The reception of Earth's art by other civilizations.

[biostem]

Obviously its the intellectual hub of our civilization. Why else would they find so much literary material stored nearby thousands of years later?

In all honesty, when Earth's successor race begins digging though our ruins in earnest at the same tech level we started doing the same they will have no idea what these plastic boxes filled with intricate wires and tablets studded with metal bits are. They will wonder why they can find no preserved written literature after our three thousandth year of complex civilization when we produced it in abundance before, but will recognize the phallic symbols ritualistically entombed upon the faces of our waste disposal facilities after this time for many centuries after and obviously identify it as the pinnacle of our development.

Is the amount of written literature really decreasing though? Newspapers may be disappearing but it seems to me that if anything the amount of printed books produced is increasing.

I'd argue that the amount of PRINTED literature is decreasing, but the amount of total, (specifically, digital), media is increasing at a much faster rate. Now, anyone can write and "get published" insofar as they can put their stuff out there for the world to read.

[Purple]

Is the amount of written literature really decreasing though? Newspapers may be disappearing but it seems to me that if anything the amount of printed books produced is increasing.

It's not really about the amount but about the percentage. Used to be the only way to get your works to be seen by the world was to get them published. So the collected works of art of humanity had to exist 100% in a tangible physical form, be that a book, painting or an analog audio record. Now a days an ever growing amount of content is only present online and on the hard drive of its creator assuming he keeps backups.