What people from modern times will be talked about in 1000 years?

Invidious

LordBasil wrote: »

Atlee founded the NHS and Welfare State, I think he was quite important in British History.

But thousands of similar bureaucrats, military leaders, and so on were widely acclaimed in their era for founding or winning or achieving this or that ... and virtually all of them were forgotten within a few generations. The level of achievement needed to remain a household name 1,000+ years on is immense. If one were to stop a hundred young Britons on the street today and ask "Who is Clement Attlee?" most of them wouldn't have a notion. It hardly bodes well for the future.

Yes of course political parties rise and fall and SF, FF & FG won't be around in 100s of years but their current popularity or lack of, will be used by future historians to analyse attitudes and aspirations of Irish people ie moving away from materialism during the Celtic Tiger to becoming more pre-occupied of social concerns (Health, Housing/Homelessness) coupled with social liberalisation (Same-Sex Marriage, Repeal the 8th Referendums)

People of the future may recognize that there was once a time when same-sex couples couldn't marry and abortion was outlawed — just as we know that there was also a time in the past when people used to own slaves and burn witches — but the specifics of how these things changed will not exactly be on the tip of anyone's tongue. Who, a thousand years from now, will be able to recount how attitudes among Irish people changed between 2007 and 2017?

Wikipedia calls this recentism bias — or the tendency to regard something as inherently more historically significant just because it's still fresh in our memories. The problem is that we will all soon enough be dead, and the people who come after us won't share our sense of what is important.

Wibbs

We also assume that future peoples and cultures will share the same moralities. They may think things like same sex couples and abortion are a negative thing. Ancient Greek cultures practised pederasty between men and boys and thought that was a good thing. We obviously don't. Girls were regularly married off in some cultures at 12 and pregnant soon after. Some would have been fine with abortion, some wouldn't have been. Spartans judged babies on how healthy and strong they looked and any that showed weakness were flung off a cliff to their deaths. Future people's probably wouldn't do that, but they might well scan pregnancies and abort for even the slightest deviation from their particular norms. We could also revert back to more hardline thinking in philosophies. We could get a phase of anti technology. Cyborgs or AI's could take over and lord knows what moralities they would evolve. And they would evolve. And rapidly. They might see natural humans as a waste of resources and energy and cull them to "acceptable" numbers.

Nobody from this era ( ie. the 21st C) will be remembered in 1000 years.

From the last C, maybe a few. Hitler for example. Any founders of any nations. Assuming Ireland exists the 1916 leaders will probably be remembered.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Nobody from this era ( ie. the 21st C) will be remembered in 1000 years.

.

With 80% of the century yet to go how can you say that?

Hamsterchops

Hamsterchops wrote: »

From modern times . . . .

Albert Einstein.
Queen Elizabeth.
Elon Musk
Usain Bolt.
The Beatles.
Adolf Hitler.
Neil Armstrong.
Mahatma Ghandi.
Elvis Presley.
Sir Winston Churchill.
Muhammad Ali.
Joseph Stalin.
Sir Edmund Hillary.
Barack Obama

off the top of me head...

Updated, with two new additions & one deletion ....

It could of course be argued that nobody on this list would be remembered, but Kings & Queen's usually are, so I stuck in Her Maj, then Albert Einstein of course + First man on the Moon, Hitler for being Hitler, then his opponents, then Musk for what he might achieve? Obama first black US President, etc etc etc ......

It also depends on what's been talked about means.



Quite a number of our descendants will have access to info on the 40 our so generations preceding them and will look them up. Big brother is unlikely to go away. It'll probably be a profession similar to now, but more widespread. Basically, the future will be full of inquiring Yanks :pac:

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

With 80% of the century yet to go how can you say that?

Clearly I meant until now. Not being a time traveller.

its_steve116

Kamala Harris, as the first woman to be elected Vice-President.

Quantum Erasure

How many people would know anything about Constantine?

Wibbs

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

How many people would know anything about Constantine?

Well, I suppose we have to narrow it down to relatively informed people in any age. I would say most relatively informed people with some interest in our pats would have heard of Constantine, the guy who made Rome Christian and founded the Eastern Roman empire(extremely simplified).

The other thing is that list is pretty much entirely Eurocentric. Not too much of a shock as Europe and European culture colonies, IE the West is essentially the World culture, with some local flavouring and has been for quite a while. With the exception of Buddha the non Europeans on that list are there because they bumped into Europe and were noticed, or like Jesus were essentially turned European.

JasonStatham

Neil Armstrong, Albert Einstein...people like this.

the purple tin

Our descendants will be spoiled for choice when it comes to history, barring WW3 or some big natural disaster, everything will be archived.
We know feck all about 1000 years ago because events were so poorly recorded, hardly anyone knew how to read or write. Also, people throughout history have a bad habit of destroying written knowledge.
To quote the great historian Nelson Muntz 'records from that period are spotty at best'.

Cee-Jay-Cee

The weather.


People will ALWAYS talk about the weather.

begbysback

The irony of humans, people spend all their living days worried if others are talking about them, and then hoping they do when they are dead.

the purple tin

the purple tin wrote: »

Our descendants will be spoiled for choice when it comes to history, barring WW3 or some big natural disaster, everything will be archived.
We know feck all about 1000 years ago because events were so poorly recorded, hardly anyone knew how to read or write. Also, people throughout history have a bad habit of destroying written knowledge.
To quote the great historian Nelson Muntz 'records from that period are spotty at best'.

Oh I wouldn't be so sure about that, the digital age could disappear in an eye blink. If society breaks down ( a la the dark ages) then nobody is going to be maintaining data centres.

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote: »

Agree. I suspect stone carvings will outlive our data storage methods.

wasn't there a scheme to laser through a meter of granite (or was that the SciFi novel Footfall ?) so even erosion wouldn't affect things too much. There is a company doing A4 tiles. So you can print records on ceramics to be stored in a tunnel in a Swiss mountain. Should survive floods and won't rust, rot or decay. But what if you drop one ?



Forward Error Correction is a most excellent tool. It adds redundancy so even if the content degrades (within limits) it can still be recovered. Data CAN be stored until the end of the observable universe if you keep multiple copies.



At present and for the near future storage capacity will continue to get cheaper and sizes double every 18 months so the best archival medium is to transfer everything to the latest storage medium every few years and abandon the earlier media.


But the great fear is a massive Electro Magnetic Pulse that would take out most computer systems and most hard drives and tapes. It would leave optical media untouched. But what of the readers ? And who uses optical discs ?

SSD's and SD's and other media based on a charge in a capacitor will fade in decades if not refreshed constantly.

Paper made in the industrial age will rot because of the acids used in bleaching. Older paper will survive longer. Colour printers have inks that can fade in years.


It's amazing how revisionist history changes reputations. So who will be remembered in 1,000 years as fashion changes ?