Forget about it!

I would have to agree with this point of view:

"If whatever we do can be held against us years later, if all our impulsive
comments are preserved, they can easily be combined into a composite picture of
ourselves." ... "Afraid how our words and actions may be
perceived years later and taken out of context, the lack of forgetting may
prompt us to speak less freely and openly."

But, then again, what if we would forget anything older than our lifetime? Wouldn't that mean that we would forget our history? Wouldn't it mean that we would be repeating our history over and over again?

In other words, it threatens to make us all politicians.

Yes, it's a risk. It's a very high risk I wouldn't want to have to take. I would hate to see that, if a politician says something that can be held against him, would be forgotten after a period of time, and he'd be granted a clean slate.

On the other hand, the proposal he has, that any piece of information be given a pre-determined "shelf-live", modifiable by a user. Thus, anything I would say at one time can be forgotten after, say, 1 year. That would be nice. But who would be the one to say: "this information or type of information has a default life-span of x years"? Would it be a commision of some sort? Or would it be an individual? If it's a person, who can guarrantie that his/her actions are correct?