Post

Michael Warburton
@michaelwarburton.bsky.social

CARL SAGAN on Libraries: "We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory. The warehouse of that memory is called a library."

1.5K reposts6.2K likes

Calvin Chann
@calc88.bsky.social

But the unwashed masses would prefer to repeat the documented errors of the past with the same errors in the present because using the communal memory is too difficult.

Steven Robinson
@srobin21.bsky.social

As much as I admire Carl Sagan and as important as libraries are to me, this statement is incorrect. The communal memory predates libraries or even writing. The first & greatest communal memory is the oral tradition, which goes back to our beginnings. It is what elders teach the youth, the teadition

Steven Robinson
@srobin21.bsky.social

True, but only up to a point. To the extent an oral tradition is collective property of a community major deviations can be corrected. A lot of what we know of the ancient and early medieval world originated in oral traditions - Homer and the foundational texts of nearly all the great religions.

Freelancer
@alleghenian.bsky.social

I know that much of what we know of the ancient & medieval world was oral tradition. But their accuracy is nearly always inferior to the written word.

EJN71
@ejn71.bsky.social

Old style people's libraries are under the axe and being put at risk by book banning, IT companies buying up and destroying hard copies, lack of funding, lack of interest in books, and a decline in reading skills among citizens...😩 Even if all of the books in the world

EJN71
@ejn71.bsky.social

were downloaded into computer files, the files that people who read used to keep in their heads will no longer be made and kept except by a few. The repercussions of such a change would be immense. 😬

P.P. BLADDER, B.A.
@deformitynonsense.bsky.social

Imagine an ant colony encoding information in an object for future colonies to decode and then put to use, building on whatever the initial colony started. If the ants ever develop this tech, we megafauna are doomed.

Bamboozer
@bamboozer2112.bsky.social

I was a library rat growing up, it contained many wonders for my young mind, and I was a voracious reader. Computers are a great tool for learning, but they will never be a library.

hoseyg62.bsky.social
@hoseyg62.bsky.social

We are the only species on earth, that should we become extinct (heading that way really fast, BTW).. ..the rest will flourish… We are the problem…also the solution, but we prefer the easier route…

Solilequn
@selwyndavis.bsky.social

We just write it down. assume that other organisms that communicate with each other keep a verbal history. We know elephants do, they teach each other where water is. The more we look the more we will find.

maxexpat.bsky.social
@maxexpat.bsky.social

Also we are the only species on the planet that claims one species can become another species. But nobody can explain the exact process on how this happens. Nobody has created life in a laboratory even on a microscopic cell level. Nobody can say exactly what species decided on sexual reproduction

USA News
@usanews06.bsky.social

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Granny
@anothergranny.bsky.social

Libraries are one of our best things. However, I think we've learned a lot since Sagan wrote the above. The crow studies in Seattle and the behavior of humpback whales in thwarting orca attacks, even on other species, seems to indicate a collective memory ... or something else fascinating.

Aden Spaak
@adenspaak.bsky.social

I was scolded for using christian gods names for cursing. So I decided using my Gods names. "Sagan" for banging fingers. "Einstein" for should have caught that mistake. "Oppenheimer" for going nuclear.