The two-thousand-year time capsule

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK - I was watching one of those post-apocolyptic movie last night (with Rutger Hauer - the king of post-apocolyptic films). It made me start thinking this way…

What would the world be like in the waaay-out future? Star Trek? Blade Runner? Fifth Element?

So - here’s the challenge - assume we want to build a time capsule, it’ll be argon-filled, glass & stainless steel encased with a big screw top. To keep it to some reasonable size I’ll suggest a cylinder that’s a meter in diameter and a meter tall. It’ll be opened in two-thousand years. We’ll shoot it into orbit to keep it safe and have a programed return to a soft landing.

OK - we don’t know if the future is super-high tech, filled with Eloi and Morlocks, or a barren wasteland with occasional alien visitors.

You have been chosen to add one item. What do you put in?

My choice:

  1. A “Rosetta Stone” - Gold plates etched with identical text in the top-ten languages of today. I’ll suggest the book of Genesis - it’s lasted over two thousand years so far - I’ll guess it’ll be around in another two-thousand years.
2

a cell phone. With recharger kit.

3

Orville Redenbacher’s Roasted Corn flavored microwave popcorn (artificially flavored).

It, more than anything, exemplifies postmodernism to me.

Unfortunately, I only saw it once, at a local K-Mart. I don’t know if my friends believe it’s real.

Daniel