We are the first generation that may well be known far better than almost all of the people that walked on this planet before us. Yes we have some idea as to what Henry 8th did. We also have some idea what he might have looked like. But when you gather every little bit of primary source data about the man it is likely to amount to a hill of beans compared to accumulated nonsense we posted about our lives. (Irony accepted).
Of course it is a very reasonable observation that there is an open question whether any of our cloud lives will survive anything as long as the end of the century let alone 500 years. If it does what story will it tell to the people of the future. How will they judge these years of increasing uncertainty as all around us the environment changes in ways that are a lot less sympathetic to leading what we would now consider to be a comfortable life.
We will never know.
So should anyone actually read this 500 years in the future – well Hi. Please don’t judge us too harshly for the sins we have committed. If, however, you are as judgmental as we are then I guess we will get everything we deserve.


I have used various email and browser softwares (ugh) and as a consequence I have built up and kept a few bookmark folders which I may, or may not, load into the current browser.
I find that quite a few web sites from only a few years ago no longer work. I rather expect that our digital traces will also not last indefinitely as ‘old files’ are often deleted because they have not been accessed for some time.
Leaving only ephemeral traces – a reality that many people don’t care to think about. See https://grokipedia.com/page/Clock_of_the_Long_Now for a different approach.