Artifact for the Future I

Artifact for the Future I would assemble a book that contains everything I would want on a computer hard drive. Since I do not know how far advanced this civilization will be in the future, I do not want to take the chance that they might know what computers are but not know how to operate them. There is also the off chance that this civilization might not be advanced due to some cataclysmic event on earth, which would render a computer useless.

However, a book in either of these scenarios would at least be able to be touched, leafed through, and examined. I would include many images in the book and try to tell the story of what ravages our world. I would include pictures of everything from buildings to people sitting in cars and working on computers. I would show one house in a picture, then many houses in the next. I would take pictures of people in their apartments looking out the windows.

I would also take pictures of doctors and nurses working in hospitals. I would show the babies in the nurseries and I would show the dying on life support. I would tell, as much as I could, the story of man. I would include literature and tales that have survived through thousands of years so that they might benefit from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf. I would include Shakespeare and Orwell as well as Stephen King.

I would want out society to be remembered the way we remember Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales. I would show people watching a television and describe movies and television shows. I would show computers, laptops, and cell phones and describe how we have information at our fingertips at all times. I would also say how this made the world smaller because out there, somewhere, Google Maps is taking a picture of where I am right now.

I would say that while the world seems like a smaller place, there are still problems and people still act the way they always have. There are still diseases we cannot cure and people still die. I would say that the one disease that began some 30 years ago in the 1980s has finally taken hold of the majority of the population. I would talk about how AIDS was once GRID and how heterosexuals thought they were safe but now everyone is a carrier.

It is like the plague was back in its day, I would say. I would include pictures of empty neighborhoods, of houses falling apart because money for the medical bills does not allow for upkeep of any kind. I would show empty offices and buildings. There would be pictures of huge offices with no one at the desks. I would include pictures of doctor's offices filled with patients. In fact, I would include a shot of my own doctor's office.