Like the first census in China
by Kris Weberg on August 4, 2006
Quite possibly the best non-TC blog post ever. The comments are the funniest part.
It does raise an interesting, if commonly-known point about the Internet (or, as Senator Ted Stevens calls it, "a bunch of tubes"): It's like your permanent record from grade school, only real....and actually permanent. Everything you write or do, and increasingly every digital image ever taken of you will be on the Internet forever. Your thumbs-up rating re: co-worker blowjob fun? It's on the Internet forever. That time you did something really stupid in front of everyone? It's on the Internet forever. And remember when your friend photographed you hopped up on cocaine and making out with that goat in Tijuana? It's on the Internet forever (or it would've been if I hadn't smashed his digital camera in a coked out rage. But I'm not here to talk about me.)
As many of us know, you can't even get off the Internet after you're dead.
But if you think about it, this also means that in a certain sense, no one in our generation who owns a computer need ever be forgotten again. The fate of your body and the fate of the images and words about you are no longer even remotely connected. Total strangers, ten years later, might well encounter you on a trawl through an archive, a cached Google result. Now people you have never physically met know as much or more about you and your opinions than the man one apartment over or the woman you see every day at work. And people you have never spoken to have seen your face and gleaned your thoughts. Your body is no longer a limit, but neither is time or space a barrier of access. Everyone on this site, posting their pictures and ideas, will have that face and voice for a very long time hence, We will all outlive ourselves; we will be survived by our own memories, not just the memories others have of us. And the future, more than ever, will never be free of its past.
When the first census was taken in China, suddenly there was a record of 75 million people, proof of life for all of them. Most of those millions would never meet, but now they knew that so many others existed. We haven't the boundary of that sort of locality nor the luxury of that sort of privacy any more.
So for God's sake, try not to write trite and obvious crap, because it'll be around forever.
Five Replies to Like the first census in China
Kris Weberg | August 4, 2006
Bingo! Megan wins round 1!
Aaron Shurtleff | August 4, 2006
Wow! That was fast! :O
And I can't express how pleased I was when the trite and obvious crap link at the end didn't go to my blog. I saw that it was an XQC link and I was just thinking, "Man! Dogged already?!". :)
Lori Lancaster | August 4, 2006
[hidden by author request]
Scott Hardie | August 8, 2006
Leaving a legacy after death means a lot to me personally. It's about that Navajo belief that you don't die until the last person who remembers you dies. If I'm remembered, then that alone proves that I changed the world for having been in it.
Anyway, if we'll all live forever online, I'll be proud to be remembered for this site. I've contributed plenty of trite and obvious crap around here, but one reason I pour so much into it is that it's my mark in the world, my place on the historical record. In reality it will disappear as soon as my hosting account expires for non-payment, but maybe the Wayback Machine can help.
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Megan Baxter | August 4, 2006
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See, I'm reading, I'm just not posting!