Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How Would You Feel About Recording Your Entire Life?
skade88 writes "As I get older, I find the little details of my life slip away from my memory after years and decades pass. I find myself wishing I had a way to record at least sound and video of my entire life. It would be nice to be able to go back and see what I was like when I was younger without the fog of memory clouding my view of the past. It would be cool to share with my boy friend and future kids how I was when I was younger by just showing them video from my life. Do y'all know of any good way to do this? I would settle for recording what I see from a first person point of view. There is also concerns that range beyond the technical. If I were to record my entire life, that would mean also recording other people, when they are interacting with me on a daily basis. What sort of privacy laws pertain to this? Even without laws, would others act differently around me because they were being recorded with my life record? How would it make you feel if your friend or family member did this?"
Google's Glass might one day accomplish what you're asking. I saw a kickstarter about facebook glasses that recorded but I'm not going to link to that as I don't think it was very
If I were to record my entire life, that would mean also recording other people, when they are interacting with me on a daily basis. What sort of privacy laws pertain to this?
So personally, I would use this only on my property and public property. And then I would separate the data between data from the property I was on and public property and just be mindful if I was sharing that the people in the public property video did not give their consent to be recorded. I think this means different things in different states so if you would tell us your state/commonwealth you could probably get better information. Personally, people would act weird if they knew they were being recorded and since it was for my own personal records and on public property I wouldn't see how it would come to light that I own it let alone archive it.
If you wanted to be absolutely respectful of other people I would suggest only using it on your property and then bringing a stack of waivers with you for people to sign before you started recording. Good luck!
My work here is dung.
If it were a family member? I'd probably break their recording device. Seriously. And if it were a friend, I'd probably be hesitant to hang out with them. The fog of memory is a good thing, usually. It helps you to remember the things you really enjoy about your friends and family, and forget the things that really drive you nuts. Also consider the legal implications for yourself if you have such a recording device. If you ever are suspected of a crime, or investigated, sued, or anything else, they will subpoena the video / audio from this device. It could be very detrimental to your case, and even used out of context against you. There is no reason to record every second of your life. When would you ever listen to your entire life again? Just do what most people do. Record those precious moments that you know you're going to have, and keep a journal about the daily/weekly/monthly things that you think are significant to you at that time.
fuck my life, i want to record my dreams
would others act differently around me because they were being recorded with my life record? How would it make you feel if your friend or family member did this?"
Yep, I know I would. I wouldn't want to be around you, and I'd be extremely formal and business-only when talking to you. If a friend or family member did this I'd be extremely annoyed with them.
...it's not a bad thing. It's not detrimental. The skill to forget is of extreme importance. You'll find that many serious psychological disorders stem from not being able to forget.
Consider modern-day home-security companies. "The comfort of knowing that you're safe." You'll find hundreds of companies offering you the ability to have cameras recording your front door, and being able to watch the video from your phone wherever you are.
Let's be very clear. "Feeling safe" doesn't mean that I get to watch my house all day every day. It means that I don't need to watch my house at all. I have no interest in viewing those cameras while I'm away.
As for your boy friend, and your future young goats, no one wanted to see your vacation slides last century. No one will want to watch your daily videos this century. It's that simple.
And, to be clear, no, I don't want you to record me.
I understand exactly what you're thinking about here, but I'm a huge fan of not second-guessing the universe too much. I have such wonderful memories of my own youth...all seen through the rose coloured lens that is time, and frankly I suspect my memories are better than the real thing was. Better the only record I can muster is my own rose-tinted view of things. Every once in a while I remember the excessive dumb-assery that accompanied the great memories and shudder. I don't need a record of that.
Thus why I don't like recording anything to begin with. If it's worth remembering, you'll remember. If not, who cares. Nothing we do today will change the fact that in five billion years this planet will be a burnt cinder hurtling through cold space...yeah, that VHS recording of my first child's birth is really something to cherish. Actually, it's pretty freaking gross and pollutes the otherwise overwhelming emotion I can remember from that day. It's like I was there.
On the upside, I leave little evidence for others to use against me later ;). One person's way to remember the good times is another person's ammunition to strike at you with when you're down.
--
~AC
It would sure help with arguments with my wife
Yes, you could win them all and be divorced in no time.
This kind of technology is considered in UK Channel 4's excellent series Black Mirror in an episode called An Entire History of You. It looks at the ups, the downs, and the irritating social faux pas that will certainly emerge if we have such a technology. Highly recommended.
My did got a VHS camcorder in the 1980s and spent a significant amount of time and money on tapes to record as much as he could of my and my sisters' significant life events - proms, sports, graduations, weddings, etc. To this day, those VHS tapes sit there decaying, never watched. It seems like everyone is too busy living their current lives and experiencing the present to have time to start delving into even the "important" moments of the past. Photos? Sure. Video? Hasn't happened yet. Maybe I'll be proven wrong some day.
When I travel, I almost never take pictures. This is probably an over-correction on my part, but I cannot get over the way so many spend so much time taking pictures that they never pay attention to where they are, to what they're doing. If too much effort is given to it, the need to record everything can overcome the very experiences one wishes to record. The best things cannot be captured in stills or in video, but even if one is there it may be missed if one neglects the world for the sake of a 1.5" LCD on the back of a camera.
For the one who wishes to record everything, I would wonder if he has fully considered why. I would be concerned that it derives from an unaddressed discomfort with mortality and this inhibits present unhappiness. The one who records everything is anxious about the future, lest he should then forget or be forgotten in it. When he reviews the past, he forgets the very moment he lives in. Either way, the present, the only thing we can really do anything about and the only moment in which we can find happiness, is neglected.
I can imagine a handsome young man who marries a beautiful girl. He is captivated by her and they take many pictures together. But as he gets older, their youthful beauty fades. The man looks continually at the pictures with a sense of loss, not having learned to love what he has in the moment he's in. The girl he married is in those pictures and has passed away long before either of them die.
We can never find happiness in this life unless we have peace. We can never find peace until we accept our mortality. And once we realize that we will die, and that no amount of recording will change that, then we may understand the importance of the moment we're in. When we've paid attention to the life we're in, however, we have some hope of being ready for death, for we may then know we've lived life for what it was worth.
Counterargument: what if you recorded the worst-case scenario? Accidentally viewing that video of your child being hit by a car could be devastating. And I can see too many people obsessing over re-watching those 'happy memories' (now gone sour) of ex-girl-or-boy-friends. This latter point - and many other interesting ones regarding this idea taken to an extreme - were covered in the quite decent mid-90's quasi-cyberpunk film 'Strange Days'.
For those who haven't seen the film (no real spoilers here, I'm describing something that happens in the first 15 minutes): the film describes a future in which a banned underground technology allows the direct recording of one's memories. The main character (the perennial 'loser' type) is a guy who illegally sells recorded memories on the black market. He can never emotionally get over the fact that his bitchy ex-girlfriend dumped him because he constantly sits alone in his apartment replaying memories of the good times, when he and she went rollerskating, or were bumpin' uglies.
Part of moving on to the next event in your life involves not necessarily forgetting the past, but sort of 'shelving it' and not replaying it over and over. Wounds will always be fresh in your mind if you have an instant replay button.