Time enough

It seems that every culture or civilization has had a habit of singing its own `Swan Song`, justified or not, since the time of the Sumerians when the reflection of Enlil in a mirror known as Enki decided to end the `Golden Age` in the land of Mesopotamia. And our civilization, if we may honor with such a name the current dominant paradigm in the world, which appeared on the scene thanks to a fierce fixation with fossil fuels - has reached a level of psychological threshold where `end of the world` scenarios are openly discussed. Not only that, but literature, film and television are also experiencing an unprecedented infestation of apocalyptic themes and dilemmas.

In several countries, starting from 1936 until today, there are projects for time capsules. These are isolated chambers and more recently satellites that contain all kinds of information about our civilization, from the most ordinary everyday objects, through seeds of various types - to information about today's world and society. According to the International Time Capsule Society (lol) - there are about 15,000 of them worldwide. A typical example is the capsule at Oglethorpe University in the USA where they calculated that our civilization began counting time in 4241 BC (the earliest recorded date ever discovered) which is 6181 years to 1940 when the capsule was sealed. The mechanism for opening the capsule is set to open in the same number of years from when the capsule was closed, assuming that people at that time would be at a sufficient technological level to see what it was about...in the year 8113.

This project is not based on optimism because it assumes some kind of cataclysm after which humanity would begin to recover in the distant future.

The KEO satellite supported by the United Nations and launched in 2012, contains a real wealth of information about our civilization. Part of the project was that there was enough built-in memory for every inhabitant of the planet to write a maximum of four pages of a personal message or anything else that came to mind and send it via email, directly to the site or by mail to the agency working on this project. It is not known how much response this approach received, but that is not important. In addition to personal opinions of random people, the satellite also carries data on DNA/Human genome, samples of human blood, seawater, soil and air, digital records of everything and anything, encyclopedias, photographs...

Re-entry into orbit is planned for 52,000 years from now... which is certain, it is certain. Unless the people of that time are too advanced to understand the message. Or if they return to an animal stage of development in which the message will not mean much to them. Or if there are no more people by then... the possibilities are endless. KEO was not the first satellite with this purpose, but it is the largest project to date. There are others that should be realized in the immediate future.

What is the purpose of these capsules in our time?

An obvious and rational purpose - there is none, however, it is a matter of fear of the curse of oblivion, of the temporality and short lifespan of all human products - even if they were global civilizations, the need to say ``I was here too,'' as best witnessed by the phenomenon of Roman ``graffiti'' that have survived volcanic eruptions and two difficult millennia and have no other message than the one already mentioned. Maybe this civilization is nearing its end and maybe it is not, of course unlike other civilizations it does not depend only on an `external factor` for a cataclysm - but is itself capable of ending it, with Atomic Winter or a mutated laboratory virus, no matter, but the human need to leave a mark recognizable in the distant future has been present since the time of the Sumerians and even long before that, if we can judge by the drawings of the still uncivilized man in various caves dating back 35,000 years.

And who knows, it is possible that looking into the future is just a counterpoint to nostalgia, a phenomenon born of dissatisfaction with the present but with a preference for the unknown future as opposed to the glorification of the past that never happened...

(Roger Mortis, 085)