"Nation’s Historians Warn Past Expanding At Alarming Rate" Topic

WASHINGTON—Painting a stark portrait of a phenomenon that appears to be irreversible, a report published Thursday by the American Historical Association has found that the past is currently expanding at an alarming rate.

The comprehensive 950-page study, compiled by a panel of the nation's most prominent historians, warns that the sum total of past time grows progressively larger each day, making it unlikely anything can be done to halt, or even slow down, the relentless trend.

"We believe the past is larger now than it's ever been before," said College of William and Mary professor Timothy Gibbon, lead author of the report, observing that whole generations of people have already become a part of history, and that if nothing changes, an untold number more can expect the same fate. "Many things that are in the past today were, during our parents' and grandparents' time, still in the present—or even the future. Based on precise measurements of its size, we believe the past has subsumed every single person and event that has ever existed."…

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That is truly shocking!

It was news before it was history!

It's facts like these that are using up all the internet. There will be none left for our great-grandchildren.

How can we prevent this?
Are there no laws , no regulations????

Holy crap! Past creep!

Craig Ferguson said it best, "Tomorrow's just your future yesterday."

I hate to be a naysayer, but according to one great philosopher of recent memory 'time keeps on slippin'… slippin', into the future'.

I'm a professional archivist and historian. I find it very difficult to comprehend why the American Historical Association would waste it's time and money in producing such an obvious piece of drivel. Sigh.

Jim

I used to be very upset about this

We all need to be very upset about all this. And the only thing we can do to actually combat this dangerous trend is to stop making history. So, if everyone promises to not make history, a day at a time, we can get this pernicious problem under control.

What utter drivel. Sounds like someone doesn't know how to prioritize.

Rob

Wow! I can't wait.

"I'm a professional archivist and historian. I find it very difficult to comprehend why the American Historical Association would waste it's time and money in producing such an obvious piece of drivel. Sigh."

Because it's a parody article from a humor site? Sigh.

For those of us who cannot learn from our past, we will be doomed to repeat it. That will help dramatically since nothing new will have to be written. History will become a "Pete and Repete sitting on a fence" situation. Pete will fall off and who will be left?

There's a simple solution to the problem. Funding to all bodies responsible for the past needs to be cut by 20%. This will allow efficiencies to be made that will result in a far better service able to better cope with the fast developing situation.

At least, that's pretty much how it works in the UK.

Yes, funding will contain and control the past. If we plan to slash spending on past recognition, in the future, by the time we get there, the options will have been weeded out through expediency, and the surviving past will be definable and much easier to teach and inculcate. I say that we should attend to this as late as possible, put if off indefinitely, so that the final past is always an accomplishment of the future. The benefits are obvious: while we are awaiting a final containment of the past, it will continue to linger in a virtual limbo, not really the past at all, but merely a potential past, and therefore of no account to anyone. Problem solved, by not bothering to solve it. And this approach will be good for the economy, because historians will always be working toward the theoretical goal of containing the past at some future date. This will at the very least keep unemployment of history graduates of all kinds to a minimum….

Actually what we obviously need is a tax on the past. With a per capita rebate so that poorer individuals won't be unduly burdened.

After all it is the rich and famous who generate a disproportionate amount of the 'past.' This way they will be forced to pay for their indiscretions. Even better this may lead to more circumspect conduct by these people leading to a decrease in the increase of the past.

Of course politicians would have to be taxed at the highest rates of all as so many of them actually want to make history AKA 'past.'

Henry Martini, you missed a "slippin'".

No, it just slipped away from me (into the future).

Oh,theres a solution, let me check on my unabridged works of Miller and get back to you.

When Justin Beiber is writing [by that I mean having someone else crayon]an autobiography then you know we have gone from past creep into the pastcopalypse.

It's to be expected and not all that different than before, like the old adage:

The Past, Present and Future walked into a bar.

It was tense.