January 14th, 2007
Donna Registrierkasse on Asterisk the gall
Sean on Asterisk the gall
Susanne on Asterisk the gall
Ben on Asterisk the gall
Maddie on I didn’t think| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
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Grim… but I do wonder what future archeologists will make of modern burial sites.
I imagine the same as they do now… a combination of research or speculation… I know that when I get burried, I want them to bury a whole heap of random objects near my coffin and inside it. That way, when some thoughtless archaeologist digs my bones up they will think I was some sort of king of the 21st century.
I wouldn’t have thought they would. I apologise for dashing your hopes of future-deceased kingness, but record keeping and documentation these days is such that they’ll probably know more about you than you did.
However, if you start making plans to become king…
That depends upon three things*:
1. That data and records kept are accurate…
In the Uk at least, there have been terrible problems with all sorts of national databases. The NHS has spent over a decade on the medical database which still doesn’t work properly, and the Home Office has had to admit repeated failure to keep records without ommision and error.
2. That the records and data persist…
Sure, the Clock of the long now foundation are thinking about data in terms of millenia, but they are probably the only ones. Looking at how computerised records were kept 30 years ago, they are incompatible in many ways with modern records. This might happen again at the advent of next-generation computing. I’m also old enough for most of my records to be kept on paper.
Data and records go missing a lot. Recently, 20,000 permanent health files were lost by my local hospital when the records department was flooded. I doubt that computerised records are any less vulnerable to mishap.
3. The arrogance of our descendents…
It has only recently been accepted that we (as in the scientific community) have grossly underestimated the intelligence of neanderthal man, comparing him to the modern chimp in terms of interlect. However, we now know that the neanderthal was capable of burying their dead and making complex tools - something that the chimp refuses to do.
I guess that it’s quite likely that in the far-off future, we will be regarded as simpletons with barely the slightest grasp of our world. It’s the pepetual arrogance of the present - that we are somehow better, that we have somehow made progress.
And rather than look at any records we may have kept, they will just prefer to dig us up and look for themselves.
* My fall back option is to actually achieve king-like status, somehow.
Just dandy. Now i’m going to add another post-mortem dream. First it was that a perverted old man with shaky hands does my autopsy, in front of a group of medical students, which is something i’m sure i’ll be tricked into giving permission for. Now I have to dream of the next millenia discovery of my bonesy body. Or at least body in serious decay. Pullin apart my bones and saying, “Oh look at this development in the knee so unlike us today! ( cuz they have backward, almost always double jointed knees you see)”
I suppose I can only think that perhaps the end of the world or near end of the world will come, and there will be so many bodies, that no one looks at mine, or so many dead, no one survived, and that’s so grim.
Cavemen were known to do successful head surgery, with primitive tools. Cavemen rock.
I did not know that… that cavemen operated in such a way.
It doesn’t suprise me though. Recent evidence is showing our predecessors to be far more intelligent than we had previously assumed.
We can be a arrogant bunch sometimes… just because they didn’t have i-pods doesn’t mean they weren’t clever… just that their soundtrack sucked a little more.
Yea, they did some pretty amazing things. Though that they did it “to release the evil spirits giving headaches” seems like pretty bad motivation, I can’t say we’re doing much better.
Stretchy Body Circuits
PMSL
Soon they will be mining more than just silicone from graveyards.
(Well, realisticly, they will take the materials out before burial).
I’m yet to make plans for my burial/cremation, I’m still dealing with not being immortal.
Silicon and silicone are two different things.
I know you know, I’m just anal retentive.
Yes, I know… but we welcome all types here, the retentive, pedants and the compulsive… so thanks, we’re glad you could join us.
/Correcting the internet, one bad webcomic at a time.
I’ll admit, I had to read the comments to get it. I thought maybe the crosses were made of silicon and were out to get the city. The near, kinda sorta homonym of silicone didn’t even cross my mind.
Yeah, it’s not my srongest moment, comic-wise… but it was drawn a long time ago and so I leave it here for posterity more than anything else… I don’t think it’d be right to just delete it… similarly I could correct the original and re-scan it, but then this conversation would become a bizarre paradox, and I’m trying to cut back on those for the moment.