i don't think it is trivial at all.Right. It's not knowable. Partly because what we think we know about the past is probably trivial.
evolution takes a long time, yet the trogs and aliens are with us ...When put in the box, people might say something like, "we want to avoid the mistakes of the past." But again, we never do avoid such mistakes. So, that can't really be the reason.
My wife often talks of the day her dad tossed the family photos in the trash shortly after her mom’s passing. My brother-in-law caught them and prevented a “catastrophe”. The photos are important- keep them.
the history of humans.
And yet, 3 billion photos won't scratch the surface of the history of "a human."one doesn't need 3 billion photographs saved a day to know the history of humans.
The history of humans is unknowable. The history of SOME humans, might be a little bit knowable, but only superficially, such as on August first 1967 Joe got married.
And yet, 3 billion photos won't scratch the surface of the history of "a human."
This business of "history" is just a belief system built on stacked cards. It's nothing but intellectual gymnastics. The invention of recording history seems to have been the need to rationalize the actions of those whose actions are either most devastating, like generals, or those whose actions were most benevolent, like "saints." I'm not saying that lists of dates and names and places isn't legitimate as a chronology, I'm saying it doesn't convey meaning past that bookkeeping act.
If one reads a history of slavery, it will not possibly capture and review the incalculable human horrors of masses of people who are not masses really, but individuals with vast rooms of human emotion and experience and joy and pain. You can't collect that, and you can't distribute that to others for them to "understand" it's impact. Instead, we catalog the names of ships, their ports of call, their cargo in numbers, some of the names of captains or auctioneers and purchasers, and some anecdotes from the few slaves who had some opportunity to say something that was recorded. That's what we call history, and that's why it is impotent and ineffective as anything but intellectual fodder. That's why we can't learn from it, because it is an empty, highly decorated vessel. In much the same way, a photograph of a house, doesn't begin to tell the history of the house.
maybe the rest is filler and in the grand scheme of things isn't really that important ...
not everyting that has happened to every person since the beginning of time
needs to be memorialized ...
So, if the question was, "is history useful?" Then the evidence for "no" is our sad state of humanity today. If the question is just, "is history interesting?" then I can agree with the filler argument. It would slow the story to a crawl. History, like photography, is just "something to do." And that's coming from a person who has read a lot of history with a decent amount of enjoyment.
As practiced, life is mostly about learning how to avoid it with useful distractions.
The English Reformation, Mao's Year Zero, the Taliban's destruction of 1700 year old Buddhist statues, along with some of the earliest pieces of art known to man. All of them were editing in their own way. Iconoclasts cannot abide old ideas shaming their brand new ones.As for questioning the preservation of the past, I think the Islamic State may be one of the few organizations in agreement with you.
It’s always the groups most susceptible to freedom of thought and education who want to erase the past. That sort of thinking has reared its head again, which is all the more reason to remember the past.The English Reformation, Mao's Year Zero, the Taliban's destruction of 1700 year old Buddhist statues, along with some of the earliest pieces of art known to man. All of them were editing in their own way. Iconoclasts cannot abide old ideas shaming their brand new ones.
Let me ask you then. If Mary had directed her photos to be destroyed at death and explained why, and Joe had followed the wishes sincerely, might he not have avoided years of anguish regarding the photos themselves? That is to say, irrespective of his grief of loss, which he eventually overcomes when he decides to remarry.Joe hasn't recovered from the shock of Mary's death and is lugging around guilt, remorse, and a hefty amount of blame and anger in those boxes. There is no indication any of that would disappear with the destruction of the photo's but just transfer to the new Mary.
Here's a hypothetical situation. Joe and Mary are married 20 years. Mary is a prolific photographer with thousands of images, prints files and the like around the house. She treasures her photographs and has everyone she ever took. She spends lot of time with maintaining them so Joe knows full well the importance. Mary is killed suddenly in a crash leaving no will, no instructions about her photographs.
Joe lugs the photography collection about for several years, but eventually with time, he wants to remarry. He discovers that the many pictures of Mary create a feeling of guilt at wanting to move on. He becomes very conflicted over what to do with all these photos. He meets a new mate, they want to get married. Now, Joe is even more conflicted. Surely his new wife doesn't want to be surrounded by Mary in photographs (even they are not displayed). Joe would like to move on to a fresh start, but is horribly conflicted over what to do with Mary's photographs, which have become a physical and psychological burden. He feels imprisoned by them. Yes, he has lots of solutions like tossing them or handing them off. But every solution feels like a betrayal and Joe suffers for all this. Mary has inadvertently created suffering with her departure over and above her death.
Your saying that the anguish is caused by the photographs. I don't agree. If final wishes were carried out there is no reason to believe Joe would have avoided years of anguish. Likely he would have suffered anyway...perhaps worse.
Nihilism? Um, I think you went off the rails on that one. That post has left the ball park, the city, and earth well into the rear view mirror.
The question in the O/P is a moral question. It invites the examination of our responsibilities to others in several ways. Others who we may burden, others whom may find an injustice in various photos of themselves existing "forever" possibly against their will or permission. Maybe it could be vastly simplified to this: When you die are you going to leave a lot of burdens on others who might not have agreed to accept them? In another thread on "clouds" the complexities and costs and administration of storing media shows that it is not as simply any more as "passing on a shoe box."
seems like the thing to do with the photographs is pretty straight forward.
scan them all just the way they are saved
go to flickr and upload them all and then there would be no need to lug all the images around
the bloated-cloud doesn't care what the images are, it is like a vacuum cleaner and loves images
and they will be there always taken care of, like a perpetual care memorial.
one more drop of water in the rain machine
Reggie, oddly, for a talk talk talk type, you don't understand words. You flounder around your own definitions but deny both common usage and Oxford/Webster et al.
I'd suggest Elements of Style if I thought you were a reader.
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Sty...=1530820108&sr=8-2&keywords=elements+of+style
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