Technology and the End of History: From Time Capsules to Time Machines

The introduction of writing, especially the alphabet, marked the transition from (oral, mythical) pre-history to history, because it allowed the past to leave its own articulated messages. So, history – consisting of ‘historical facts’, both ‘absent’ and ‘objectively real’ – had a beginning. Contemporary I&C technologies substitute written records by the formal identity of data and algorithms. In doing so, they blur the distinction between absent past facts and their contemporary representations. They allow the on-demand presence of past facts, that do not become ‘history’ anymore. Consequently, these technologies mark the end of history and the transition to a post-historical era.