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Record Everything

aeon.co

11–18 of 18 posts

Re: Record Everything

#11

There are some bizarre notions in here. I used to be a big picture taker at events like concerts, and I realized that I never look at the things. Why? Because a picture can't really capture the "vibe" of being there - worse, not being present in the moment of the concert means the actual, emotionally charged, memories are diluted because I'm paying attention to my phone. Having the picture often made the memory less…

Curation is important. I force myself to do it by making it a manual process to move photos from my phone or camera onto the NAS. My phone and my SD card each has a small capacity so they'd easily be full if I don't curate.

When I'm traveling I try to do this curation the same day of taking the photo. In practice it's a great time at night to go through all photos of the day and discuss any interesting ones with your partner.

Also for this reason I almost never take videos. They are too troublesome to curate. Going through photos is quick. It takes only a second to decide to whether it is worth keeping. And once you decide it is, it takes less than a minute to touch up on the curves and the colors.

Re: Record Everything

#13
Ted Chiang wrote an essay about the implications of recording everything: "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_o...

The essay does not deal very much with technical aspects, like "Do I want to remember this and that banality?". In the story, those questions are already solved as an AI will manage access to the desired "flashbacks".

The essay focusses more on the question, how "remodeling" our memory over time might be an important aspect of social interaction, self perception and self development.

Re: Record Everything

#14
The moment you whip out a camera or recording device, you completely change the interaction. People become very self-aware and performative. And you morph from being part of a group to its observer.

Yes, our memories shape our identities, the same isn’t true for our memory sticks.

Re: Record Everything

#16

Ted Chiang wrote an essay about the implications of recording everything: "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_o... The essay does not deal very much with technical aspects, like "Do I want to remember this and that banality?". In the story, those questions are already solved as an AI will manage access to the desired "flashbacks". The essay focusses mo…

I read this recently, and about halfway through I thought "wow, the HN crowd would eat up this anti-surveillance story!" But without spoiling the story, I was thinking just about the opposite of that by the time I got to the end. It really didn't go where I thought it was going to go, which is something I love about Chiang's stories.

Re: Record Everything

#18

Ted Chiang wrote an essay about the implications of recording everything: "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_o... The essay does not deal very much with technical aspects, like "Do I want to remember this and that banality?". In the story, those questions are already solved as an AI will manage access to the desired "flashbacks". The essay focusses mo…

Thanks for that. It was a great read. Very, very thought provoking.
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