1. Amusing sights, yesterday: a changeable message sign on a TTC bus, proclaiming, “GO LEAFS GO”, and a CIBC bank machine with the frozen image of the Windows NT Workstation splash screen on it.
2. Went out to dinner with V for the traditional Sushi Time Pizza (Fried rice crust and mayo topped with salmon and roe). He discussed how many concepts from Hinduism have been taken or distorted. For example, the dowry is supposed to be a gift from both parents given to the bride as a form of insurance in case something happens to the groom. These ideals, along with the caste system, became corrupted after years of strife in the region. I pointed out that William Gibson postulated that in the future, culture and subculture will be endangered species because all so-called exotic memes, such as Hinduism, which took thousands of years to incubate, will have been readily disseminated within a few centuries.
And when he pointed out Moulin Rouge! was “Bollywood movie with white people”, I was suddenly enlightened.
3. “If anyone’s ever promised you the sun, the moon and the stars, tell ’em you’ll settle for BPM 37093.” ‘Cuz BPM 37093 is a giant space diamond, the largest in the known galaxy, that was discovered by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics. It’s actually a white dwarf star made of 1034 carats of crystallized carbon. No word on when deBeers will show up with the hush money. 😛
Re item 2:
I don’t think it will take centuries; I think we’ll be fresh out of new culture in a decade or so. We’ll try every permutation of what we’ve got (I kind of like punjabi superfly hiphop bhangra via the UK) but sooner or later we’ll run dry. We might try a John Brunner idea – paid avoidance zones – to let cultures simmer with less disturbance.
Oops – let me fix that – the link is for paid avoidance zones.
Quite possibly. The Internet is definitely accelerating the “deforestation” of culture. But as you say, some will be combined into new forms, and contemporary subcultures are still being born – witness the hacker culture or IRC culture – although they’re obviously not as rich as say Hinduism.
I think paid avoidance zones are a bit drastic (reminds me of the land of Savages from Huxley’s Brave New World), but I do agree that culture needs some isolation for it to germinate.