Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Never watched probably never will

I’ll gladly proclaim I’ve never watched Game of Thrones. I never plan on watching it either. While I enjoy some science fiction, I think (maybe I’m wrong) this popular cable series was more fantasy than science fiction.

I only mention that over-hyped series to compare it to the stuff I do watch. My wife and I mostly watch PBS shows. Some might say it’s an age related thing, but I would say if age has anything influence, it’s the added wisdom that comes with age.





Taken from article by National Post

I was working on a post about our digital life and the complications of storing the volumes of digital pictures streaming around our daily lives. That post turned into more of a rant. I like technology. The cutting edge tech of the 1980’s and 1990’s has gone dull now. It provided me a good career. Why should I rant about later advances that can be traced back to the stuff of my former career? Why rant about a first world problem?

Back to the shows I watch. I recently rewatched a NOVA program (Arctic Ghost Ship) about the Franklin arctic expedition of the mid 1800’s. A few years ago researchers found one the expeditions ships on the arctic sea floor.

While the NOVA program provides plenty of knowledge and topics to think about. I’ll focus on just one. One of the key pieces of information leading to finding the sunken ship came from Inuit oral history.

Storytelling is certainly a human tradition. Our western culture proceeded down the written path that can be connected over centuries to our digital world. I’m just amazed that the facts passed along over multiple generations of Inuits through storytelling could be a critical factor in finding a long lost ship. Maybe if I was an Inuit I would not be surprised at all.

What historical facts will future generations discover about our life today through the digital footprints we leave? Will the information be so accessible that people will not even find it interesting? Will the future culture be more interested in the next fantasy series on our ever changing cable services? 


Changes in our technology can create generational gaps. It seems the storytelling of oral histories binds the generations of those cultures together. The Intuit community now has the internet and many other modern technology. I hope it doesn't ruin their beneficial oral history tradition.






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