Vinyl Records

Human society in the late anthroposcene is one of the most mysterious times in human history. Despite being at the height of resource consumption and evidence of rapid technological advancement, we have very few records of the time. In fact, it is the practice of record-keeping itself which is the most hotly debated issue among scholars.

The leading hypothesis suggests that, for a reason scholars still do not understand, humans started keeping fewer and fewer records. All kinds of records. Historical records, financial records, political records. Human beings just stopped keeping track of their own dealings, with two very notable exceptions.

The first form of record we have from the era is records which were kept deeply underground in remote bunkers completely inaccessible to living humans at the time. The purpose of these records is likewise a mystery. Some scholars suggest that there arose a new religious practice of record-keeping, which was perhaps perceived as being as antiquated as animal sacrifice. However, perhaps this religion was persecuted, so they had to protect their records where nobody could access them. The Cave of Ten Thousand Bhuddas is a famous cache of records from better documented times in human history, which was also believed to exist due to religious persecution. However, what makes the late anthrocenic archives most mysterious is that unlike the Cave of Ten Thousand Bhuddas, that which is preserved in anthropocenic archives is often physical or sensory matters: seeds, spores, dyes, even perfumes. Perhaps these monks believed these things had mystical qualities which would aid them in the afterlife. Being completely inaccessible and often kept in remote locations, it is hard to believe that these records were ever intended to be accessed by living human beings. There is an edge hypothesis that these records were left intentionally for us to find, but there is little evidence to support it. If we were meant to find them, why make them so hard to find?

Much more well-known and even more mysterious is the matter of which records continued to be kept by late anthropocenic society at large. For reasons that are mysterious and hotly debated, the only records that continued to be kept and made accessible is music engraved on thin discs. When a fine needle is run through the engravings on these discs at a constant speed, music is produced. The purpose of these discs bewildered scholars for centuries before the discovery of how to access their contents. Older discs contain both music and speech, but over time humans began to only engrave the discs with music.

Nearly everything we know about late anthropocenic society comes from music. Most music details courting rituals or lost relationships. There are many discs about the need to remember "the towers." There is music deriding particular politicians or political factions. There is even music declaring, pre-emptively, that it is "the end of the world as we know it." Deciphering the poetry of these songs encompasses much of the work of historians of the late anthropocene. Why humans began to only keep records in the form of music may forever be unknown to us.

There is a competing hypothesis. When archaeologists uncovered ruins of the late anthropocene under many layers of submerged soil, much of what has been found was large quantities of complex machinery with very few moving parts. In all of these machines, trace amounts of lithium has been found. Lithium is an incredibly rare mineral. Geologists have found evidence to suggest that many of the underwater trenches, lakes, caverns, and valleys across earth have trace amounts of lithium as well. The constant spiraling patterns found in these lakes and valleys seems to suggest that they are human-made. Given that lithium is extrodinarily rare, yet can be found in both the machines of the late anthropocene and in these spiraling lakes and valleys, there is reason to believe that these lakes and valleys were once great deposits of lithium which were mined out completely by human beings and used to power their complex machinery.

If it were possible to gather enough lithium in one place, perhaps we could turn on one of those machines and access their records, so goes the theory, but such a theory is unprovable as there is not enough lithium in the world and we do not know what we would need to do with it once we had gathered it. We also have no proof that whatever machine we turned on would actually contain accessible historical records of value, or if the machines could still be functional at all after so much time in hostile conditions.

There is a legend, or perhaps a conspiracy theory, that the Church of Ten Thousand Mannequins contains within it an archive of all human knowledge up until the end of the anthropocene, but that it is only accessible with machines powered by lithium. There are those that believe we must melt down all other late anthropocene artifacts in order to gather enough lithium to power the machines in the Church of Ten Thousand Mannequins. However, even if we knew what to do with the lithium, such a gamble would cost us thousands of irreplaceable historic artifacts for no guarantee that we would truly find the historical records missing from the late athropocene. Even if we could power on the machines in the Church of Ten Mannequins, surely we would run out of power before we could ever recover all of the ancient knowledge it contains, if it truly does contain all of human knowledge through the end of the anthropocene.

There have been proposals to attempt to hard-wire cables from modern power generators to these machines in an attempt to power them, but such a move is incalculably risky as it could damage what is truly one of the largest and most precious ancient artifacts to have survived the era. We do not even know what voltage or amplitude is safe to use for these machines or if they would work once powered.

So as it stands, the late anthropocene remains a truly mysterious time in human history. Perhaps someday we will discover a way to learn more about our ancient ancestors. For now, we have a wonderful gift that they left behind for us: millions of hours of ancient music.

Now, for next class, I want you all to select three late anthropocene musical records from our library of replicas and listen to them, taking careful note of the time and place listed on the translated imprints on the back of the sleeve. There are record players in the library if you don't have your own. I want you to start by writing just your own first impressions of what these songs can tell us about the late anthropocene. What did these humans value, what were they experiencing, how did they feel, what were the important events that they may have been referencing. Later in the semester you will research the opinions of scholars in the field who have discussed the same three records and write about their hypotheses on the meaning of these songs.

Approximate translations of all these songs should be available through the library, but please do not allow the translations to bias your interpretations. Whether or not you have studied these ancient languages, try to imagine other possibilities for what they could have meant. Official translations tend to be very literal, but this is music, poetry, it is never truly literal and we may never know what metaphors and allusions may have been intuitive to humans of the era. Read the footnotes! And try to think about how the musical elements might color the meaning of the lyrics as well.

I will see you all next week, have a good long weekend for Mountain Day.

— Recorded lecture of Leyrnator Prilbis Dafni, a treasured conveyor of anthropocenic history and ancient literature. Given to their students at High Cliff University on 4.54±0.05b±160–60k±300.546k—Seventh Lunar Phase—Thirteenth Rotation.