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

PokeHerKing · 28-11-2020 12:16pm

I think people are underestimating a thousand years. Elvis, not a chance.

Its hit or miss as well, everyone in Ireland would have at least heard the name Brian Boru but only people with an interest in Irish history would know Diarmait Mac Murchada. Both played integral parts in Irish history a thousand years ago but only one man has a pub named after him.

o1s1n · 28-11-2020 12:24pm

Akrasia wrote: »

I don’t think they’ll still have SD card readers in a thousand years time. An archeologist would have a hard time digging up a device to read a 5.25 inch floppy from 40 years ago

Necessity is the mother of invention, you'd be surprised the lengths people go to to extract data from old sources.

Digital archaeology is still in its infancy but you can be more than sure it'll be a huge field in the future with the amount we store digitally now.

Wibbs · 28-11-2020 12:25pm

o1s1n wrote: »

I think a bit part of this is going to be heavily reliant on how well out current data survives.

Up until this century we were completely reliant on physical items, stone, paper, steels to preserve our legacies. As time passed these obviously break down and a lot is lost. Sure look at how we're still more or less at a loss as to what megalithic structures and art were all about.

If our data isn't all wiped out en mass by some kind of solar flare or other traumatic event over the next thousand years, there's going to be an amazing treasure trove of information about the current civilisation for people of the future to study.

Imagine for example, while digging through Saqqara, a trove of SD cards and harddrives was discovered, documenting the average persons day to day life with photos, emails etc. Would be absolutely fascinating.

True, the big problem facing us today is that data and how it is stored. You carve something into a rock(or even pottery) and so long as you have some way of reading it(or finding a Rosetta stone to translate) it's legible many thousands of years later and being rock could potentially last for many millions of years. We know Tutankhamun's name because it was literally written in stone(but since they didn't include vowels in their writing feck knows how it actually sounded. Could well be Titonkhimeen).

The above SD card trove would a) degrade far faster and b) if you didn't have a way of reading it you're screwed. A few years back the BBC(IIRC) had kept a load of old programmes on 80's laser disk, but had no players and had to trawl ebay and the like to find one to retrieve the data. Last year someone I know had found an old cache of photos and documents on a now dead relative's ZIP disks(remember them

) but she couldn't access them. Luckily I had a working drive in the attic and got the stuff off them(though a couple were kaput). We've gone through formats like poo through a goose. This is not good. I know a fair number of people who've already lost digital memories.

The cloud? It's very vulnerable too. It requires a set of very complex things in place for it to work. A brief "dark age" could delete the lot and given our society itself also requires a set of very complex things in place for it to work we're more vulnerable to a dark age then ever before. Look at the bazillions of photos we take these days. How many print them out in hard copy even if you do the inks are nowhere near as permanent as actual photographs(especially B&W). Gone are the days of strips of negatives laying in an envelope in a drawer. If a mini dark age did descend we could actually have more access to 19th century photos than 21st.

whisky_galore · 28-11-2020 12:28pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Greta Thunberg, for saving us all from imminent doom

A blip on the radar, much like the Occupy Movement fuss.

Wibbs · 28-11-2020 12:38pm

Stateofyou wrote: »

Greta Thunberg. Future generations will look back on her message and conviction and condemn us for not doing enough at a time when we should have known better.

The environmental movement itself will almost certianly survive alright, but chances are extremely high she herself will be a blip in the collective memory. She's very current and is already fading in the collective memory today. A potential hoola hoop fad. I'm just old enough to remember when the concern was global cooling. A 20 year old today would be "wtf boomer?" There is a long list of harbingers of warning of the end of things very popular in their day(and sometimes turned out to be right) and forgotten now save for in the minds of a few academics.

The speed at which we transmit ideas today also tends to make those ideas and people fade faster after the novelty has passed. Without looking at google name the child that washed up on a Greek beach that caused such a fuss and was such a cause celebre a few years ago.

We have a tendency to think we value the important things, but when you look at things overall not so much. Take the internet with all it's important data we can dive through. Over 30% of all internet traffic is porn and you'll get far more attention if you post an amusing cat pic than if you post the collected works of Plato.

Beagslife · 28-11-2020 12:43pm

Wibbs wrote: »

The environmental movement itself will almost certianly survive alright, but chances are extremely high she herself will be a blip in the collective memory. She's very current and is already fading in the collective memory today. A potential hoola hoop fad. I'm just old enough to remember when the concern was global cooling. A 20 year old today would be "wtf boomer?" There is a long list of harbingers of warning of the end of things very popular in their day(and sometimes turned out to be right) and forgotten now save for in the minds of a few academics.

The speed at which we transmit ideas today also tends to make those ideas and people fade faster after the novelty has passed. Without looking at google name the child that washed up on a Greek beach that caused such a fuss and was such a cause celebre a few years ago.

We have a tendency to think we value the important things, but when you look at things overall not so much. Take the internet with all it's important data we can dive through. Over 30% of all internet traffic is porn and you'll get far more attention if you post an amusing cat pic than if you post the collected works of Plato.

Roy Keane

Gregor Samsa · 28-11-2020 1:26pm

Akrasia wrote: »

Maybe.. prof Brian Cox... dReams weren’t that good

Yeah, but things can only get better.

s8n · 28-11-2020 1:33pm

two girls one cup

Man Vs ManUre · 28-11-2020 1:35pm

Me me me please.

o1s1n · 28-11-2020 1:47pm

Wibbs wrote: »

True, the big problem facing us today is that data and how it is stored. You carve something into a rock(or even pottery) and so long as you have some way of reading it(or finding a Rosetta stone to translate) it's legible many thousands of years later and being rock could potentially last for many millions of years. We know Tutankhamun's name because it was literally written in stone(but since they didn't include vowels in their writing feck knows how it actually sounded. Could well be Titonkhimeen).

The above SD card trove would a) degrade far faster and b) if you didn't have a way of reading it you're screwed. A few years back the BBC(IIRC) had kept a load of old programmes on 80's laser disk, but had no players and had to trawl ebay and the like to find one to retrieve the data. Last year someone I know had found an old cache of photos and documents on a now dead relative's ZIP disks(remember them ) but she couldn't access them. Luckily I had a working drive in the attic and got the stuff off them(though a couple were kaput). We've gone through formats like poo through a goose. This is not good. I know a fair number of people who've already lost digital memories.

The cloud? It's very vulnerable too. It requires a set of very complex things in place for it to work. A brief "dark age" could delete the lot and given our society itself also requires a set of very complex things in place for it to work we're more vulnerable to a dark age then ever before. Look at the bazillions of photos we take these days. How many print them out in hard copy even if you do the inks are nowhere near as permanent as actual photographs(especially B&W). Gone are the days of strips of negatives laying in an envelope in a drawer. If a mini dark age did descend we could actually have more access to 19th century photos than 21st.

It's an interesting one isn't it? We've never had such an abundance of media yet most of it is not actually physically tangible.

A friend I used to work with lost a harddrive last year and it basically meant 10 years of his life record gone in an instant as he had no other backup. I think the worst that ever happened to me with photos was a water leak on one of my mam's caches in the family home, can still make them out though admid the water stains!

I suppose one great benefit of digital history is the possibility of a big find in one go within a relatively small lot. All it would take is one SD card and one SD card reader somewhere to survive with a means of accessing it for potentially TB of data to be revealed to future generations all in one go. Not something you'll get from your clay pot or even Dead Sea Scrolls!

Current technology is too volatile to survive thousands of years alright, but it's still in it's relative infancy on a historical scale. One would hope that sometime in the not too distant future we will come up with something with a bit more longevity. Perhaps some sort of combination between the physicality of stone/steel akin to the ancients and a programming language? Who knows...

Either way, we've gone though a bit of a dark age in this generation due to the analogue to digital changeover. Not sure if you've recently tried loading up a digital photo or video from the early 2000s on a modern monitor, but there ain't a lot of information there!

Everyone now has at very least a decade of photographs of their life that are extremely low quality and have absolutely no way of enhancing them like you could do with film from the very conception of analogue photography.

Stateofyou · 28-11-2020 4:12pm

Wibbs wrote: »

The environmental movement itself will almost certianly survive alright, but chances are extremely high she herself will be a blip in the collective memory. She's very current and is already fading in the collective memory today. A potential hoola hoop fad. I'm just old enough to remember when the concern was global cooling. A 20 year old today would be "wtf boomer?" There is a long list of harbingers of warning of the end of things very popular in their day(and sometimes turned out to be right) and forgotten now save for in the minds of a few academics.

The speed at which we transmit ideas today also tends to make those ideas and people fade faster after the novelty has passed. Without looking at google name the child that washed up on a Greek beach that caused such a fuss and was such a cause celebre a few years ago.

We have a tendency to think we value the important things, but when you look at things overall not so much. Take the internet with all it's important data we can dive through. Over 30% of all internet traffic is porn and you'll get far more attention if you post an amusing cat pic than if you post the collected works of Plato.

A concern is still global cooling. Climate change vs global warming is the proper term, as we all know. There will be different changes in different regions. I studied climate a bit in university. One of my professors was the lead researcher involved with ice core samples and studying them. It is believed that when ice caps, ice sheets, shelfs, icebergs, and Greenland are to all melt, the seawater density changes will disrupt the thermohaline circulation of the ocean; which are currents that carries warm water and air mainly at the equator around the globe. If/when this disrupts, cooler air and water will prevail which could hurl us back towards another ice age. It will cause massive changes in the earth's climate whatever the outcome, not to mention a large degree of sea level rise which brings with it a whole host of problems. Lovely!

Thelonious Monk · 28-11-2020 4:27pm

They might talk about us as being the generations that completely destroyed the natural world and its habitats and didn't do anything to stop climate change if that is upon us. The fact that until pretty much the 20th century much of the world was untouched and now we seem to be doing whatever we can to completely bulldoze all of nature so we can consume more and more will probably not be forgotten about for 1000s of years.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-11-2020 5:06pm

atilladehun wrote: »

Based on the Renaissance I'd say there'd be less firsts than you think and more broad cultural impact. Bill Gates for example put a computer in every home and workplace, Jobs in every hand.

There were technological advances in art but the names you know from the Renaissance used them in superb ways.

Same with first in space, the person who makes it broadly attainable or useful will get more credit.

Pop music and movies will be 20th century icons, this century hasn't defined itself yet.

There were home computers since the 1980's thanks to the Comodore 64 , BBC, Spectrum. Real usage didn't take off until everyone got internet access.

Bill Gates and Microsoft held back the adoption of the computer as we know them by at least a decade due to the limitations of Dos and early versions of windows compared to Atari and Apple. You could even get GEM for PC's.

Sharing of information is the big one. Language, songs and rhyming to make it easier to remember, writing, taking rubbings off carvings, printing with movable type... Once only really important stuff was stored. Now the problem is retrieval.

Tim and the interweb was a biggie. Like a lot of technologies it was of it's time, it would have happened anyway. But it was free so it got used unlike the offerings from AOL and others.

RobertKK · 28-11-2020 6:17pm

Taylor Swift.

I by accident came across the Roma Symphony Orchestra and and their classical music album of Taylor Swift songs.

Wibbs · 28-11-2020 7:20pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

They might talk about us as being the generations that completely destroyed the natural world and its habitats and didn't do anything to stop climate change if that is upon us. The fact that until pretty much the 20th century much of the world was untouched and now we seem to be doing whatever we can to completely bulldoze all of nature so we can consume more and more will probably not be forgotten about for 1000s of years.

Ehh.... no. Not quite, not even close. If you took a time machine back a thousand years to Europe, or Asia, even large tracts of the Americas, what you would see as a "natural" landscape would be mostly man made. Ever since the agricultural revolution...

Actually hang on, even before that: Australian aborigines used fire to drive animals from their habitats for food and wiped out a shedload of species and likely changed the environment itself. And today you'll have people mooning over "how how in touch they are with their environments" and all that noble savage nonsense. New Zealand was first settled by Polynesians in around the 11-12th century and by the time Europeans showed up a few centuries later the Maori had already made a load of species go extinct(native Hawaiians took out a load of bird species because they used their feathers as fashion). Indeed you can track modern humans movements outside Africa by how many and when species, particularly the megafauna, go extinct. Never mind previous human species.

Anyway, the agricultural revolution comes along and we really get to the oul terraforming. We clear forests, drain swamps, plant crops, divert water, kill off any predators that like to eat our food. Populations get much bigger, so land, water, wood become a major resources. One of the big reasons the Roman empire lusted after Gaul and Germania were the dense forests they had. I think it was Pliny who wrote more books about trees than anything else he's remembered for. They had started to run low on wood. Y'know around Easter when the telly will often show various flics on the life of Jesus and there he is wandering around a desert preaching the epistles to the apostles? Well in reality, back then it would have far more forested. The Cedars of Lebanon covered the place and now, well they don't. Hell the Amazon jungle was once covered in agricultural lands. Not so long ago we had lions in southern Europe. The list of civilisations that were affected by climate change, local and global and self induced or not is a long one.

It has been hypothesised and with good reason that the main reason we're not in an ice age today is because those humans changed the climate(we are long overdue one going on the previous cycles).

We've also lived through periods of warmer and colder times. When Newgrange was built Ireland was warmer. It was warmer when the Vikings first went to Greenland and at that time wine was being produced in England. Then we had the little ice age and that lasted into the 19th century. London was host to "frost fairs" on a frozen Thames.

Are we screwing with the planet today? Hell yes we are and more rapidly too, but our current efforts of green bin surface stuff will do bugger all to halt it. How do we halt it? reduce our population for a start. Yet economists and politicians tell us we need to have more people. And that brings us to our biggest problem; consumerism. No matter how much we "recycle" or drive leccy cars, it'll do bugger all in the long run, until there are fewer of us and we consume less stuff. There's a huge number of well meaning types so concerned about the environment, but who by a new phone every year, gadgets all over the place, wardrobes of clothes and a new car every three years, but feel better because it's not farting gases out the back*. The height of that daftness is your Leo DiCaprios and the like taking private planes to environmental conferences without a trace of logic or sense or for that matter shame. The fact is our great grandparents were "greener" than we are.

*and all the placcy packaging that we fire in the bin for landfill. Half of all plastics ever produced since plastics were invented have been produced since the year 2000. I know. Mad or wha?

Thelonious Monk · 28-11-2020 7:21pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Ehh.... no. Not quite, not even close. If you took a time machine back a thousand years to Europe, or Asia, even large tracts of the Americas, what you would see as a "natural" landscape would be mostly man made. Ever since the agricultural revolution...

Yeah well Europe has been f*cked for a long time, especially Ireland, but now we're destroying everything at rates never seen before when we should really know better. The Amazon and South East Asia for e.g. Australians and the original Kiwis killed all the megafauna I know, but they didn't do much else at least. I've also read Sapiens.

Wibbs · 28-11-2020 7:41pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Yeah well Europe has been f*cked for a long time, especially Ireland, but now we're destroying everything at rates never seen before when we should really know better. The Amazon and South East Asia for e.g. Australians and the original Kiwis killed all the megafauna I know, but they didn't do much else at least.

Much else? They fundamentally changed the environment they found themselves in. Aboriginal burning practices that have left layers of carbon going back 1000's of years changed the climate. It's what humans do. Something BTW than previous species of humans didn't do. Neandertals were around for well over 200,000 years and not one species we know of went extinct because of them. They kept the prey/predator ratio stable(large number of prey, tiny number of predators). We come along are more gregarious and have more kids and they need feeding.

As I noted the Amazon centuries ago was once host to many areas of farmland and South East Asia had similar and back and forth. The Angkor Empire which is now enveloped by the jungle was at one time the most populous area on the planet. Something crazy like one in every fifteen people alive on the planet lived in and around Angkor. Ireland wasn't particularly bad until relatively recently. Like the middle ages. It was still mostly forested at that stage.

I've also read Sapiens.

It's been a while since I read it but I personally found Sapiens long on thumbnail entertainment value, quite short in a few areas of actual science, veering into ah here WTF on a few occasions. EG we were better as hunter gatherers than farmers. There's that old style noble savage thing again that has long fascinated the European mind.

28-11-2020 8:18pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

They might talk about us as being the generations that completely destroyed the natural world and its habitats and didn't do anything to stop climate change if that is upon us. The fact that until pretty much the 20th century much of the world was untouched and now we seem to be doing whatever we can to completely bulldoze all of nature so we can consume more and more will probably not be forgotten about for 1000s of years.

is the 20th C, all of it, the modern age? It is the modern age of the 2st C that is attempting to fix the problems caused by the last 19C and 20C. And we just get on with it without condemning them too much.

28-11-2020 10:21pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

They might talk about us as being the generations that completely destroyed the natural world and its habitats and didn't do anything to stop climate change if that is upon us. The fact that until pretty much the 20th century much of the world was untouched and now we seem to be doing whatever we can to completely bulldoze all of nature so we can consume more and more will probably not be forgotten about for 1000s of years.

You should move out.

28-11-2020 10:23pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Greta Thunberg, for saving us all from imminent doom

She'll be forgotten in 50 years, never mind a millenium.

JasonStatham · 28-11-2020 10:39pm

It definitely be somebody related to Covid, or Brexit.

And i would hazard a guess that in 3020, the UK will still be commemorating the end of the second world war.

Beanntraigheach · 28-11-2020 10:47pm

Hitler

Amongst the general population I honestly think that's about it.
Important events from our time, like our first steps into space, will be vaguely recalled but the individuals involved (e.g. Gagarin, Armstrong) will be minor details.

A lot will depend on where the dominant culture sees it's roots - it may well be in East Asia in which case events and personalities in Europe/North America may be of little interest.

Wibbs · 28-11-2020 11:18pm

Beanntraigheach wrote: »

Hitler

Amongst the general population I honestly think that's about it.
Important events from our time, like our first steps into space, will be vaguely recalled but the individuals involved (e.g. Gagarin, Armstrong) will be minor details.

A lot will depend on where the dominant culture sees it's roots - it may well be in East Asia in which case events and personalities in Europe/North America may be of little interest.

The one thing that has kept growing over time is an increased dissemination of information to the "common man". Well along with taxes and an increasing influence of government, large and small and distances becoming smaller. If we take that further and what with talk of singularities and all that stuff, in the "future" and near future in some ways we'll be more informed, or at least have access to more knowledge, more government, less work of the traditional kind then in a thousand years time it seems logical that the average person will be somewhat unrecognisable to us today and will have all thoughts and knowledge to hand in an instant in a very much more expanded brain.

That's another thing that is a constant in humans, larger and larger groups that share much the same stories and knowledge. Today it's more localised but in the future it could be global. It's one of the things that makes us stand out among all the human species that ever existed. I noticed this over the years reading about early modern humans in Europe compared to Neandertals. With the latter what cultural things exist tend to only exist in one place, with one small group and the group a few miles away has differences and they don't seem to trade much as far as cultural items and novelty goes. Likely as a territorial thing.

We show up and that changes. If you look at our earliest art in paint and sculpture in Ice Age Europe the guys and gals in France and Spain and Germany have basically the same symbolism. One huge tribe, one network reaching across a continent and trading with each other. Neandertals were like a computer or phone with probably the same apps as us, but they had no internet, so innovation was massively stifled. We had all those things so if Joe came up with a better spear then Jane a continent away knew about it soon enough.

Think back when computers were just for "nerds", or a toy, or a glorified bookkeeper in business. Then they started to network and now those on the internet who are nerds are in the minority. If we take that to its conclusion...

That said one thing that futurists always or nearly always miss is something completely new that changes everything. And it's usually sitting in plain sight when they make predictions, it's just its time hasn't come yet. There is something out there today that you could look at and think "meh" that will be a gamechanger in 50, or even 20 years time. A 1000 years time? Lord knows.

Strumms · 29-11-2020 12:10am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

There were home computers since the 1980's thanks to the Comodore 64 , BBC, Spectrum. Real usage didn't take off until everyone got internet access.

Bill Gates and Microsoft held back the adoption of the computer as we know them by at least a decade due to the limitations of Dos and early versions of windows compared to Atari and Apple. You could even get GEM for PC's.

Sharing of information is the big one. Language, songs and rhyming to make it easier to remember, writing, taking rubbings off carvings, printing with movable type... Once only really important stuff was stored. Now the problem is retrieval.

Tim and the interweb was a biggie. Like a lot of technologies it was of it's time, it would have happened anyway. But it was free so it got used unlike the offerings from AOL and others.

First computer I had was when I was 10/11 my dad got an Amstrad CPC6128 through work... some colleague was a computer whiz and copied a load of games onto disks...commando, Barbarian, ghostbusters, Chase HQ and some tennis game... did the job (just about) until the mega drive came to being.

AMKC · 29-11-2020 12:11am

Whenseptends wrote: »

Maradona

If you are going to put him here then I will say the legend Micheal Schumacher

Mr_Muffin wrote: »

Russell Brand will be known as one of the great philosophers.

Lol I would say if any cares to want to know who he was in a thousand years they will look at him as a great bullsh,utter.
Honestly do I think is a thousand years very few people from our time will be known. Some people if we are even that in a thousand years might care but not many. Then once again we might all be wrong and the could have a brain capacity far greater than ours with the help of computers maybe and maybe they will care about people that we considered great now but to them they might just be one part in a much bigger jigsaw.

Gregor Samsa · 29-11-2020 12:22am

A lot is going to depend on how we memorialise people from this century. If the first city in the Moon is named a after Neil Armstrong, for instance, then the memory of him will survive for a long time. A number of chemical elements, including Einsteinium are named after 20th century scientists, so their legacy will live on at least with anyone who has to study the periodic table, If Trump had got his face added to Mount Rushmore*, he’d be known by tourists in 1000 years. The granite it’s made of erodes very, very slowly.

(* I know they can’t add another face, I’m talking conceptually)

Dufflecoat Fanny · 29-11-2020 12:35am

Miley Byrne rolling in the hay with Biddy's cousin Fidelma

Plumbthedepths · 29-11-2020 12:37am

Hitler, Mao and Stalin. History seems to place more importance on remembering genocidal maniacs.

s8n · 29-11-2020 11:07am

s8n wrote: »

two girls one cup

no thanks ??

Munsterman12 · 29-11-2020 11:20am

2pac. Marty Morrissey. Megan markle.

Billcarson · 29-11-2020 11:45am

The Healy Rae's.

Man Vs ManUre · 29-11-2020 11:50am

Billcarson wrote: »

The Healy Rae's.

I think the story of their grey horse Peig will be written in the history books and talked about for generations to come.

Wibbs · 29-11-2020 12:13pm

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Hitler, Mao and Stalin. History seems to place more importance on remembering genocidal maniacs.

True, mainly because they cause such upheaval and social change and often in usually short periods of time. Hitler went from "who?" to Most Evil Ever in not much more than a decade and literally changed the maps and demographics of Europe and we're still living in the wake of that. Not just in Europe either. He sounded the death knell for European empires, led to the creation of the state of Israel(which didn't do much for stability in ME, which was already as stable as a one legged stool), drove the economic expansion of America(and got people to the moon), the expansion of the Soviet bloc, the creation of the EU and lots of other direct and indirect effects.

Basically if you want to change human history and be remembered it seems it's far easier to do so if you're a murderous dickhead with a cause. You don't even have to die while doing it. Hitler is actually the outlier, Stalin, Mao, Franco, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan and the like died of natural causes.

LuasSimon · 29-11-2020 12:16pm

How Fine Gael can defend partition of our Island 100 years after we got three quarters of it free .

Galwayguy35 · 29-11-2020 12:22pm

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Hitler, Mao and Stalin. History seems to place more importance on remembering genocidal maniacs.

Seems to be the case all right, most people today would know who Caligula, Nero, Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan are and these guys have been dead a long time.

29-11-2020 12:26pm

People will still hate Bono.

Ekerot · 29-11-2020 12:35pm

Muhammad Ali

Invidious · 29-11-2020 1:02pm

Tyrants and tech entrepreneurs have the best shot, I think.

Wibbs · 29-11-2020 1:03pm

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Seems to be the case all right, most people today would know who Caligula, Nero, Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan are and these guys have been dead a long time.

And guys like Vespasian in Rome who brought stability and prosperity are mostly forgotten by the average person.

Another factor and we see this in drama is the baddies are more interesting, or we find them more interesting. So Darth Vader is a far more interesting character than Luke Skywalker, Iago far more interesting than Othello and writers give them better dialogue and narratives.

snowstorm445 · 29-11-2020 1:06pm

Stateofyou wrote: »

Greta Thunberg. Future generations will look back on her message and conviction and condemn us for not doing enough at a time when we should have known better.

Not entirely sure about this one tbh. I certainly think the climate catastrophe of this century will be remembered by those informed by it. Not as sure with individual people involved in it, but I suspect they probably will be remembered in some way, particularly if they make a real difference in terms of changing minds.

But there have been plenty of child activists over the years whose appeal fades once they become adults. If Thunberg manages to make a career out of what she does, maybe by going into politics, she might have a chance, but honestly not sure what avenue there would even be for her in that case - becoming the leader of Sweden is nice, probably the best she could hope for, but not exactly a position to dictate policy to the world.

Beanntraigheach wrote: »

Hitler

Amongst the general population I honestly think that's about it.
Important events from our time, like our first steps into space, will be vaguely recalled but the individuals involved (e.g. Gagarin, Armstrong) will be minor details.

A lot will depend on where the dominant culture sees it's roots - it may well be in East Asia in which case events and personalities in Europe/North America may be of little interest.

Really? People very much remember historical discoveries first and foremost through names - Leif Erikson, St Brendan, Vasco da Gama, Columbus, Magellan, Cook etc. Discoveries often give way to naming, so that helps cement reputations. And most of their feats were fairly vague and unremarkable in comparison to Apollo 11. If mankind is space-based in 1000 years time, the first human beings to reach another world will almost certainly be remembered, a starting point for a new age etc.

Leg End Reject wrote: »

I think the queen has a good shot. I'm not sure the UK (or any other) monarchy will survive and she'll be remembered as the world's longest serving monarch.

I mean given the advances in anti-aging technology, it's very possible she could be far down the list in 1000 years. But who knows, monarchy might well be confined to history by then.

But there's something unique about the symmetry of the two Elizabeths in British history IMO. The first Elizabeth saw the beginnings of the English/British imperial history and the second Elizabeth saw the end of that period. I think it's far more likely she'll be remembered as overseeing Britain's decline as a world power, although unlike previous monarchs she can hardly be held responsible for that, it'll just be coincidence really.

Wibbs · 29-11-2020 1:14pm

Invidious wrote: »

Tyrants and tech entrepreneurs have the best shot, I think.

Good point with the techies Inv. We know of people like Johnny Gutenberg, the down on his luck goldsmith who gave us printing because he became the focus of a massive sea change in human history. Of the Asian inventors who came up with early forms of printing we know little, even Chinese people would struggle, because they didn't bring about that massive shift.

Usually the trick isn't to invent something, it's to make it useful and sell it in large numbers. EG Edison invented bugger all, but he knew how to shift units and advertise. I was having a kinda similar debate on another site that is a watch enthusiast site and a load of posters were absolutely convinced to the point of getting wound up(no pun...) that Rolex innovated nearly everything in the development of the wristwatch, yet of the big Swiss manufacturers it would actually be difficult to find one that innovated less. Yet everyone knows the name "Rolex".

Leg End Reject · 29-11-2020 1:37pm

snowstorm445 wrote: »

But there's something unique about the symmetry of the two Elizabeths in British history IMO. The first Elizabeth saw the beginnings of the English/British imperial history and the second Elizabeth saw the end of that period. I think it's far more likely she'll be remembered as overseeing Britain's decline as a world power, although unlike previous monarchs she can hardly be held responsible for that, it'll just be coincidence really.

For me the really interesting part of the current UK royal family has been the press coverage. The old control they had is long gone and they've been exposed as dysfunctional and detached from reality. That, and the collapse of the empire makes them redundant, just trotted out to cut ribbons, make bland speeches etc.

Bowing and curtsying to people who have lost the veneer of being different to the rest of us mere mortals is just bizarre.

Wanderer2010 · 29-11-2020 1:39pm

Tony Holohan.

29-11-2020 2:50pm

The next religious leader to catch the zeitgeist.

whisky_galore · 29-11-2020 3:47pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

She'll be forgotten in 50 years, never mind a millenium.

Way less than 50 years! The circus has moved on. Being forgotten by her followers as we speak, seduced by BooHoo.c om fast fashion and Wish.co m Chinese shyte.
You could see this in interviews with kiddie protestors: government/industry/other people should "do something". Change is for other schmucks.

The Tetrarch · 29-11-2020 6:22pm

The Teletubbies.

McGinniesta · 29-11-2020 8:30pm

I'll be talking about your oul one in 1000 years.

Wibbs · 29-11-2020 8:35pm

Well played sir, well played.

riclad · 29-11-2020 8:48pm

people like bill gates , he is planning to give most of his money to charity.His foundation works to provide funds to help millions of people
to help eliminate malaria and other disease,s in third world countrys.
People will maybe talk about steve jobs as he was behind the invention
of the iphone which is used by millions of people .
Obama will be remembered as the first black president.
i dont think people will remember most of the film stars like tom cruise
or nic cage in 1000 years .

Capt'n Midnight · 29-11-2020 8:57pm

Deleted User wrote: »

The next religious leader to catch the zeitgeist.

Not many people here remember Hong Xiuquan.

Not everyone agreed that he was the brother of Jesus and by the end of it more people died than in World War I.

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

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