But you have no argument for this. You're attempting to say "we got lucky with Shakespeare" but that does a grave disservice to Shakespeare. He got read because he was good at it and wanted to be read. Facebook only accentuates the latter. Abso-fucking-lutely. More importantly, when you have to scribe it in charcoal ink on papyrus you focus on the shit that matters. If the Romans had Twitter there'd just be more bullshit to wade through. | The point isn't that without having Facebook from 1500 on we'd have missed out on Newton's Principia -- the point is if we'd had it we'd know a lot more about why he was so fucking nuts all his life.| An argument you cling to with no evidence whatsoever. Using your own example, if Newton were you, our perspective on Newton would be a bunch of news clippings. You think we won't have news clippings in the future?My overall point is that from an anthropological standpoint of learning about our species, we don't want to "forget the bullshitters." We want to know everything.
I've studied Roman daily life -- what they ate, why, when, how they went to the bathroom, how they treated their slaves, wives and kids -- and do you think that's the sort of thing they found interesting about themselves?
No, no, no -- we got extraordinarily lucky that Shakespeare's works survived. He wasn't considered the god of the English language then as he is now -- just popular. And if not for the unasked-for work of a couple of his friends, we wouldn't have any of his plays. Period. Huge argument against oral history, really: it's a fucking miracle we have the Iliad. But Newton's not me! Half the people in the world use Facebook, and they're all different and use it in various different ways. To claim that historians in 500 years are only going to have bullshit left from the age of info-vomit on the early internet is ridiculous pure and simple. You're essentially dismissing with hindsight that there's anything interesting about past cultures that we don't know we don't know by saying that we're better off not having lots of (possibly trivial) details about them. Being happy about a lack of information goes against everything students of the past are about.An argument you cling to with no evidence whatsoever. Using your own example, if Newton were you, our perspective on Newton would be a bunch of news clippings.
Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as "not of an age, but for all time." Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. Let's back up for a minute and see where we've come from. The argument under discussion is that Facebook is gonna be great for future generations because it will preserve everything. My counter-argument is that it skews the discussion such that "everything" is a bunch of bullshit that nobody cares about now, so why should they care about it in the future? In defense of your argument you have put forth the notion that "we got extraordinarily lucky that Shakespeare's works survived." This is not true. It's entirely probable that our record of shakespeare is better because of the folio that his friends published (they did not assemble it purely for love) but Shakespeare was popular then and he's popular now. It's a moot argument anyway - we're aware of Van Gogh, who was obscure during life, and Emily Dickinson, who was completely unknown. Quality will out - John Kennedy Toole killed himself in 1969 and his mom shopped his book around. A Confederacy of Dunces won a Pulitzer in 1981. It's not a miracle we have the Iliad; it's a testament to the strength of the story. You've also put forth the notion that just because you share news articles on Facebook does not mean that everyone shares trivial bullshit on Facebook, but you have yet to cite evidence of truly interesting stuff that started on Facebook. The only things I can think of are Kony 2012 and random, useless picture changes in support of issues that Facebook has no leverage over. Which is not what I'm claiming, and is not something I would ever claim. I'm claiming that all they'll have from FACEBOOK is info-vomit. You have yet to counter this claim, but you have asserted again and again that Facebook is a repository of modern-day genius as if repetition will make it true. I'm not. I'm saying that if the ancient Romans had Facebook the statements they made there would not be particularly relevant to the historical record. Somehow you've conflated my statement of "Facebook is bullshit" with your desire for me to say "information is bad" and I suggest you rethink that. That's because historically speaking, information has been impossibly scarce. That is no longer the case: "It is estimated that one weekday edition of today's New York Times contains more information than the average person in seventeenth-century England was likely to come across in an entire lifetime." Consider the NSA: For going on ten years now they have had recordings of every foreign and domestic phone call made in the United States. All of them. Every single one. Somewhere in a data center in Texas resides every conversation the Tsarnievs ever had about the Boston bombings. Did it do them any good? Do you think they could even find them now if they wanted to? We've gone from "a needle in a haystack" (Emily Dickinson) to a haystack in a haystack on Planet Haystack in the Haystack Confederation of the Haystack Galaxy. Presume the signal has stayed about the same - for a given population, the same percentage of people are Dickinsons, Shakespeares, and Homers. The noise has gone up exponentially. Facebook is pure noise. Look. The entire drive of this "the future will look back on my Facebook graph and see genius" is a narcissistic assurance to assuage the realization that the present sure doesn't give a fuck. And if the present doesn't give a fuck, why on earth would the future? If you want to make history, make history NOW. Don't presume that the future is so bleak that our trivial bullshit suddenly becomes interesting through the long lens of time.No, no, no -- we got extraordinarily lucky that Shakespeare's works survived.
To claim that historians in 500 years are only going to have bullshit left from the age of info-vomit on the early internet is ridiculous pure and simple.
You're essentially dismissing with hindsight that there's anything interesting about past cultures that we don't know we don't know by saying that we're better off not having lots of (possibly trivial) details about them.
Being happy about a lack of information goes against everything students of the past are about.
I don't know where you're going with the Shakespeare tangent, which was nothing more than a throwaway analogy I used three posts ago, and I don't know why you think the Wikipedia article contradicts anything I've said about him. I don't care about that, anyway. Your argument is: Facebook is pure noise. Mine is: it's 99 percent noise but there are potentially broad historical and anthropological conclusions to be drawn from the noise, or from whatever remains of the 1 percent. Fair? You say I haven't backed up my claim, but I'm not sure how I can. It's an opinion. I don't think it unreasonable that, as the reddit poster said, someone's great great grandkids might eventually trawl through their Facebook posts, or some of them, or maybe ones that contain the word "family" just as someone in the 1800s might have read grandma's diary. Only this way it's easier and more definitely possible. Additionally, I think it possible that historians in a few centuries might look back at any one of the meaningless social "movements" that sweep through Facebook (the equality thing, maybe) and draw conclusions about us as a people, or use their findings to corroborate other ideas. A lot of my friends post art and poetry on Facebook. None of them are very good, but odds are the next Poet Laureate of the United States is out there writing poetry on his wall. You say talent will out, but you commit a logical fallacy in doing so. The fact that throughout history much talent has survived in the form of Shakespeare or Van Gogh or Homer is not representative, because it fails to take into account how much great art or writing we've lost to time in the process (a lot). Ironic that you use Van Gogh as an example; since he considered his works worthless he didn't take care of them, and an unknown number were destroyed. -- In one aspect do I agree with you -- Facebook isn't the solution, it's one small facet of the much greater solution that is represented by the internet and technology in general. Internet archives, not just Facebook, will be what historians turn to gleefully in the year 2500. Facebook may even be a bad example, because as you say it has a much higher percentage of chaff than many other possible sources of information for future humans. However, it's what got me thinking about this, and it offers a more personal touch while being a large enough entity that there's some chance its archives will exist a long time from now.
I am trading in evidence. You are trading in opinion. I say "Facebook is trivial." You say "I THINK it isn't." Think what you want. I've demonstrated my point. Fine. I'm not sure why you think your opinions and my facts are equivalent. Everything else you say is "I think." I'm more of an "I can prove" kinda guy. So think what you want. You're wrong. So what do we need Facebook for? "Art is the act of creating something out of nothing and selling it." -Frank Zappa If it wasn't sold, it wasn't art. End of line. So in the end, you agree with me while reserving the right to accuse me of fallacious thinking. Nice.Mine is: it's 99 percent noise but there are potentially broad historical and anthropological conclusions to be drawn from the noise, or from whatever remains of the 1 percent. Fair?
It's an opinion.
None of them are very good, but odds are the next Poet Laureate of the United States is out there writing poetry on his wall.
ou say talent will out, but you commit a logical fallacy in doing so. The fact that throughout history much talent has survived in the form of Shakespeare or Van Gogh or Homer is not representative, because it fails to take into account how much great art or writing we've lost to time in the process (a lot).
Facebook may even be a bad example, because as you say it has a much higher percentage of chaff than many other possible sources of information for future humans.