Timbre

[crisper]

Cacaphony

Comments

[stanleylieber]

This story has so many great ideas.

I like the name you already used -- and "Beatles' Daytripper" would also work really well. Something I've noticed about future stories that have little hints of popular culture is that they always tend to draw from periods prior to that in which they are written (that is, prior to the temporal location of their authors). It always seems like a bit of an inconsistency, since presumabley culture continues to roll forward even after the author is gone. :) Granted, the Beatles are history as well, but it would be fun to see how far-future cultures have decided to venerate today's throw-away culture. A shift in the classical pantheon as seen by the formally educated several generations on would be a nice way to do so.

[crisper]

Every once in a while, you'll see a speculative writer throw out a list of historical people or events, as seen from the POV of the characters in the story, most of which the reader recognizes as "history" and one or two of which are obviously supposed to be still in our own future... but it rarely actually works. The function of writing is to connect with the reader, and anything that detracts from that connection is harmful. If the ship in this story had been named "Curio Prime's Mack 4K That Boom-Bah Ass", it wouldn't be at all apparent to anyone that it's named after the greatest music composition of the early 22nd century

[stanleylieber]

Fair points, but do you expect scholarship to collapse as the amount of stored information increases? It's fairly obvious why history could not be expansively studied in the past -- there wasn't that much information collected in one place to study. I doubt if it's a coincidence that the acceptance of historical awareness as a concept came about in step with the proliferation of information technologies (books, etc.). If the sum total of human knowledge really is doubling every 18 months (or whatever abstract analogy is being used now to indicate rapid change), analysis is only likely to continue, wouldn't you think?

It is true that so-called "mass culture" may be endangered. At the same time, taxonomies and power laws may provide life support. I'm not saying canonization follows a predictable curve in terms of qualtiy or rationality, but I have a hard time believing that "everything has been done," or that "we've already picked our gods." Eventually, something comes along to supplant even the most entrenched ideas.

[crisper]

>Fair points, but do you expect scholarship to collapse as the amount of stored information increases

[stanleylieber]

But earlier you seemed to be suggesting that the concept of "history" is probably a transient phenomenon. I can see how overchoice can severely limit a Big Picture view (tempered by categorization and statistical anlaysis, which can abrogate many of the scaling problems associated with massive amounts of information -- I believe that meta-data such as user-selected taxonomies will provide a window fo "relevance" into the deluge; I'd never be able to read every book in my public library, either, but even so, I have a pretty good idea what's housed there). If we're going to be so overwhelmed with data, why should the old forms and canon survive at all? The novelty of mere competence they once demonstrated will quickly wear off, especially as their "tricks" are exposed and rendered commonplace, and their political contexts are lost to cultural shift. Three hundred years ago a man who could manufacture phosphorous could redraw national borders, or reconfigure the structure of the Church

[crisper]

>But earlier you seemed to be suggesting that the concept of "history" is probably a transient

[mmcirvin]

There's also the Star Trek history cliché: a character recites a string of three historical references, two from prior to our time and one after.

[stanleylieber]

I may not be historically aware enough for this discussion. :)