In one of Roger Ebert’s review collections, he commented on how cool it would be if we had movies made before motion-picture technology was actually invented. A costume drama set in the 18th Century is one thing, but suppose it were a film made in the 18th Century, by people with 18-Century minds and assumptions and esthetic sensibilities? What a window on the times it would give us!
Of course, that’s the kind of thing that, barring a “Connecticut Yankee” time-traveler scenario, logically cannot happen. Motion-picture technology depends on electric-light and photography technologies, which depend on earlier steps of technological development, and technological change drives social, political, and cultural change. An 18th Century capable of producing movies would be the 20th Century for all intents and purposes. Same with the Internets.
Nevertheless, let’s pretend. Along the lines of Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.* What if the SDMB had a searchable archive going back centuries? What kind of threads and posts could one find from times past? And what would be, say, the 19th-Century equivalent of contemporary 'Net jargon phrases such as “blog” and “flame” and “spam” and “viral”?
Pit Thread: Copernicus pulls heliocentric theory out of his ass – die, already! General Questions: Can additional bathing actually help prevent the Black Death? Great Debates: Is slavery beneficial to those being enslaved? MPSIMS: A wooly mammoth killed my neighbor today IMHO: Will railroads replace the need for horses? (a poll) Cafe Society: The Magic Flute (9/30/91) [open spoilers]
Louis XVI of France
Marie Antoinette
John Hancock
Francesco Guardi
Johann Adolph Hasse
Charles Bonnet
John Mudge
Ignacije Szentmartony
Gilbert White
Timur Shah
Olympe de Gouges
Roger Sherman
Pietro Nardini
