Last night I was having a conversation with my good old friend, Kunkee. We talked about a lot of stuff, including the Persian Empire. He's been studying this a lot, thanks to his Civ class, and it really struck me how very little we know. Sure, we have historical records, and some archaeological stuff, but really, how much do we actually know about that 2500 year old civilization?
Which, of course, leads to the question: how much will the world know about our civilization in another 2500 years? We discussed it a little bit, and I brought up the point that everything in this world is digital. Kunkee added that not only is information all digital, but most of our civilization is very transient. Glass and steel skyscrapers don't last like brick and stone, and wood doesn't last at all. Heck, a couple years ago we had to replace the siding on the house I grew up in because it was rotting away, and we built that house when I was nine! I've driven by so many barns built 100 years ago, and there's not much left - covered in vines with trees growing through the roof, falling boards, only the bare frame of a building. Can you imagine what will be left of our world in a thousand years? Two thousand?
My main concern is the digitization, though. I mean, how long can it last? The information is stored on hard drives, which, honestly, I'm lucky if I can get a jump drive to survive 5 years. Hard copies of things are becoming more and more rare. Who sends snail mail anymore? Newspapers still exist but they're becoming less used and will probably give way to online news in a very short time. And don't even get me started on ebooks.
So, with that question burning in my mind, I feigned exhaustion, kicked Kunkee out, and slipped into my room to perform some simple magic. A few years ago, I came across a wizard. He was a nut. That's the thing about magic. If you're not careful with it, you might accidentally transform yourself into something you don't want to be - in his case, a cashew.
Now, being a cashew, he really couldn't do anything about it. He still had his mind intact (his form of transformation allowed for that, though don't ask me how, because I still can't figure out where he put his mind when he was shaped like a crescent rat turd), so he was able to cast simple spells. Anything more complicated than manipulating the elements generally called for a potion or at the very least a staff to channel the magic, so he was very much stuck.
To make a long story short (so we can get on to the longer story), I discovered him and didn't eat him, because I loathe nuts with a burning passion, and through a series of really scary moments where he tried manipulating the elements to tell me he wasn't actually a nut (don't even get me started on the time he created a tornado in the toilet), I discovered his wizardness and was able to use his potion brewing manual to turn him back into a human.
He offered me my choice of his amulets as a thank you for preventing him from being roasted, salted and stuck in a jar (if that had happened his only defense would have been to spell the jar's lid so not even Tarzan could pry it off). I had a rough time choosing between flight and time travel, but finally settled on the latter so that I could go visit a seven year old Clarke and try to convince him he was actually a Tanzanian peasant that got misplaced by his mother, carried off by a man-eating tanager, rescued by monkeys in Brazil, kidnapped from the monkeys by American poachers, and sold on the black market, where he was bought by our parents who thought he was a doll and bought him as a toy for me to play with, which makes me their favorite, so nyah. Unfortunately, when I tried to tell him all of that, he explained that was impossible, because tanagers are from the thraupidae family, which is far too small to carry off a baby, and even though they are an omnivorous species, their meat eating tendencies do not extend past insects.
Anyway, back to the original story, the wizard gave me the time travel amulet, and I now visit him around the holidays, where we sing Christmas carols, drink spiced cider and eat enchanted fudge.
So, last night, I decided to use my time travel amulet to answer my own question. How much would mankind of the future know about our civilization?
I clutched the amulet to my chest, and decided on a date. I decided to make it in spring so that if something went wrong and I had to stay for a couple months or so, I wouldn't have to deal with winter. One never knows what they'll find in the future. With the date chosen, I repeated it over and over in my mind.
April 25 (not too hot, not too cold - all you'll need is a light jacket!), 4512. April 25, 4512. April 25, 4512. April...
As the world melted around me, I realized I had forgotten that's it's impossible to know whether or not the space you are occupying is going to be occupied by something else in 2500.5 years.
That's why traveling to the future is almost never a good idea.
To be continued...
