XLVI A.S.: Some thoughts about the future, and the past

So begins a new year. 45 Anno Satanas, or 2011 CE. During the last decade we saw many changes. Many new technologies such as the evolution of internet connection, from dialup, broadband and then Wi-fi. Two incarnations of the Playstation game system. HD TV is finally outside of Japan. Yet in our quest for knowledge, is it possible we could be forgeting stuff? While collecting novels from the Horus Heresy series, the latest as of this post, Perspero Burns talks of knowledge being lost in time. In the far future depicted, a group was set up to recover lost knowlegde and to audit data. One of the achivements mentioned was recoving "all 3 of Shakespire's plays". I wonder what we lost in only the third millienium of the common era. Already can name some examples. In 1927 Germany, a movie premiered, it didn't do well, but for its time it was very advanced, impressive sets and interesting themes of class, revenge and artificial companionship. I'm talking about Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Often I had heard of the movie, but it wasn't until I picked up a DVD out of curiousity for the film itself did I learn that chunks of it was missing and at the time thought lost forever. While much of the footage was eventually recovered, it is still incomplete and still the footage is in bad shape. Also lost are many early episodes of Doctor Who are lost too, the 12 episode epic The Daleks Masterplan is reduced to 3. Other mysteries are lost beyond our understanding, for example, the construction of Stonehenge. These things are gone and maybe unrecoverable, but we cannot allow what we have learned to fall into the abyss of time. We have learnt so much, we cannot afford to forget. The quest for undefiled wisdom means keeping what we have.