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?
6 Responses to Time is best when it stops