The Douglas Coupland Thought of the day

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

In the distant future, when we're all gone and forgotten, how will people think of our civilization? Wouldn't it be strange if they got it all wrong & based their interpretation on the few surviving relics of 2002 era pop culture?

Imagine that thousands of years from now all our cities are buried & gone. Archaelolgists unearth a shopping mall in present-day Columbus, Ohio. Everything they know about now is deduced from their findings at that one site.

The ethnography museum of the future: I fearfully picture a diarama of Britney Spears wearing a micro-Star Wars tshirt & sharing a Big Mac with Regis. [noooooooooo!]

― Miss Laura, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:52 (twenty-three years ago)

So the question is:
What do *you* think future civilizations will think of our present-day world?

― Miss Laura, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:54 (twenty-three years ago)

there's a whole lot of stupid.

― webber (webber), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 11:17 (twenty-three years ago)

why the hell did they have to keep three copies of everything? (master, copy and copy master - i work part-time in an archive). this really bothers me. will future generations really need three copies of The Battersea Bugle? Will they need even one? Waste, waste, loads of bloody waste.

― nickie (nickie), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 11:43 (twenty-three years ago)

This is one of those thoughts that I catch myself having very often. It's not that I worry they'll think we were all dumb, it's that we'll leave it unannotated and they'll somehow get the wrong end of the stick about something. Miss the irony or something like that.

Weirdly, I have these thoughts about time travellers from the past, too. Or not so much tim travellers as people from the past getting a glimpse of the future and having to draw conclusions from it. Like an after the fact headline on a newspaper being enough to work out that say.. Princess Diana had died or something.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 11:50 (twenty-three years ago)

There's an interesting book about the need to keep paper copies of newspapers, as storing them on microfiche (sp?) doesn't do them justice and can be tampered with. It's a big old conspiracy theory book that my dad was reading, and going on about as he is a computer hating old school librarian. I'll find out what it was called.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 11:57 (twenty-three years ago)

loads and loads of videos of empty corridors!!

microfiche = film surely? the problem is keeping them as electronic files cuz all the enemy then needs is tom cruise w. a big old magnet

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 11:58 (twenty-three years ago)

It's Double fold by Nicholson Baker.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the book you mean is The Double Fold, jel, by Nicholson Baker. Librarian friends of mine think his argument is a sack of arse.

Nick: Tim travelers? I am now scarred by a mental image of Mr Hopkins in a raggletaggle crusty convoy.

― Jerry the Nipper, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Can I take this oppurtunity to say poor Susan ~~Smith~~ Kennedy?

― Graham (graham), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:07 (twenty-three years ago)

That's the book my dad was reading, thanks Billy!

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Jel's post regarding paper storage reminds me of the mid-80s Domesday project in which schoolkids produced facts, figures and essays about their local areas which were then stored on two new-fangled laser discs as an updated high-tech version of the Domesday Book. The discs could only be read on BBC computers (the most popular pooters in UK schools back then) and it's damn near impossible to find a compatible laser disc reader anymore so they are pretty much useless.

― robster (robster), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:24 (twenty-three years ago)

"Can I take this oppurtunity to say poor Susan Smith Kennedy?"

Eh?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Librarian friends of mine think his argument is a sack of arse

Well they would, wouldn't they. Since he's written a book slagging them off.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:18 (twenty-three years ago)

It's a Neighbours thing. Does no one else even CARE?

― Graham (graham), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:19 (twenty-three years ago)

no, sorry.

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I haven't seen Neighbours for about two years. Is Susan Kennedy dead or something?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:40 (twenty-three years ago)

I believe she has lost her memory, an affliction which seems to strike soap characters a lot more than it does any other section of the population.

― Emma, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I believe she has lost her memory

Is there a competing theory?

― Graham (graham), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:49 (twenty-three years ago)

To quote Graham at himself: Fuck off. I said 'I believe' as my info is based not on watching Neighbours as I am at work but on reading the cryptic episode descriptions in the paper.

― Emma, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

She thinks it the seventies. I never thought I would say this but: Neighbours is so bad that I can't be bothered to watch it anymore (sad but true *sigh*)

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 17:01 (twenty-three years ago)

It's Double fold by Nicholson Baker.
-- Billy Dods (butterbubble9@hotmail.com), August 21st, 2002.
I think the book you mean is The Double Fold, jel, by Nicholson Baker. Librarian friends of mine think his argument is a sack of arse.

-- Jerry the Nipper (jerrythenipper@hotmail.com), August 21st, 2002.

haha I thought we couldn't accidentally do this any more?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 17:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Susan Kennedy thinks its the 70s? And you think this is a BAD storyline? Sounds like the best story ever, with endless comic potential.

Of course, I'm sure they're trying to hamfistedly discuss SERIOUS ISHOOS here, and therefore its rubbish.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 18:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't remember if that thought is related to the hilarious bit in Coupland's 'Shampoo Planet' where he describes a neo-Disneyland called 'History World' where families line up to don protective suits and then rummage through landfills.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 22 August 2002 01:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, I had forgotten about that! History world, good one.

I was thinking more in terms of:

a) how many Europeans seem to base their entire concept of North America on a few American tv shows (which are miles away from reality)

b) how when people interpret the past from a few artifacts, who knows if their interpretation is right? Kind of like how earlier paleontologists put the bones together one way & then later paleontologists decided they had it all wrong & arranged the bones another way.

― Miss Laura, Thursday, 22 August 2002 07:16 (twenty-three years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.