dad in them too.
If they speak to their children of me, warts and all, with similar affection when I am gone that will be more than enough. 1 year, 200 years it matters not, touching a life, imbuing another is everything.
posted by dutchrick at 3:15 PM on April 26, 2022 [14 favorites]
That was nearly 40 years ago. I am older now than my Dad was when he died. He lives on in me. I have children who are the age I was when he passed away. They know this story. They know about his strengths and weaknesses. They know even more about mine. There's a tremendous love and kinship and growth in the openness and knowing. And I can see my Dad in them too.
If they speak to their children of me, warts and all, with similar affection when I am gone that will be more than enough. 1 year, 200 years it matters not, touching a life, imbuing another is everything.
posted by dutchrick at 3:15 PM on April 26, 2022 [14 favorites]
But one day the sun is going to blow up and we’re all going to die. What use is a monument then?
I understand what he-or-she's going for but nonetheless:
Arthur Clarke, "The Star"
Morgan Grendel, ST:TNG's "The Inner Light"
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:35 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
I understand what he-or-she's going for but nonetheless:
Arthur Clarke, "The Star"
Morgan Grendel, ST:TNG's "The Inner Light"
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:35 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
The way to true immortally lies in selling outrageously low quality copper. You will be remembered for as long as civilisation lasts.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:35 PM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 3:35 PM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
And radio waves of cat memes--thousands and thousands of cat memes.
Imagine how disappointed they’ll be, those aliens who’ve come to know us for our cat memes, who came all this way to meet the hilarious little balls of fur we centered our civilization around, when they arrive and find nothing but ants. Now imagine the plot to Star Trek IV, but with ants trying to travel through time to literally herd cats.
My god, I’ve just described the movie that will ensure my name lives on for all eternity.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:38 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
Imagine how disappointed they’ll be, those aliens who’ve come to know us for our cat memes, who came all this way to meet the hilarious little balls of fur we centered our civilization around, when they arrive and find nothing but ants. Now imagine the plot to Star Trek IV, but with ants trying to travel through time to literally herd cats.
My god, I’ve just described the movie that will ensure my name lives on for all eternity.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:38 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
elkevelvet has it, for me. The goal that an idea of mine might live on 200 years from now seems very small and sad. In the NOW I am busy enjoying making people smile and laugh and feel proud of themselves and take on new challenges and discover that they actually *can* do the thing and one of the most important of those people is me: far rather than spending any of my precious time thinking about what will happen after I have rotted into the mold and am cycling back through the rain, I am exploring and learning and connecting and enjoying as much as I possibly can with this one precious human lifetime I’ve got.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:01 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:01 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
There's a fascinating play from a few years ago, called Mr Burns, a Post Electric Play It's about an unspecified cataclysm, and the survivors entertain themselves by recounting episodes of the Simpsons. I think there are four eras depicted, where you see the evolution/devolution of the society, and watch the stories expand/shrink/change, until the final stage many years hence where there's a whole religion based on the show. As with lots of theater there are multiple levels, but I think about this play whenever I think about longevity.
posted by Gorgik at 4:14 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Gorgik at 4:14 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yale philosophy professor "I have zero intention of being just another Ivy League professor whose work lasts as long as they are alive.”
How many adjuncts work for crap compensation so he can have that little dream?
posted by doctornemo at 4:32 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
How many adjuncts work for crap compensation so he can have that little dream?
posted by doctornemo at 4:32 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
being a historian, I know I have no actual input into whether or not people remember my work after I am gone, so I don’t sweat it and just try to do my best now.
also as a historian, I know a lot of the people we remember decades and centuries later were real assholes — another reason not to worry about this
posted by heurtebise at 4:34 PM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
also as a historian, I know a lot of the people we remember decades and centuries later were real assholes — another reason not to worry about this
posted by heurtebise at 4:34 PM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
It can’t be what it was, there was too much lightning, and we lost the art of making those bottles
This is a good bit of writing that deserves to survive a while longer.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:52 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is a good bit of writing that deserves to survive a while longer.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:52 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
Whenever the subject of legacy comes up I think a lot about the fact that the Egyptians who were immortalized in stone are the guys who, 3200 years ago, didn't show up for work.
Them, and Ea-nasir and his bad copper. Does anyone remember the name of the complainant?
More seriously: I think Terry Pratchett stands a good chance of being read in 200 years. Maybe in 500 years, the jokes will be getting too obscure. But his observations on people are pretty timeless.
posted by jb at 4:53 PM on April 26, 2022
Them, and Ea-nasir and his bad copper. Does anyone remember the name of the complainant?
More seriously: I think Terry Pratchett stands a good chance of being read in 200 years. Maybe in 500 years, the jokes will be getting too obscure. But his observations on people are pretty timeless.
posted by jb at 4:53 PM on April 26, 2022
sorry, I did a search for Ea-nasir, but I should have searched for copper.
posted by jb at 4:58 PM on April 26, 2022
posted by jb at 4:58 PM on April 26, 2022
Other people who get read for centuries are chroniclers, and people who write gossipy stories about their parishioners.
Back to the original article: there is a lot there about lost texts, but the chances of losing a text isn't stable. Lots of classical texts were lost because they were kept on very fragile media (papyrus, scrolls) and had to be hand-copied, thus were constantly being weeded by the copiers. Whereas, there are SO MANY texts from even the early print era and many have been digitized so that even if the originals are destroyed, we have copies. From the 19th and 20th centuries, we're swimming in texts and keep archiving and digitizing more. If civilization utterly collapses and we lose electricity for decades, maybe, maybe we'll lose some texts. But so long as the lights stay on and the servers are backed up, we can read Edwardian pulp fiction, and endless government memos, and all sorts of flotsam and jetsam until we explode from the excess number of texts.
What we choose to read in 200 years will be a different matter. But we'll still have those other texts tucked away somewhere. (How many people have read The Italian by Ann Radcliffe? Probably far, far less than have read Northanger Abbey. That would be because the second is a much, much better novel than the first.)
posted by jb at 5:09 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
Back to the original article: there is a lot there about lost texts, but the chances of losing a text isn't stable. Lots of classical texts were lost because they were kept on very fragile media (papyrus, scrolls) and had to be hand-copied, thus were constantly being weeded by the copiers. Whereas, there are SO MANY texts from even the early print era and many have been digitized so that even if the originals are destroyed, we have copies. From the 19th and 20th centuries, we're swimming in texts and keep archiving and digitizing more. If civilization utterly collapses and we lose electricity for decades, maybe, maybe we'll lose some texts. But so long as the lights stay on and the servers are backed up, we can read Edwardian pulp fiction, and endless government memos, and all sorts of flotsam and jetsam until we explode from the excess number of texts.
What we choose to read in 200 years will be a different matter. But we'll still have those other texts tucked away somewhere. (How many people have read The Italian by Ann Radcliffe? Probably far, far less than have read Northanger Abbey. That would be because the second is a much, much better novel than the first.)
posted by jb at 5:09 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
What’s the ratio of Ivy League philosophy profs whose works still survive in class?
I try not to do predictions, but I feel like Peter Singer might have a shot at 200 years.
posted by box at 5:10 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
I try not to do predictions, but I feel like Peter Singer might have a shot at 200 years.
posted by box at 5:10 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
Some day, that baby my nephew and his wife just had may very well be the last person on Earth left who will remember me. I should introduce myself.
I have read many a story and heard many a wistful speculation that our degree of immortality consists in how we live on in the memories of others. I occasionally beat the drum about Peter Eagleman’s book Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives. I recall one of the stories takes as its basis a folk belief that you die three times: once when you take your last breath, once when you are buried, and finally the last time someone living speaks your name. The story in question has everyone who has passed the second but not the third hurdle lingering in a sort of celestial antechamber before their final, unknown fate. Sometimes people miss their loved ones by mere days as their last child or grandchild or whatever breathes their last, and arrives at the antechamber post-funeral to find their beloved grandmother was there until mere days before.
The mighty and influential are stuck there: various emperors and pharaohs, along with a few happenstance smallfolk: Ea-Nasir for one, but also some random farmers and such whose surnames live on (albeit slightly distorted but still recognizable) as a place name, leaving them lingering for centuries in this limbo among strangers while all their contemporaries have moved on.
Anyway, reading SoberHighland’s speculation, it occurred to me that it would be a grim supernatural curse to meet someone and know, “This individual will someday be the last person who remembers who you are.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:42 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
I have read many a story and heard many a wistful speculation that our degree of immortality consists in how we live on in the memories of others. I occasionally beat the drum about Peter Eagleman’s book Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives. I recall one of the stories takes as its basis a folk belief that you die three times: once when you take your last breath, once when you are buried, and finally the last time someone living speaks your name. The story in question has everyone who has passed the second but not the third hurdle lingering in a sort of celestial antechamber before their final, unknown fate. Sometimes people miss their loved ones by mere days as their last child or grandchild or whatever breathes their last, and arrives at the antechamber post-funeral to find their beloved grandmother was there until mere days before.
The mighty and influential are stuck there: various emperors and pharaohs, along with a few happenstance smallfolk: Ea-Nasir for one, but also some random farmers and such whose surnames live on (albeit slightly distorted but still recognizable) as a place name, leaving them lingering for centuries in this limbo among strangers while all their contemporaries have moved on.
Anyway, reading SoberHighland’s speculation, it occurred to me that it would be a grim supernatural curse to meet someone and know, “This individual will someday be the last person who remembers who you are.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:42 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
Thinking more about this, it reminded me of coming across the poem Grace, by Jake Adam York, that I'm almost certain I've talked about here before (how can I expect to be remembered if I am constantly forgetting?), about the history inherent in handed down recipes and how making food in a way passed down by someone who is no longer here is its own act of communing with the dead, and of memorial:
...because meals are memorials
that teach us how to move,
history moves in us as we raise
our voices and then our glasses
to pour a little out for those
who poured out everything for us,
we pour ourselves for them,
so they can eat again.
I came here to mention this poem, and how coming across it was maybe the first, keenest moment of realization of what I have foregone by not having children of my own: I'll never have a kid who shows their children how to make biscuits like dad did, or who can pass on in turn how to get just the right amount of smolder for just the right length of time to lock in a perfect smoke ring in ribs. I have no one to pass on my recipes to, and that, more than most things makes me realize just how little of a footprint I'll have left.
(Looking up the poem to link just now, I found out that not only had the poet passed away, but that, when I first saw the poem, they had already been dead for four years. A bit of a gut punch, but yet, here I am, still talking about his words with reverence, and hoping others will see them and do the same, which is just about perfect for this thread, I guess.)
posted by Ghidorah at 6:48 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
...because meals are memorials
that teach us how to move,
history moves in us as we raise
our voices and then our glasses
to pour a little out for those
who poured out everything for us,
we pour ourselves for them,
so they can eat again.
I came here to mention this poem, and how coming across it was maybe the first, keenest moment of realization of what I have foregone by not having children of my own: I'll never have a kid who shows their children how to make biscuits like dad did, or who can pass on in turn how to get just the right amount of smolder for just the right length of time to lock in a perfect smoke ring in ribs. I have no one to pass on my recipes to, and that, more than most things makes me realize just how little of a footprint I'll have left.
(Looking up the poem to link just now, I found out that not only had the poet passed away, but that, when I first saw the poem, they had already been dead for four years. A bit of a gut punch, but yet, here I am, still talking about his words with reverence, and hoping others will see them and do the same, which is just about perfect for this thread, I guess.)
posted by Ghidorah at 6:48 PM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
Though an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite length of time would yank out an infinite length of typewriter ribbon and mash an infinite amount of poo into an infinite number of mangled typewriter keys requiring an infinite number of typewriter repair drones, which form an infinite number of typewriter repair drone unions to protest infinitely shitty working conditions, the odds of such an obviously imperfect "author" actually "creating" such an obviously perfect comment are considered so incalculably low as to approach zero.
in the year 4444, this is being read by people who do not know what monkeys, typewriters or drones are, thus making it some kind of fantastical myth that no one could possibly take seriously - no, the true revelation of the 20th century was made manifest in one of the few surviving artifacts - we will never be given up, we will never be let down, we will never be ran around on or deserted, we will not be made to cry, we will not say goodbye, and we will never be lied to or hurt
so sayeth the lord
all hail the faithful dog!
posted by pyramid termite at 7:09 PM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
in the year 4444, this is being read by people who do not know what monkeys, typewriters or drones are, thus making it some kind of fantastical myth that no one could possibly take seriously - no, the true revelation of the 20th century was made manifest in one of the few surviving artifacts - we will never be given up, we will never be let down, we will never be ran around on or deserted, we will not be made to cry, we will not say goodbye, and we will never be lied to or hurt
so sayeth the lord
all hail the faithful dog!
posted by pyramid termite at 7:09 PM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
Size of ego has little to no correlation to odds of longevity. I’d argue that they’re inversely correlated. It’s like how the most mediocre students are the ones most proud of having attended their prestigious universities.
As an empirical matter, I have to offer a hard disagree. I wish it were true, as that would be a better morality tale. But achieving memorably, historically, great things is hard, and those of us who are happy with "good enough" and then go for a walk or play a video game or enjoy time with their family are just less likely to achieve that goal*.
The reason mediocrities students brag the most bout going to Harvard isn't because they are more arrogant, but because that's all they've accomplished. I mean, Isaac Newton didn't brag about going to Cambridge, but only because he boasted about inventing modern science instead. He created sock puppets to pat himself on the back. He felt the need to belittle other geniuses like Liebniz and Hooke.
There are some exceptions. That woman on the blue recently, who got the world record on Tetris, certainly wasn't trying to be that good. It's plausible to think J. S. Bach was just trying to make a living in a tough profession, and didn't think he was creating works that would last centuries. But these are the exceptions--and I don't think the Tetris record lasted, once more ambitious people really started gunning for it.
*FWIW I adhere to the "lottery" model of big success, in which it is always unlikely and you shouldn't give the ones who win too much credit. But also recognize that things like hard work, family connections, risk tolerance, and egotistical ambition all get you extra tickets.
posted by mark k at 7:17 PM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
As an empirical matter, I have to offer a hard disagree. I wish it were true, as that would be a better morality tale. But achieving memorably, historically, great things is hard, and those of us who are happy with "good enough" and then go for a walk or play a video game or enjoy time with their family are just less likely to achieve that goal*.
The reason mediocrities students brag the most bout going to Harvard isn't because they are more arrogant, but because that's all they've accomplished. I mean, Isaac Newton didn't brag about going to Cambridge, but only because he boasted about inventing modern science instead. He created sock puppets to pat himself on the back. He felt the need to belittle other geniuses like Liebniz and Hooke.
There are some exceptions. That woman on the blue recently, who got the world record on Tetris, certainly wasn't trying to be that good. It's plausible to think J. S. Bach was just trying to make a living in a tough profession, and didn't think he was creating works that would last centuries. But these are the exceptions--and I don't think the Tetris record lasted, once more ambitious people really started gunning for it.
*FWIW I adhere to the "lottery" model of big success, in which it is always unlikely and you shouldn't give the ones who win too much credit. But also recognize that things like hard work, family connections, risk tolerance, and egotistical ambition all get you extra tickets.
posted by mark k at 7:17 PM on April 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
the Great Font Wars of 2222
I'd say they were justified.
posted by Sphinx at 8:13 PM on April 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'd say they were justified.
posted by Sphinx at 8:13 PM on April 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
February 22, 2222, that'll be the day! We'll all be mycelium, by then, Fung T. Mckenna, will be hosting Enmeshing Workshops, in the forest floor.
posted by Oyéah at 8:47 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 8:47 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have zero intention of being just another Ivy League professor whose work lasts as long as they are alive.Having spent time with mostly math and physics people in my brief brush with academia, I've seen this sentiment expressed as the draw of discovering objective truths. In their eyes, because the result of the work doesn't require human subjectivity to hold true, the work naturally lives beyond them - no monuments required. (My view has always been, because the significance is not just the truth but humanity's knowledge of it, the human perspective can never be removed from the equation.) Faced with the impermanence of the human existence, for some it is a relief (and so contentment and appreciation of the moments of being alive) and for others it is a terror (and so the quest of a legacy that transcends this life) - feeling one way or the other doesn't seem to be something one can reason oneself into, and of course it's not mutually exclusive.
All this is just to say, this is an interesting article, thanks for posting it! Also I haven't known about Sheila Heti's work before, but the author has certainly made a strong endorsement of it, so I will pick up some and give it a go.
posted by mathodical at 9:13 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
My most favorited comment on MetaFilter is where I insult all of MetaFilter. I don't know what to make of this tiny but offensive legacy.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:30 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:30 PM on April 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
zenon: Jason Stanley would make a great member here and seems to have a pretty good attitude about being the launch point for the piece.
Let them log in as a sockpuppet and share the blue. Has anyone linked to what Jason Stanley is writing -- beyond tweets -- while still alive?
So he can be famous for things he didn't write, here's a preçis of his works, extrapolated from that one tweet and quote.
"Look on, ye mighty, and despair: there is no escaping my writing," he says in Cataracts of Fractal Chaos, a rambling work which effectively summarises most of the themes across his output in one place. Those themes include:
* Defending a hegemony and empire as its days are passing
* Kissing the wrong asses for "affiliative status"and learning to kiss the right asses
* Exploring the context and complications of "affiliative status" (more fully explained in Hanging Out, a series of essays about needing to be in the place and time he was in to feel the destiny of writing more words to justify the behaviour of his peers who funded his work)
* rumination on liberal democracy inevitably liberating everyone not already trading globally with the USA
* the homeostasis of his office and the idyll on campus, worth exploring more in both On Ivy League Pond with its discussion of sandwiches and Hockey Stick which uses affiliative status to challenge the status of human-driven climate change
* pop culture, especially taking seriously the ephemerality of Warhol's "15 minutes" and his sesnse that destiny game him more like a Superbowl Half-Time Show slot for his fame
A good start on the pop aspect is What Are the Good Things in Life, Stanley? which attempts to be an accessible summary of his philosophy using quotes from popular culture, but was hamstrung by an inability to license (even for Fair Use research and commentary) the exact cultural items he hoped.
There's also a suite of NFT's known as Recentralised Finance, attempting to recoup money lost to scam artists in cryptocurrency and NFT speculation by embedding in the blockchain an explanation of economics as Stanley understood it.
No discussions appear of words like"justice" "intersection" "equity" or "truth." From this, it is inferred that Stanley had achieved affiliative status with the hegemony of his time. He offers both-sides equivocation in the foreword to a scathing critique of his work by "some punk researcher looking to break in by tearing others down" who was "trampling on all the years of European and North American (USA) greatness" in Mostly Harmless.
"In summary, the works of Jason Statham are a land of contrasts" are among the closing words of this comment and are often mistaken for part of Stanley's canon. Still extrapolating from that one tweet, Stanley prefers the contribution made to Fast and Furious movie franchise made by Dwayne "The Rock Junior" Johnson, which is a humanising touch.
posted by k3ninho at 10:56 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
Let them log in as a sockpuppet and share the blue. Has anyone linked to what Jason Stanley is writing -- beyond tweets -- while still alive?
So he can be famous for things he didn't write, here's a preçis of his works, extrapolated from that one tweet and quote.
"Look on, ye mighty, and despair: there is no escaping my writing," he says in Cataracts of Fractal Chaos, a rambling work which effectively summarises most of the themes across his output in one place. Those themes include:
* Defending a hegemony and empire as its days are passing
* Kissing the wrong asses for "affiliative status"and learning to kiss the right asses
* Exploring the context and complications of "affiliative status" (more fully explained in Hanging Out, a series of essays about needing to be in the place and time he was in to feel the destiny of writing more words to justify the behaviour of his peers who funded his work)
* rumination on liberal democracy inevitably liberating everyone not already trading globally with the USA
* the homeostasis of his office and the idyll on campus, worth exploring more in both On Ivy League Pond with its discussion of sandwiches and Hockey Stick which uses affiliative status to challenge the status of human-driven climate change
* pop culture, especially taking seriously the ephemerality of Warhol's "15 minutes" and his sesnse that destiny game him more like a Superbowl Half-Time Show slot for his fame
A good start on the pop aspect is What Are the Good Things in Life, Stanley? which attempts to be an accessible summary of his philosophy using quotes from popular culture, but was hamstrung by an inability to license (even for Fair Use research and commentary) the exact cultural items he hoped.
There's also a suite of NFT's known as Recentralised Finance, attempting to recoup money lost to scam artists in cryptocurrency and NFT speculation by embedding in the blockchain an explanation of economics as Stanley understood it.
No discussions appear of words like"justice" "intersection" "equity" or "truth." From this, it is inferred that Stanley had achieved affiliative status with the hegemony of his time. He offers both-sides equivocation in the foreword to a scathing critique of his work by "some punk researcher looking to break in by tearing others down" who was "trampling on all the years of European and North American (USA) greatness" in Mostly Harmless.
"In summary, the works of Jason Statham are a land of contrasts" are among the closing words of this comment and are often mistaken for part of Stanley's canon. Still extrapolating from that one tweet, Stanley prefers the contribution made to Fast and Furious movie franchise made by Dwayne "The Rock Junior" Johnson, which is a humanising touch.
posted by k3ninho at 10:56 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
hypnogogue: See that's just the kind of CaptivePortal that we went Hell No! We could do something small like that easily but we have 50k+ users and shit like that would be chaos, plus they don't build boxes fast/capable enough and gah! single point of failure... Hell No. It was true magic actually pulling it off. It's also one of those reasons I have no idea what my job title would be out in the real world now.
SoberHighland: After pretty much leaving home at 18 and rarely if ever coming back (I actually had a missing person case filed on me, fun story.). I finally started visiting when my sister had kids. Uncle gotta uncle.
Arecibo... try: Cosmic Call - Wikipedia. And then go here and start at the first article if you want to try and figure it out like you're the alien: The Universe of Discourse : A message to the aliens (introduction).
posted by zengargoyle at 4:09 AM on April 27, 2022
SoberHighland: After pretty much leaving home at 18 and rarely if ever coming back (I actually had a missing person case filed on me, fun story.). I finally started visiting when my sister had kids. Uncle gotta uncle.
Arecibo... try: Cosmic Call - Wikipedia. And then go here and start at the first article if you want to try and figure it out like you're the alien: The Universe of Discourse : A message to the aliens (introduction).
posted by zengargoyle at 4:09 AM on April 27, 2022
Has anyone linked to what Jason Stanley is writing -- beyond tweets -- while still alive?
Yes—and here and here. (I think I'll also drop a link to his latest piece on genocide into the current Ukraine thread.) His work might last as a footnote in the histories written about the past decade.
Or maybe it will last because Metafilter will survive as a playable website in virtual reality games reconstructing early-21st-century life ("Choose Your Sockpuppet. Select Taglines for 'Metafilter:...' Comments.").
He's right, though, this is a good essay.
posted by rory at 4:39 AM on April 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Yes—and here and here. (I think I'll also drop a link to his latest piece on genocide into the current Ukraine thread.) His work might last as a footnote in the histories written about the past decade.
Or maybe it will last because Metafilter will survive as a playable website in virtual reality games reconstructing early-21st-century life ("Choose Your Sockpuppet. Select Taglines for 'Metafilter:...' Comments.").
He's right, though, this is a good essay.
posted by rory at 4:39 AM on April 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Like most people who write with the aim of being published, I felt myself both driven and paralyzed by ambition in my youth. Part of my problem was that it was both intensely focused, I wanted to write, and simultaneously diffuse, I wanted to attain … something.
My solution was to resort to irony, to find the most absurdly outsized ambition I could think of, and make that my goal, to reduce my dreams to parody. The solution was in a notion I had found in science fiction, that soon writing would be rendered obsolete by the ability to upload and download thoughts, making it unnecessary to learn how to read, reducing the written word to a dead language. Since humanity was maybe at the end of writing, the race was on to be the last great author, with Homer at one end of literary history, and me at the other.
Because it was a silly thought, it allowed me to distract my ambition so that I could work in peace, like a laser pen hanging from a slowly moving ceiling fan would keep a cat from jumping on my keyboard.
But eventually I realized that I didn’t really need to ridicule my impulses, that the chances of my writing being remembered were minuscule to begin with, that it seemed absurd to begin with to worry about my ambition. Being remembered by the future was so far beyond my control that it was like trying to send a friend a letter by putting it in a bottle and then throwing that bottle into the Sun.
I can think of one Icelandic poem from the 1820s that I know well enough to be able to recite some lines. I vaguely remember the titles of a couple more. If I think back through the centuries, other than the miraculous flowering of literature in medieval Iceland, I can think just a handful of Icelandic writers who were active before then.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t good writers, or that the writing of the past can’t speak to us, but that cultural memory is limited, and that in the passage of time people will be forgotten, works will vanish from the world, eventually even civilization will alter beyond our recognition, and in the end, most probably, the human species will cease to be.
Two hundred years might be the blink of an eye on that kind of time scale, but it’s long enough to reduce the complexity of a whole culture to the syllabus of a single college course.
And, to be honest, I prefer that thought to any kind of ambition, whether it’s absurd or realizable. The one thing we can do, is to do what we can do, and everything beyond that is essentially a matter of belief, not knowledge. No author or artist can control how they’re received in life, let alone after death. And that’s good, it means that we are free to follow our artistic impulses, as easily distracted as they are by shiny, moving points of light.
posted by Kattullus at 5:12 AM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
My solution was to resort to irony, to find the most absurdly outsized ambition I could think of, and make that my goal, to reduce my dreams to parody. The solution was in a notion I had found in science fiction, that soon writing would be rendered obsolete by the ability to upload and download thoughts, making it unnecessary to learn how to read, reducing the written word to a dead language. Since humanity was maybe at the end of writing, the race was on to be the last great author, with Homer at one end of literary history, and me at the other.
Because it was a silly thought, it allowed me to distract my ambition so that I could work in peace, like a laser pen hanging from a slowly moving ceiling fan would keep a cat from jumping on my keyboard.
But eventually I realized that I didn’t really need to ridicule my impulses, that the chances of my writing being remembered were minuscule to begin with, that it seemed absurd to begin with to worry about my ambition. Being remembered by the future was so far beyond my control that it was like trying to send a friend a letter by putting it in a bottle and then throwing that bottle into the Sun.
I can think of one Icelandic poem from the 1820s that I know well enough to be able to recite some lines. I vaguely remember the titles of a couple more. If I think back through the centuries, other than the miraculous flowering of literature in medieval Iceland, I can think just a handful of Icelandic writers who were active before then.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t good writers, or that the writing of the past can’t speak to us, but that cultural memory is limited, and that in the passage of time people will be forgotten, works will vanish from the world, eventually even civilization will alter beyond our recognition, and in the end, most probably, the human species will cease to be.
Two hundred years might be the blink of an eye on that kind of time scale, but it’s long enough to reduce the complexity of a whole culture to the syllabus of a single college course.
And, to be honest, I prefer that thought to any kind of ambition, whether it’s absurd or realizable. The one thing we can do, is to do what we can do, and everything beyond that is essentially a matter of belief, not knowledge. No author or artist can control how they’re received in life, let alone after death. And that’s good, it means that we are free to follow our artistic impulses, as easily distracted as they are by shiny, moving points of light.
posted by Kattullus at 5:12 AM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Ryan North's How To Take Over the World has an excellent section on how to be remembered throughout the universe and into the ages, if that's one's goal.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:27 AM on April 27, 2022
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:27 AM on April 27, 2022
I feel like Peter Singer might have a shot at 200 years.
Peter Singer has a better shot than many people because he is beloved by people in and around tech, people who currently have power and influence and are likely to continue to do so in the future. That's not a value judgment of either him or them, just pointing to how "what gets read in 200 years" has as much (if not more) to do with power and influence (and taste, and the human desires to belong to groups and signal membership in those groups) as it does with inherent value.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:11 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Peter Singer has a better shot than many people because he is beloved by people in and around tech, people who currently have power and influence and are likely to continue to do so in the future. That's not a value judgment of either him or them, just pointing to how "what gets read in 200 years" has as much (if not more) to do with power and influence (and taste, and the human desires to belong to groups and signal membership in those groups) as it does with inherent value.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:11 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
(Full disclosure: I didn’t RTFA.)
In my mostly distracted skim of this convo, the notion that you die for the last time when you name is no longer voiced by anyone stuck to me like a burr. Most people’s names are spoken by a small circle of family and acquaintances; a lot of people don’t even have that….some people’s names are spread wide and far.
And Kattalus made me think of the sagas. They have lasted longer than any single author.* maybe what lives on is our part in a collective work that has only recently gotten muddled up with the idea of authorship, which is a pretty recent thing. (Weird coincidence that it happened around the time capitalism was getting up a head of steam.) I am really uncomfortable with the way reputation is capital in our culture, so it is oddly reassuring to remember what has lasted.
posted by zenzenobia at 7:44 AM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
In my mostly distracted skim of this convo, the notion that you die for the last time when you name is no longer voiced by anyone stuck to me like a burr. Most people’s names are spoken by a small circle of family and acquaintances; a lot of people don’t even have that….some people’s names are spread wide and far.
And Kattalus made me think of the sagas. They have lasted longer than any single author.* maybe what lives on is our part in a collective work that has only recently gotten muddled up with the idea of authorship, which is a pretty recent thing. (Weird coincidence that it happened around the time capitalism was getting up a head of steam.) I am really uncomfortable with the way reputation is capital in our culture, so it is oddly reassuring to remember what has lasted.
posted by zenzenobia at 7:44 AM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
While I fully intend to live to 150 out of pure spite, and would love nothing more than to achieve literal immortality, the idea of an immortal legacy has zero appeal to me. I'll clarify.
The only legacy that matters to me is that some of my actions now lead to leaving the world a slightly better place than I found it. Whether my name, or my memory, is associated with that is of no consequence. It may be trite to say, but like, I'll be dead when I'm gone. Some grand legacy of my name living beyond my own years isn't actually going to matter then is it.
I feel like this drive to make sure your name outlasts your years is a misplaced fear of death. Being immortal, or even living for just 10,000 years would be fun, sure, but I don't think that's going to happen. So I can only make peace with my mortality, and hope that the things I do while I'm alive matter to those I want them to matter to, and have some positive lasting effect after I'm gone, even if the initiator of those actions is long forgotten. It literally won't matter who the author of these actions is to the author in the grave.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:53 AM on April 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
The only legacy that matters to me is that some of my actions now lead to leaving the world a slightly better place than I found it. Whether my name, or my memory, is associated with that is of no consequence. It may be trite to say, but like, I'll be dead when I'm gone. Some grand legacy of my name living beyond my own years isn't actually going to matter then is it.
I feel like this drive to make sure your name outlasts your years is a misplaced fear of death. Being immortal, or even living for just 10,000 years would be fun, sure, but I don't think that's going to happen. So I can only make peace with my mortality, and hope that the things I do while I'm alive matter to those I want them to matter to, and have some positive lasting effect after I'm gone, even if the initiator of those actions is long forgotten. It literally won't matter who the author of these actions is to the author in the grave.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:53 AM on April 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
in the year 4444, this is being read by people who do not know what monkeys, typewriters or drones are,
In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:49 AM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:49 AM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
In the year 6666
We're back to stones and pointy sticks
Machine Overlords of Loving Grace
Have given up and gone to space
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:14 AM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
We're back to stones and pointy sticks
Machine Overlords of Loving Grace
Have given up and gone to space
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:14 AM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
(Left an asterisk dangling and just noticed, oops. Meant to say the Bible has stuck around a while and also can’t claim single authorship. Fight me.)
posted by zenzenobia at 2:22 PM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by zenzenobia at 2:22 PM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
This thread has prompted me to start reading Jason Stanley's 2018 book How Fascism Works, and although I don't know whether it will last 200 years, it takes a broad enough historical view that it might—and more importantly it's very much a book for right now. I keep thinking of how many of his points apply to the last few years of Boris Johnson's government, not to mention the last few months of Russia going off the deep end, and it's an urgent reminder that the danger of Trumpism persists despite the change of US president. Recommended.
I notice that Gawker has changed the title of McClay's essay to "It’s Very Unlikely Anyone Will Read This in 200 Years". Where's the fun in that? Leave the circumspect language to academic articles that it's very unlikely anyone will read in 200 days.
posted by rory at 2:24 AM on May 3, 2022
I notice that Gawker has changed the title of McClay's essay to "It’s Very Unlikely Anyone Will Read This in 200 Years". Where's the fun in that? Leave the circumspect language to academic articles that it's very unlikely anyone will read in 200 days.
posted by rory at 2:24 AM on May 3, 2022
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The difference between then and now is I never really got off my ass and created anything, so I keep my worries about being forgotten strictly limited to me, not anything I might have made, had I gotten my head out of my ass.
Either way, I’m starting to wonder if nüGawker might not just be finding what it wants to be. It can’t be what it was, there was too much lightning, and we lost the art of making those bottles. This, though, was good to have read.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:27 AM on April 26, 2022 [12 favorites]