> > > > Apparently, this is a project wherein a satellite will be loaded up with stuff from our time and shot out into the cosmos set to return to earth in 50,000 years. The website they have offers you the chance to write a message for those still living in the year 52010.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I'm going to remain optimistic about life extension technologies progressing nicely in the next few decades. So I'll still be alive in 50,000 years - just not in my original body and probably not on Earth.
> >
> > Which begs the questions:
> > Will you return to Earth at that time to see the satellite come back down and see what they're reactions are?
> > You could be a big hero by being the only one able to read the language!
> > -Rifty
>
> I wouldn't need to return to Earth - I could just have the complete virtual experience automatically downloaded across the galaxy to my brain, or whatever technology is in use at the time.
>
> Unless there's a large-scale disaster that takes our civilization to the brink of extinction (and perhaps not even then), I don't think we'll ever lose significant knowledge of how to read languages, from this point on. Sure, paper/discs/other storage media eventually deteriorate, but faster than they do we are making more and more copies of information in updated media formats, globally.

We may still have all the information, but no one will be able to read it except maybe ancient history professors. At the rate language is changing, the English we use today will be exceedingly obfuscated in 50,000 years. It'll be like watching today's 16 year olds trying to read Chaucer or something even older, but magnified. It took a long time for the English language to invent spaces between words. I can't even imagine what new reading processes humanity will have in 50,000 years. That is, if we're even able to read at all. I see it working two ways. The first, letters forming words are obsolete, and there is a single symbol for almost any word you may want to say, even a single symbol for entire sentences. We have no letters, just a myriad of symbols that are impossible to interpret from an outside perspective. (Darmok and Jilad at Tanagra, anyone?) OR, our alphabet will expand. Words will be made of fewer letters, but we'll have more to choose from. Instead of 26 letters, with various accents and whatnot, we'll have 100 or more.

-relishgargler