Hijacked Histories, Polarized Futures | Abby Smith Rumsey

As authoritarianism continues to rise around the world, the stories we tell ourselves about our collective history become a battleground for competing visions of the future. Drawing extensively from Russian history in the 20th century, Rumsey offers a framework to discuss our current social and political tensions and how our increasing polarization could shape our future.
This Long Now Talk is presented in partnership with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University. CASBS brings together deep thinkers from diverse disciplines and communities to advance understanding of the full range of human beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions. A leading incubator of human-centered knowledge, CASBS facilitates collaborations across academia, policy, industry, civil society, and government to collectively design a better future.
Abby Smith Rumsey is a writer and historian focusing on the creation, preservation, and use of the cultural record in all media. She has worked with the Library of Congress and the National Science Foundation, taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins University and is currently the board chair of CASBS at Stanford. Her books include Memory, Edited: Taking Liberties with History (02023) and When We Are No More, How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future (02016).
"Hijacked Histories, Polarized Futures" was given on October 10, 02023 as part of The Long Now Foundation's Seminar series. The series was started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers. The Seminars take place in San Francisco and are curated and hosted by Stewart Brand. To follow the talks, you can:
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[@jonathanedwardgibson]

Thank you. A discussion of history and institutional memory between her and Dr Michael Cremo would be very welcome. I do wish her examples here dealt with our issues and examples from Project Paperclip to 911, than examine far-away countries when it is our own leaders that need to be held accountable. The other elephant in the room is Ai and what we do when deep-cheap-fakes punk society at every level: Welcome to Orwellville.

[@jonathanedwardgibson]

ADDENDUM Real world example to mull: Do we need to discuss president Obama sprinkling Papal Indulgences granting federal agencies permission to propagandize/lie to citizens, say like alter temperature baseline for NASA, as long as official agenda is served? ENDDENDUM

[@ravenwolf79]

So important to hear!

[@vapormissile]

My own past's "current events" have become gross historical inaccuracies. So I'm certain the history i was taught is only as accurate as necessary to pass cursory inspection. I am also certain that what is happening NOW will be skewed, blurred or replaced with stories providing advantage to future organizations. (As for me, I'm surely not capable of any dangerous thoughts. Fortunately, I only sweep the floor & cook the rice. 😅 )

[@richporcher2391]

I'm really glad Abby mentionned "the role of money" as here first goto topic when thinking "in the grand scheme of thing" about what we have to address... I take the great opportunity to comment in a video that rare people are going watch and comment, to share this simple idea. Money is pieces of other people's life. So in the same way that Force has been regulateded in the elevation of human civilization, with justice and laws actually constraining the power of force (I'm french so the révolution is always somewhere in my thoughts) Money being an actual "common good" (the collective sum of people's life) AS TO BE TREATED AS PUBLIC GOOD, and so people shoud not "Own Money" but "be attributed the use of certain amount of money" Abby rightfully highlights the fact that America having been, somehow created around the time of the french revolution and its reaction to old power (a.k.a force), the cult of money in its core is reaching devastating consequences (from 1929 to the money that is fuelling the fasciste political threat of today) The time as come to make the cut and declare Money common good, and end the babary of accepting that a person could own the lifes of thousand of even millions of people and do with it what ever his little piece of thinking meat feels like doing. It is not communism, it doesn't means that property should be illegal. It just means that the transition from wealth to money, and from money to wealth, equals a fundamental change of status. And that all the wealth that is in the form of money should be regulated as a common good with very restrictive rules. The same way that some people, somehow, realized that the rules of brut force couldn't go on forever, we have to realize that the rules of brut money has to stop

[@JROQUEfounderofcoolhandvets]

Propaganda has some of the blame to share for ur acuate identity theory. CoolhandvetS wAs heRe

[@strongdecaf3729]

Please inform this lady that the Cold War is over.

[@facelessman7733]

The love of money being the root of all evil?

[@tuckerbugeater]

you are the woot of all evil