5 ms·

Buddhists chuckle at the notion of permanence and go back to constructing sand mandalas

datameta 5y ago
I know your comment is probably tongue-in-cheek but I must say (without disagreeing, regardless) that perhaps modern day digital infrastructure can transcend the considerations early buddhists may have had for the natural world and then-contemporary human-built structures.
- okareaman 5y ago
  I used to be a data hoarder but I learned to let it go. I save the important stuff, just like the Buddhist monks do. How much of the internet is really worth saving? What will Geocities mean to anyone 50 years from now? The internet is a dynamic process evolving in real time. No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man Heraclitus
  - datameta 5y ago
    I am a fan of that quote and I now personally eschew clutter. However I'm referring to the examples in the article such as the supreme court justice referencing links that no longer existed. Paraphrasing the article, >75% of links from the 90s are defunct. Sure Geocities may not have value to many, but an astonishing number of links in court rulings and law documents are leading to dead ends. I can see how this could lead to shaky ground upon which it would be more difficult to defend certain internet freedoms.
    - okareaman 5y ago
      Google's recent invention of text links should help this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_text#:~:text=%22Now%20is%20the%20time%20for,21%20(1918) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_text#:~:text=%22Now%20i.... # signifies an anchor :~:text= signifies a text link %22Now%20is%20the%20time%20for,21%20(1918). says show me the text between "Now is the time for" and "21 (1918)."
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  buddhists fundamentally reject clinging to the idea of permanence as a source of inevitable misery when your wishes go unfulfilled.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    I think technology will be invented to keep track of everything and their associations even if the link becomes dangling. It's an obvious problem to work on. You only lose what you cling to Gautama Buddha
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      the problem is that doing so would require storing a copy of the entire subset of the internet that you choose to persist, which requires you to either choose a small subset, or pay huge storage fees!
      - okareaman 5y ago
        I just bought a 2 terabyte drive for $55, which is mind boggling to an old salt like me. The need to store enormous amounts of real time data will keep driving storage advances. Text and image data may turn out to be a trivial percentage of the overall storage needs in the longer term.
Santosh83 5y ago
Indeed yes, however much we may dislike it, change is the only constant. Of course that doesn't mean we shouldn't bother archiving, but there is no need to fret over saving every byte out there on the web. Entropy is king. Eventually all information loses its coherency.
jl6 5y ago
Accepting the impermanence of all things is an important lesson, but it is not an excuse for nihilism, because even impermanent things can have value, however finite, and the impossibility of true permanence doesn’t have to distract from realising finite value while it lasts.
kragen 5y ago
Buddhists have preserved most of the Tripitaka for 2500 years, and for the first 500 years it was memorized and transmitted orally from generation to generation. Buddhist monks today spend significant amounts of their time memorizing parts of it. Printed, it's about 12000 pages; it's been translated into many languages, but not all of it has been translated into English yet. Thanissaro Bhikkhu has been working on it for 20 years, publishing his translations under CC-BY, and may finish the job before he dies. Aside from its value to devotees, the Tripitaka is one of our best historical sources about everyday life in South Asia 2500 years ago. The invention of wood block printing 1300 years ago in the Tang was apparently specifically motivated by the desire to preserve and reproduce Buddhist sutras; the oldest surviving documents printed with movable type, from 900 years ago, are also Buddhist texts. Of course the Tripitaka is not permanent; it will be lost some day. But you seem to be implicitly claiming that Buddhists do not apply effort to preserving information and in particular textual records, because they know that ultimately they will be lost. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite, and believing your implicit claim would require almost complete ignorance of Buddhism, printing technology, and South Asian classical studies.

I know your comment is probably tongue-in-cheek but I must say (without disagreeing, regardless) that perhaps modern day digital infrastructure can transcend the considerations early buddhists may have had for the natural world and then-contemporary human-built structures.

okareaman 5y ago
I used to be a data hoarder but I learned to let it go. I save the important stuff, just like the Buddhist monks do. How much of the internet is really worth saving? What will Geocities mean to anyone 50 years from now? The internet is a dynamic process evolving in real time. No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man Heraclitus
- datameta 5y ago
  I am a fan of that quote and I now personally eschew clutter. However I'm referring to the examples in the article such as the supreme court justice referencing links that no longer existed. Paraphrasing the article, >75% of links from the 90s are defunct. Sure Geocities may not have value to many, but an astonishing number of links in court rulings and law documents are leading to dead ends. I can see how this could lead to shaky ground upon which it would be more difficult to defend certain internet freedoms.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    Google's recent invention of text links should help this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_text#:~:text=%22Now%20is%20the%20time%20for,21%20(1918) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_text#:~:text=%22Now%20i.... # signifies an anchor :~:text= signifies a text link %22Now%20is%20the%20time%20for,21%20(1918). says show me the text between "Now is the time for" and "21 (1918)."
beaconstudios 5y ago
buddhists fundamentally reject clinging to the idea of permanence as a source of inevitable misery when your wishes go unfulfilled.
- okareaman 5y ago
  I think technology will be invented to keep track of everything and their associations even if the link becomes dangling. It's an obvious problem to work on. You only lose what you cling to Gautama Buddha
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    the problem is that doing so would require storing a copy of the entire subset of the internet that you choose to persist, which requires you to either choose a small subset, or pay huge storage fees!
    - okareaman 5y ago
      I just bought a 2 terabyte drive for $55, which is mind boggling to an old salt like me. The need to store enormous amounts of real time data will keep driving storage advances. Text and image data may turn out to be a trivial percentage of the overall storage needs in the longer term.

Santosh83 5y ago

Indeed yes, however much we may dislike it, change is the only constant. Of course that doesn't mean we shouldn't bother archiving, but there is no need to fret over saving every byte out there on the web. Entropy is king. Eventually all information loses its coherency.

jl6 5y ago

Accepting the impermanence of all things is an important lesson, but it is not an excuse for nihilism, because even impermanent things can have value, however finite, and the impossibility of true permanence doesn’t have to distract from realising finite value while it lasts.

kragen 5y ago

Buddhists have preserved most of the Tripitaka for 2500 years, and for the first 500 years it was memorized and transmitted orally from generation to generation. Buddhist monks today spend significant amounts of their time memorizing parts of it. Printed, it's about 12000 pages; it's been translated into many languages, but not all of it has been translated into English yet. Thanissaro Bhikkhu has been working on it for 20 years, publishing his translations under CC-BY, and may finish the job before he dies. Aside from its value to devotees, the Tripitaka is one of our best historical sources about everyday life in South Asia 2500 years ago. The invention of wood block printing 1300 years ago in the Tang was apparently specifically motivated by the desire to preserve and reproduce Buddhist sutras; the oldest surviving documents printed with movable type, from 900 years ago, are also Buddhist texts. Of course the Tripitaka is not permanent; it will be lost some day. But you seem to be implicitly claiming that Buddhists do not apply effort to preserving information and in particular textual records, because they know that ultimately they will be lost. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite, and believing your implicit claim would require almost complete ignorance of Buddhism, printing technology, and South Asian classical studies.