A Telegram From the Future – The Russian Futurists
The question is posed: who will still be famous in 10,000 years? This intrigues me.
The major caveat is that 10,000 years is just an insane amount of time. That’s basically equivalent to the entirety of human civilization so far. Thinking that far ahead is like trying to guess who will be president in 2196. It’s not just that you can’t possibly know who will be around at that point–you can’t even been sure the US will exist or that it will still have ‘presidents.’ So we’ll just have to assume that aliens don’t kill us, or that the singularity doesn’t vault us into a higher dimension, or that we don’t go all Canticle for Leibowitz on each other.
With that said, I think there are a few solid answers. The religious folks: Jesus, Muhammad. Abraham, if we consider the historical Abraham to have genuinely existed. Buddha. Confucius has lasted 2500 years so I don’t see why he couldn’t go another 10,000.
I’d like to believe some art will survive. Shakespeare, for one. Homer, perhaps. Though Homer isn’t necessarily a ‘person.’ You’d have to imagine that people will still be keen on philosophy (10,000 years doesn’t seem like long enough to have answered any of those questions) so Plato will surely still be around. The Beatles? I’d have to say yes – though perhaps in this form only.
Who else?
I’ve got some maybes — Einstein and Gandhi.
Here’s a question for any geologists out there: is 10,000 years enough time to efface Mt. Rushmore and, if not, what are the insectoid archaeologists going to think when they find it?
I thought about Einstein, but do you really think we won’t figure out innovations on relativity? And if we do, why Einstein and not Newton?
Gandhi is a possibility. Particularly since if we manage to survive that long I think it’ll have to come in part from a fundamental change in how we think about violence. And Gandhi could become a sort of standard-bearer for that. But still: it’s a bit of an idiosyncratic issue, no? And surely it depends a lot on what happens with India, as the legacy of the movement. Who knows how the struggle will be remembered 200 years from now, much less 10,000.
Jesus and Abraham have already survived the collapse of their support structures (the Roman Empire and Jersualem, respectively). Presumably that’s because they are central to stories people tell each other to justify/explain things we still care about even when all else has gone to hell (hope, how to treat one another, etc.) Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the only reason we know about Aristotle, Plato, and the like because the Arabs kept their heads while Europe went through the Dark Ages. Seems likely that the next Dark Age won’t be compartmentalized. Science and art are screwed.
I guess I don’t know why religion makes the “things we still care about after the apocalypse” and philosophy doesn’t….
It’s also possible I’m being simultaneously overly simplistic and pessimistic. I do that.
Have any of you read A Canticle for Liebowitz?
I haven’t read it yet, but recently added it to my must-read list. I believe everyone who has commented on this post would enjoy it. It sounds like an interesting investigation of some of the points Scott raises regarding Dark Ages, and how knowledge survives through them.
Will Joseph Smith have joined the club that includes Buddha, Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad by 10,000 years from now?
I’d ask the same question about Guru Nanak Dev (founder of the Sikh religion), and Mírzá Ḥusayn-’Alí Núrí a.k.a. Bahá’u’lláh (founder of the Bahá’í faith) that I ask about Joseph Smith (although I apologize to both of them for grouping them with him). I think all three of them are contenders for joining the big boys club with Abraham/Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad, but it seems too soon to say whether they’ll age like wine or like vinegar.
Having said “big boys club”, I now also wonder, when will a woman appear on this list?