Is it worth reconstructing the past inaccurately in order to help construct a better future—or a less anxious present?
Do you think people should spend more time thinking about how they will be remembered?
- No. People will be remembered for what they have done that impacted a community or society. In the musical Rent, one of the main characters in the play dies. The ensemble were everyday New Yorkers who lived through the difficult times of the 90s and couldn't receive proper medication since HIV and AIDS were spreading. After the song number when the character dies, each one of them step forward and say something that made her memory. She was like the friend who glued the bond. By simply being friendly, kind and loving to the people you know, that is the most impactful way to remember a good friend.
- Yes. Life is short and leave your mark to the world. I feel like this applies to figures with a bigger or growing influence. People that would fit this range are public figures, politicians, influencers (yes im serious), artists, content creators, and who knows maybe you in the future too. If you have watched Hamilton (or u know the lyrics by heart :]) then it is very clear that Hamilton wanted to be remembered as someone who did great, and huge impactful things. He wanted to leave a legacy that would be remembered for the incoming years that he would not be able to witness.
- There are also odd events that made normal people renowned for the impactful things they did. I can't recall the thread but on Tumblr there was this long post about inventions that were made by men created for their wives because they didn't like seeing them being hurt. One of them being gloves and bandaid. The things we do for love right?
Are there times when we might want to deconstruct the past? For instance, when is it a good idea to take down historical monuments, or to change a nation's founding myths?
Imagine that, many years from now, you're hired as a consultant to help recreate the 2020s for a historical drama, but with a very limited budget. What one setting would you recommend building?
A researcher from a thousand years in the future visits with you and asks for a one-day tour, to help them put together a 21 century school as accurately as possible for a living history museum. What do you show them? What do you hide? Would you agree to go back to the future to help staff it?
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There are many romantic movies set in the past, but very few set in the future. Why do you think that is? Is it a failure of imagination?
- As someone who enjoys watching movies, especially romantic ones, part of the reason why I believe there are more romantic movies set in the past than in the future is because of the amount of knowledge there is about those times. I can imagine writing a love story plot of me and someone in high school than who I would be in the future because I know what it's like to have a school crush. It sounds cheesy but it's true. There are more stories and events that seem to be easier to construct because people know how to work with the source material. The future has yet to come and we don't know how romance or if the idea of falling in love would change. There are 2 medias that come to the top of my head, one is Black Mirror (the episode of Hayley Atwell) & the other is the movie Her with Amy Adams in it. It was very strange to me because I can’t picture our humanity actually falling in love with AIs and robots. Does anyone remember the guy who married Hatsune Miku? something like that but to a more extreme extent.
One of the challenges of reconstructing the long-ago is that few records exist, and that those which do privilege those who had the power to keep them. Will future historians looking at our own era struggle with the opposite problem—an overabundance of information, shared indiscriminately by people of all backgrounds? Are we living in an incoherent world?