WEEK TWO: PAST LESSONS/FUTURE WARNINGS

The Japanese Tsunami warning rock phenomenon is quite interesting to me, as it shows the very human emotive concern for the well-being expressed for people that one will never know. This, to me, is interesting as it shows a future vision, albeit in a different way to what I am used to hearing (sci-fi movies and apocalyptic thrillers aside).

The people who left the rocks as warnings would not have realised that future populations would be high enough for land to be at a premium.  They could not, in 1890, have considered the world in which we live today.  They would only know of a two things- tsunami's kill and people need to be warned. But these warnings from the past hold so much relevance in the present, and although now they seem primitive and crude, their purpose is of great importance.

The lesson to be learnt from this is that as we learn lessons from the past, we must also think about the ways in which we can preserve information for those in the future.  Furthermore, we should think about the world that those in the future will inherit, and how, from a holistic view, we will leave it.

Fackler, M., 2011. Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone. Accessed 20 July 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html