None of us are Lazarus Long, we will all die. Just as we are born so to will we at some point, either by natural events or by malfeasance, fade away from living memory.

As much as we would all like to be remembered for all of human memory the chances of us being a Churchill, a Martin Luther King, or even a Genghis Kahn are next to nil.

But that was the illusion that the Web has given us – a sense of permanence, that even after our physical bodies have retired to the dirt our thoughts, dreams and opinions will live on.

It’s a nice dream but a dream all the same. It is a dream that two people I respect highly touched on in recent posts.

The first one is from Louis Gray where he talks about whether or not people’s social profiles should live on past their death. This conversation came about because of Facebook suggesting that Louis should think about re-connecting with one of his Facebook contacts – who had passed away in January from cancer.