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> The best right now is just duplicating it across multiple types of media and replacing each as it fails, which requires active attention and functional infras
by scubbo 4y ago
> The best right now is just duplicating it across multiple types of media and replacing each as it fails, which requires active attention and functional infrastructure.
Yes, that was what I initially claimed. No-one's claiming that digital media can be copied without power, no-one's claiming that a single digital storage artifact has a longer lifespan than (e.g.) a clay tablet. You appear to be arguing for a position ("sophisticated digital media storage artifacts have an individual shorter shelf-life than rudimentary ones") that no-one is arguing against.
- omniglottal 4y agoYou appear to be arguing for a solution (active upkeep) which cannot apply to the actual problem in this context (discontinuity of civilization).
- scubbo 4y agoWe are arguing past each other. I 100% agree that electronic records require active upkeep. I am not arguing, nor have I ever argued, that they can outlast a discontinuity of civilization. If your threat model is addressing that risk, then electronic media is a poor solution. If your threat model instead wants to preserve huge quantity of information in an easily accessible format and you can assume the continued availability of electricity and maintenance, electronic media (with active upkeep) is a better option than durable physical record-keeping. I was (and still am) just pointing out that different "solutions" apply to different problems. There _is no_ single "problem in this context" - I agree that one of the solutions is ill-suited to the problem you're choosing to highlight, while maintaining that it is well-suited to another problem. (Please note that I'm not /u/samatman!)