this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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Futurology

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I read a lot of biographies. They're a genre of writing that relies heavily on people's former habit of letter writing. For many people from the 19th and 20th centuries, much of what we know about their lives comes from their preserved letters. Letter writing is now becoming extinct, and with it that literary tradition. If you can't even post a letter, surely it's the very end of it.

Yes, future biography writers will have social media posts and online writing to mine for material. There's vastly more of it than the preserved letters in the world's libraries. But there's an intimacy about letters that online writing rarely has.

Other countries will now be facing the decision Denmark has just made. If delivering letters is a permanent loss-making venture, when do you pull the plug?

Denmark to shutdown post office, end delivery of physical mails

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