5 ms·

With fewer and fewer printed works, I wonder how future archeologists will discover human knowledge from our era. Especially after a world-wide catastrophe. Hum

by riscy 3y ago

With fewer and fewer printed works, I wonder how future archeologists will discover human knowledge from our era. Especially after a world-wide catastrophe. Human language written in the physical world seems more durable long-term than the electrons in a flash drive.

smaudet 3y ago
Absolutely. Or even, the power in the laptop or the fuel cells in your battery in your laptop. Digital is a great transmission format but a ridiculously lousy archive one.
anonylizard 3y ago
check out Microsoft silica, essentially stone tablets except with glass, so much much more data stored. Encryption will be painful though
- smaudet 3y ago
  Large size dvd drives also work today. But again, still need power and a computer/interface etc. Mesh network + reader device partially solves some of those issues, but it doesn't remove the need for fancy setups just to be able to read something.
  - anonylizard 3y ago
    Even if we lose the ability to build readers, the understanding that these digital mediums contain valuable information will never be lost. It isn’t rocket science to build a room sized dvd reader if needed
    - Someone 3y ago
      > It isn’t rocket science to build a room sized dvd reader It is. We have built rockets for 700+ years, a V2 reached space in 1944 and we went to the moon over half a century ago, over a decade before even the compact disc (1982). If society collapses completely, I think it will be decades, possibly centuries before we even consider trying to read these. At that time, many DVDs might not be readable by DVD players anymore.
eslaught 3y ago
I feel like it's the exact opposite. We're drowning in data. Consider: the Library of Congress has (literally) a copy of every work that has ever been in print in the U.S. The Internet Archive has archived much of the public internet. There are other resources like arXiv, Zenodo, etc. Many of these organizations are very conscientious about data retention and longevity. Is there even more data that could be saved in principle? Of course. But the amount of data we're talking about is already so much dramatically larger than what we have about, say, the antiquities, that it seems like an absurd comparison. The problem in the future (excluding extinction-level events) will be wading through that data, which even in the handful of resources I've mentioned above will be so far beyond any single human's ability to understand that it's just unfathomable.
- gunapologist99 3y ago
  A single EMP event, like the Carrington Event, or just a single launch of something like Starfish Prime, could wipe all of that out in the blink of an eye. Something like this occurring seems inevitable given a long enough timeline, and 500 years doesn't seem that far away.
- tivert 3y ago
  >> With fewer and fewer printed works, I wonder how future archeologists will discover human knowledge from our era. Especially after a world-wide catastrophe. Human language written in the physical world seems more durable long-term than the electrons in a flash drive. > Consider: the Library of Congress has (literally) a copy of every work that has ever been in print in the U.S. The Internet Archive has archived much of the public internet. Those are both very centralized. The benefit of print media is its forced-decentralization and stand-alone nature. It can survive for 100+ years on a shelf, and I don't think any digital data format could match that. > Is there even more data that could be saved in principle? Of course. But the amount of data we're talking about is already so much dramatically larger than what we have about, say, the antiquities, that it seems like an absurd comparison. That sheer amount of data may work against preservation in another way: too much noise distracting from identifying and preserving the valuable stuff. > The problem in the future (excluding extinction-level events) will be wading through that data, which even in the handful of resources I've mentioned above will be so far beyond any single human's ability to understand that it's just unfathomable. Not necessarily: all that data is very fragile. Besides format conversion and migration issues (about that flash-based website...), you have site/platform longevity, and the time-bomb of cloud hosting costs (someone stops paying a bill? Poof, it's gone). Then you have the spectre of a dark age: a few decades of a teetering industrial base after a major world war that destroys a couple of high-tech manufacturing centers, and that data is pretty much all gone.
briansm 3y ago
In such a catastrophe it is unlikely that preserving printed works would be a priority and would bring into question the very existence of 'future archeologists'. Archeology is a consequence of an age of abundance that would be gone in such a scenario.
cm2187 3y ago
On the other hand electronic versions can be copied over and over. If you think about it, we have preserved many ancient text that have been copied again and again, like biblical texts, greek philosophers, etc. Even though the originals are long gone. And those were copied by hand. I think that copying over on new media will be much safer, particularly as the cost of storage is ever cheaper, and a cheap consumer drive today can store many times all the books that have been written in the world to date in text format.
- Intralexical 3y ago
  Yeah. It's probably a data management and cultural problem, not so much a technological one. It would be comparatively easy to maintain historical continuity of old data over time, as long as storage costs keep decreasing. Could also have a system like Git or Fossil, that automatically retains history, or just move stuff to an `archive.subdomain` when you're done hosting it. The Internet Archive's budget was only $36 million in 2019; it seems like it'd also add barely a rounding error for any government or large corporation to sponsor it as a safe place to park data long-term. The problem is that people don't always copy old data to new media, or make redundant copies of current data, and do the other things you need to do to keep digital data safe. Instead we leave it sitting on old hard drives that are slowly rotting away, or simply remove/unpublish/delete it when it's no longer getting enough views. And this is exacerbated by the fact that the systems we use don't provide easy and scalable ways to preserve data by default, so it incurs extra effort and cost to do so. Society-level information retention and integrity doesn't directly help push out new monetizable products, so there's little economic incentive for anybody to care about it. The culturally important stuff will probably survive, because people will copy that, just as has always been the case. But as was also the case through history, much more will also be lost, which kinda sucks, especially given the sheer amount of information produced and at risk these days, and the thought that we probably could save all or most of it given modern technology.
  - cm2187 3y ago
    > The problem is that people don't always copy old data to new media, or make redundant copies of current data, and do the other things you need to do to keep digital data safe but how many selfies from medieval era do you want to preserve? Instagram is receiving 10s of millions new photos a day.
totetsu 3y ago
https://www.archmission.org/nanofiche https://www.archmission.org/nanofiche
- autoexec 3y ago
  A proprietary format only supplied by a single vendor... that doesn't inspire confidence.
  - dvdkon 3y ago
    That's certainly not great, but if it can be read with any microscope, it might not be a problem for its durability.
alexey-salmin 3y ago
I'm more worried about preserving information for today rather than tomorrow. E-books you own on subscription services are altered without your consent and can easily recalled if deemed inappropriate.

by riscy 3y ago

smaudet 3y ago

Absolutely. Or even, the power in the laptop or the fuel cells in your battery in your laptop. Digital is a great transmission format but a ridiculously lousy archive one.

anonylizard 3y ago

check out Microsoft silica, essentially stone tablets except with glass, so much much more data stored. Encryption will be painful though

smaudet 3y ago
Large size dvd drives also work today. But again, still need power and a computer/interface etc. Mesh network + reader device partially solves some of those issues, but it doesn't remove the need for fancy setups just to be able to read something.
- anonylizard 3y ago
  Even if we lose the ability to build readers, the understanding that these digital mediums contain valuable information will never be lost. It isn’t rocket science to build a room sized dvd reader if needed
  - Someone 3y ago
    > It isn’t rocket science to build a room sized dvd reader It is. We have built rockets for 700+ years, a V2 reached space in 1944 and we went to the moon over half a century ago, over a decade before even the compact disc (1982). If society collapses completely, I think it will be decades, possibly centuries before we even consider trying to read these. At that time, many DVDs might not be readable by DVD players anymore.

eslaught 3y ago

I feel like it's the exact opposite. We're drowning in data. Consider: the Library of Congress has (literally) a copy of every work that has ever been in print in the U.S. The Internet Archive has archived much of the public internet. There are other resources like arXiv, Zenodo, etc. Many of these organizations are very conscientious about data retention and longevity. Is there even more data that could be saved in principle? Of course. But the amount of data we're talking about is already so much dramatically larger than what we have about, say, the antiquities, that it seems like an absurd comparison. The problem in the future (excluding extinction-level events) will be wading through that data, which even in the handful of resources I've mentioned above will be so far beyond any single human's ability to understand that it's just unfathomable.

gunapologist99 3y ago
A single EMP event, like the Carrington Event, or just a single launch of something like Starfish Prime, could wipe all of that out in the blink of an eye. Something like this occurring seems inevitable given a long enough timeline, and 500 years doesn't seem that far away.
tivert 3y ago
>> With fewer and fewer printed works, I wonder how future archeologists will discover human knowledge from our era. Especially after a world-wide catastrophe. Human language written in the physical world seems more durable long-term than the electrons in a flash drive. > Consider: the Library of Congress has (literally) a copy of every work that has ever been in print in the U.S. The Internet Archive has archived much of the public internet. Those are both very centralized. The benefit of print media is its forced-decentralization and stand-alone nature. It can survive for 100+ years on a shelf, and I don't think any digital data format could match that. > Is there even more data that could be saved in principle? Of course. But the amount of data we're talking about is already so much dramatically larger than what we have about, say, the antiquities, that it seems like an absurd comparison. That sheer amount of data may work against preservation in another way: too much noise distracting from identifying and preserving the valuable stuff. > The problem in the future (excluding extinction-level events) will be wading through that data, which even in the handful of resources I've mentioned above will be so far beyond any single human's ability to understand that it's just unfathomable. Not necessarily: all that data is very fragile. Besides format conversion and migration issues (about that flash-based website...), you have site/platform longevity, and the time-bomb of cloud hosting costs (someone stops paying a bill? Poof, it's gone). Then you have the spectre of a dark age: a few decades of a teetering industrial base after a major world war that destroys a couple of high-tech manufacturing centers, and that data is pretty much all gone.

briansm 3y ago

In such a catastrophe it is unlikely that preserving printed works would be a priority and would bring into question the very existence of 'future archeologists'. Archeology is a consequence of an age of abundance that would be gone in such a scenario.

cm2187 3y ago

On the other hand electronic versions can be copied over and over. If you think about it, we have preserved many ancient text that have been copied again and again, like biblical texts, greek philosophers, etc. Even though the originals are long gone. And those were copied by hand. I think that copying over on new media will be much safer, particularly as the cost of storage is ever cheaper, and a cheap consumer drive today can store many times all the books that have been written in the world to date in text format.

Intralexical 3y ago
Yeah. It's probably a data management and cultural problem, not so much a technological one. It would be comparatively easy to maintain historical continuity of old data over time, as long as storage costs keep decreasing. Could also have a system like Git or Fossil, that automatically retains history, or just move stuff to an `archive.subdomain` when you're done hosting it. The Internet Archive's budget was only $36 million in 2019; it seems like it'd also add barely a rounding error for any government or large corporation to sponsor it as a safe place to park data long-term. The problem is that people don't always copy old data to new media, or make redundant copies of current data, and do the other things you need to do to keep digital data safe. Instead we leave it sitting on old hard drives that are slowly rotting away, or simply remove/unpublish/delete it when it's no longer getting enough views. And this is exacerbated by the fact that the systems we use don't provide easy and scalable ways to preserve data by default, so it incurs extra effort and cost to do so. Society-level information retention and integrity doesn't directly help push out new monetizable products, so there's little economic incentive for anybody to care about it. The culturally important stuff will probably survive, because people will copy that, just as has always been the case. But as was also the case through history, much more will also be lost, which kinda sucks, especially given the sheer amount of information produced and at risk these days, and the thought that we probably could save all or most of it given modern technology.
- cm2187 3y ago
  > The problem is that people don't always copy old data to new media, or make redundant copies of current data, and do the other things you need to do to keep digital data safe but how many selfies from medieval era do you want to preserve? Instagram is receiving 10s of millions new photos a day.

totetsu 3y ago

https://www.archmission.org/nanofiche https://www.archmission.org/nanofiche

autoexec 3y ago
A proprietary format only supplied by a single vendor... that doesn't inspire confidence.
- dvdkon 3y ago
  That's certainly not great, but if it can be read with any microscope, it might not be a problem for its durability.

alexey-salmin 3y ago

I'm more worried about preserving information for today rather than tomorrow. E-books you own on subscription services are altered without your consent and can easily recalled if deemed inappropriate.