How Much of Your Past Do You Really Want to Remember?
Imagine a future where everything that happens in public spaces, and perhaps much in private spaces as well, is routinely recorded, saved and searchable. In that future, the man of thirty gets to watch himself at fifteen on his first date, judge how reasonable or otherwise the quarrel that ended a friendship at eighteen was, see how his parents treated him and he them, with perhaps useful lessons for bringing up his own children. At fifty he gets to look back at what he was doing when he was thirty, recognizing faults or errors invisible to him at the time.
More from David Friedman at his blog.
How much of my past do I want to remember? Probably no where near as much as what David Friedman is describing.
We are already getting there to some degree. Just about every new cell phone has a bad video camera. Youthful antics, altercations, auto accidents that occur in public are fair game for impromptu archivists. Some of this is desirable; such as when a persona is being attacked on the street or a crime is being committed. But much of this would probably be better to have never committed to Facebook memory.
I’m with Vicki. Some things are better not remembered.
Don’t a lot of people drink to forget? This whole enterpise might encourage alcoholism.
More data will be collected, but how often does anyone revisit their own vacation slides/videos, much less (voluntarily) those of others?
Reminds me of a “60 Minutes” piece a few weeks about about a handful of people, including actress Marilu Henner, who can remember every day of their lives.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/16/60minutes/main7156877.shtml
There are reasons that we all don’t come equipped with photographic memory banks. I, for one, would like it to remain that way.