created, 2025-02-13 & modified, =this.modified
tags:y2025
Even if the information could be incomplete or false, I’m noticing a greater value in online text that is timestamped to a date 5+ years ago.
If someone presents a lengthy forum post and it is nine years old, I have a sense that at least it wasn’t some algorithmically generated AI kludge.
It feels a bit safe.
This is present in books as well. A book from a certain period can be made to mislead, but in the least it was human written and specifically the voice of a human who did not engage at all with this growing body of human text which has degrees of Semantic Nonsense Engine.
False timestamp “Last Thursdayism”
There’s a relationship here that a timestamp can now lose value if it isn’t trusted. A hardcoded timestamp doesn’t really have any relation with the date. It can be false.
So there’s in effect a kind of digital “Last Thursdayism” (the world was created last Thursday, and all records false) to timestamps and reading things online by virtue of this change.