Well 52,015 but that title doesn't sound as cool. 50,000 years from now sounds better than 50,001 years. Why am I saying hello to the future? Well in the near future the spaceship KEO is about to embark on 50,000 year tour, a 50,000 year tour, and come back to earth, assuming the space weather doesn't get too rough.
As part of the KEO's 50,000 year mission, every person living on Earth, small, weak, powerful or rich is provided with four pages of liberty and equality to pen down his or her message destined for the future. All the messages received, without undergoing any censorship, will be embarked aboard KEO. Since none of us will be around so far in the future, I thought I would put my message in the public eye now. Here is my story [doink doink].
As I write this, it is January 13, 2014 (Common Era), approximately 3 weeks after the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. I am in the town [redacted] in the state of New Jersey in the United States of America. (Latitude: 40.058324, Longitude: -74.405661) [note: this is just a random spot in NJ]. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I hope you can read more than my latitude, longitude position, even with your version of a universal translator (not to mention who even knows if there will be a civilization by then).
I grew up in the outer boroughs of New York City (a bit north of my present location). My childhood was somewhat typical of the last third of the 20th century. We lived in an apartment, one color TV, one black and white. No computers aside from primitive toys. My days were spent in school, my free time riding my bicycle with my friends to go to a park or video arcade. Occasionally we would take the subway or have my mother drive us into the city to see more exciting things. No computers in the classrooms then. We had to memorize everything, no simple recalling it on our devices. I and my brothers used to deliver a physical copy of the daily newspaper to our customers, the closest you could get to information that was more than a sound bite from the TV or radio news at your doorstep.
Assuming there is someone to read this in what we call 52,014, I wonder if you will see us like we see the ancient nomadic tribes from tens of thousands of years ago, a primitive people at the dawn of the information age or Gods from a lost, rumored magical time similar to the stories of the lost continent of Atlantis. I doubt the work I particularly do will be of little interest in a time so far away as well as my daily life's activities. Suffice to say, statistically, I will fall into the average highly educated, New York City suburbanite, top 10% demographic. Oh I may have some unique thoughts and feelings, but I imagine they will be as interesting in 50,000 years as the thoughts of an individual slave in ancient Rome.
It is easy to assume that in 50,000 years civilizations would have fallen, risen up, and fallen again numerous times. And if that is the case little will remain from our time except, maybe, some strange cuts in some mountains. Tales from our days, if remembered at all, would be like tales from the Bible, which is probably just exaggerated folk tales. Heck, we barely remember history from 5,000 years ago so I can't fathom what it will be like so many years in the future.
I am not worried of any of my possible descendants reading this, assuming my children and their children and so on keep reproducing. If I do have descendants my portion of their DNA code will be so small as to be de minims, especially as I have not had my DNA code saved anywhere, aside from swabs from doctors visits over my life, past and future.
So far I have said a lot of nothing, but I imagine many have written or will write about current entertainment and technology. Assuming history books from this time remain in some form, anyone reading this will probably have studied our ancient technology in their early grade education.
I suppose every generation says they live in exciting times, but to me it seems we do. 200 years ago was barely the start of the industrial revolution, where machines were just being created to help man fulfill their potential. Today we are creating machines and robots that are replacing man and are not sure what this will do to our economy. Information is always at our fingertips. If I want to borrow or buy a book, magazine or newspaper, I press a few buttons and voila -- information!
Speaking of computers, though today's computers that will be in this device will undoubtedly seem primitive so far in the future, computers 35 years were even more so. When I was a young adult I could scarcely imagine that in less than 30 years time I would be typing out a message that could potentially be read in 50,000 years, or sooner if there is life out there or man is able to conquer the stars, and someone comes across this much sooner. Speaking of the stars, aside from landing on the moon, our travels so far have been limited to probes such as this satellite.
I'd say the biggest change in my life has been the rise of the computers. Not that long ago, much research was carried out using dead trees, pencils and papers as that was the most efficient. We used to have to go to a physical building and spend hours researching a specific topic using several physical books. People waited on line at the store, not go online via the internet. Today a few clicks on my computer while I am sitting on my couch takes care of that in a few seconds. I suppose it won't be much longer until our computers become internal devices that automatically link is to the rest of the world, finding information instantly. I am very curious to see what the next 100-200 years have in store for man and machine.
My religion or spiritual belief is Jewish. Basically our core beliefs are: 1) "do unto others as you would have done unto you," with the rest being commentary, 2) They tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat! We also believe in one great invisible spirit in the sky who created the universe and protects us, unless we piss him off somehow. I'd like to think there is some higher authority out there, somewhere, but logic suggests this is not so.
At the present, our civilization is poisoning the environment. We use and throw strange chemicals into our grounds and waters without concern about what the effects of this may be. We are changing weather patterns and sea levels with our machines. It doesn't matter if some don't believe in climate change, climate change believes in us. I wonder if we will rectify this one day soon or if the Earth will simply shake most of us off like a bad cold. Right now it looks more like we better start working on some cold medicine.
Well 52,014 that about covers it. I will be barely dust by time you read this, my atoms scattered, reformed, and scattered again many times when you read this. To quote an ancient philosopher: "Live long and prosper."
So that was my letter for our spaceship in a bottle, for better or for worse. 52,014 will get a taste of our times, perhaps more intimate than tomorrow's history books will be. Even if an alien civilization stumbles upon this satellite before its journey's end, we of 2014 will most likely be long gone from this planet, giving those races an idea of what early 21st century earth was like. 50,000 years ago, cavemen were drawing pictures on walls, barely showing that can reflect on their dealings with the environment. I wonder if our descendents will see this time similarly.
I grew up in the outer boroughs of New York City (a bit north of my present location). My childhood was somewhat typical of the last third of the 20th century. We lived in an apartment, one color TV, one black and white. No computers aside from primitive toys. My days were spent in school, my free time riding my bicycle with my friends to go to a park or video arcade. Occasionally we would take the subway or have my mother drive us into the city to see more exciting things. No computers in the classrooms then. We had to memorize everything, no simple recalling it on our devices. I and my brothers used to deliver a physical copy of the daily newspaper to our customers, the closest you could get to information that was more than a sound bite from the TV or radio news at your doorstep.
Assuming there is someone to read this in what we call 52,014, I wonder if you will see us like we see the ancient nomadic tribes from tens of thousands of years ago, a primitive people at the dawn of the information age or Gods from a lost, rumored magical time similar to the stories of the lost continent of Atlantis. I doubt the work I particularly do will be of little interest in a time so far away as well as my daily life's activities. Suffice to say, statistically, I will fall into the average highly educated, New York City suburbanite, top 10% demographic. Oh I may have some unique thoughts and feelings, but I imagine they will be as interesting in 50,000 years as the thoughts of an individual slave in ancient Rome.
It is easy to assume that in 50,000 years civilizations would have fallen, risen up, and fallen again numerous times. And if that is the case little will remain from our time except, maybe, some strange cuts in some mountains. Tales from our days, if remembered at all, would be like tales from the Bible, which is probably just exaggerated folk tales. Heck, we barely remember history from 5,000 years ago so I can't fathom what it will be like so many years in the future.
I am not worried of any of my possible descendants reading this, assuming my children and their children and so on keep reproducing. If I do have descendants my portion of their DNA code will be so small as to be de minims, especially as I have not had my DNA code saved anywhere, aside from swabs from doctors visits over my life, past and future.
So far I have said a lot of nothing, but I imagine many have written or will write about current entertainment and technology. Assuming history books from this time remain in some form, anyone reading this will probably have studied our ancient technology in their early grade education.
I suppose every generation says they live in exciting times, but to me it seems we do. 200 years ago was barely the start of the industrial revolution, where machines were just being created to help man fulfill their potential. Today we are creating machines and robots that are replacing man and are not sure what this will do to our economy. Information is always at our fingertips. If I want to borrow or buy a book, magazine or newspaper, I press a few buttons and voila -- information!
Speaking of computers, though today's computers that will be in this device will undoubtedly seem primitive so far in the future, computers 35 years were even more so. When I was a young adult I could scarcely imagine that in less than 30 years time I would be typing out a message that could potentially be read in 50,000 years, or sooner if there is life out there or man is able to conquer the stars, and someone comes across this much sooner. Speaking of the stars, aside from landing on the moon, our travels so far have been limited to probes such as this satellite.
I'd say the biggest change in my life has been the rise of the computers. Not that long ago, much research was carried out using dead trees, pencils and papers as that was the most efficient. We used to have to go to a physical building and spend hours researching a specific topic using several physical books. People waited on line at the store, not go online via the internet. Today a few clicks on my computer while I am sitting on my couch takes care of that in a few seconds. I suppose it won't be much longer until our computers become internal devices that automatically link is to the rest of the world, finding information instantly. I am very curious to see what the next 100-200 years have in store for man and machine.
My religion or spiritual belief is Jewish. Basically our core beliefs are: 1) "do unto others as you would have done unto you," with the rest being commentary, 2) They tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat! We also believe in one great invisible spirit in the sky who created the universe and protects us, unless we piss him off somehow. I'd like to think there is some higher authority out there, somewhere, but logic suggests this is not so.
At the present, our civilization is poisoning the environment. We use and throw strange chemicals into our grounds and waters without concern about what the effects of this may be. We are changing weather patterns and sea levels with our machines. It doesn't matter if some don't believe in climate change, climate change believes in us. I wonder if we will rectify this one day soon or if the Earth will simply shake most of us off like a bad cold. Right now it looks more like we better start working on some cold medicine.
Well 52,014 that about covers it. I will be barely dust by time you read this, my atoms scattered, reformed, and scattered again many times when you read this. To quote an ancient philosopher: "Live long and prosper."
So that was my letter for our spaceship in a bottle, for better or for worse. 52,014 will get a taste of our times, perhaps more intimate than tomorrow's history books will be. Even if an alien civilization stumbles upon this satellite before its journey's end, we of 2014 will most likely be long gone from this planet, giving those races an idea of what early 21st century earth was like. 50,000 years ago, cavemen were drawing pictures on walls, barely showing that can reflect on their dealings with the environment. I wonder if our descendents will see this time similarly.
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