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This is a TikTok generation answer (even if you are 70 years old) -- the thinking is: discard anything that is more than x years old. It's not useful. But all

This is a TikTok generation answer (even if you are 70 years old) -- the thinking is: discard anything that is more than x years old. It's not useful. But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep. Of course they aren't "useful" in the classic sense such as their original purpose -- but they are useful to remind us how things were and how far we've come and what kind of problems were solved in what way by our predecessors.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago
> But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep. Sure, but we can digitize them, offer them online, for free, for everyone, with OCR even with search features... There's no need to keep moldy originals anymore, unless they're "special" to someone (=someone wants to keep them). Eg. there's a really nice collection of old yugoslav magazines and books online, that is fun to skm through while on the toilet or in bed (instead of reddit or youtube), but keping, preserving, dusting etc. all that paper would be a pain.
- jrumbut 2y ago
  > we can digitize them We can, but will we? And will we maintain those collections? There is some resilience in having collections scattered here, there, and everywhere in addition to having a substantial chunk of history reliant on one charity that is constantly under threat due to copyright law. History suggests that at some point the Internet Archive will be lost. Additionally, a digital copy doesn't preserve the physical artifact. The ink, paper, and glue contains information about trade, printing technology, and perhaps the environment as well. We don't know what questions people will ask in the future.
  - ajsnigrutin 2y ago
    Sure, shit will happen, but it's much easier to preserve digital media than it is for physical media, especially when shit happens. Disk space is cheaper and cheaper while physical space is getting more and more expensive for the most of us. Also, physical media can't be duplicated (noone will actually print out copies of those old magazines, and even if they did, it wouldn't be the same). I know you lose the experience of paper, but that experience is limited to the few that have the actual copies. Digital is available to everyone. I see more issues with more modern media, where eg. videogames cannot be played at all anymore, due to always-online drm and requiring backend servers that the publishers are shutting down (so even pirate cracks cannot help). For comparison, you can fit the whole NES and SNES library on a usb stick with space left over.
II2II 2y ago
> But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep. No argument there. On the other hand, we cannot preserve every last item. Seeming as these were described as publications, there would have been multiple copies produced. Hopefully the VCF did their research prior to disposal to ensure multiple copies still exist (that are accessible to people, in better condition, and in their original form). Jason Scott certainly has the right to be upset about what happened. It takes time to put together and maintain a collection. He entrusted that collection in the VCF's care. There is probably very good reason why he ought to be upset. Chances are that someone else entrusted those publications to his care. If that is the case, the VCF managed to violate the trust that someone else placed in Jason Scott, and not just Jason Scott's trust in the VCF. That being said, humanity creates mountains of stuff. We cannot afford to keep every last example, or even every last example that collectors manage to get their hands on. For all of this talk about the current generation not valuing old things and older generations preserving things for generations, well, that never really happened. At least not in the way people are suggesting. In most cases, those old things were "preserved" because they were significantly cheaper to maintain than to replace. Even in the case of publications, one would find that most libraries ended up disposing of publications and only a handful specialized in archiving materials. In the end, what we should be doing is looking towards the future while keeping an eye on the past. By only looking forward, we miss the richness of our past and any lessons it may have to offer. By only looking to the past, we embracing stagnation and placing improvements in the human condition at risk. While the latter may sound extreme, we only have so many resources (even in our age of plenty).

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

> But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep. Sure, but we can digitize them, offer them online, for free, for everyone, with OCR even with search features... There's no need to keep moldy originals anymore, unless they're "special" to someone (=someone wants to keep them). Eg. there's a really nice collection of old yugoslav magazines and books online, that is fun to skm through while on the toilet or in bed (instead of reddit or youtube), but keping, preserving, dusting etc. all that paper would be a pain.

jrumbut 2y ago
> we can digitize them We can, but will we? And will we maintain those collections? There is some resilience in having collections scattered here, there, and everywhere in addition to having a substantial chunk of history reliant on one charity that is constantly under threat due to copyright law. History suggests that at some point the Internet Archive will be lost. Additionally, a digital copy doesn't preserve the physical artifact. The ink, paper, and glue contains information about trade, printing technology, and perhaps the environment as well. We don't know what questions people will ask in the future.
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  Sure, shit will happen, but it's much easier to preserve digital media than it is for physical media, especially when shit happens. Disk space is cheaper and cheaper while physical space is getting more and more expensive for the most of us. Also, physical media can't be duplicated (noone will actually print out copies of those old magazines, and even if they did, it wouldn't be the same). I know you lose the experience of paper, but that experience is limited to the few that have the actual copies. Digital is available to everyone. I see more issues with more modern media, where eg. videogames cannot be played at all anymore, due to always-online drm and requiring backend servers that the publishers are shutting down (so even pirate cracks cannot help). For comparison, you can fit the whole NES and SNES library on a usb stick with space left over.

II2II 2y ago

> But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep. No argument there. On the other hand, we cannot preserve every last item. Seeming as these were described as publications, there would have been multiple copies produced. Hopefully the VCF did their research prior to disposal to ensure multiple copies still exist (that are accessible to people, in better condition, and in their original form). Jason Scott certainly has the right to be upset about what happened. It takes time to put together and maintain a collection. He entrusted that collection in the VCF's care. There is probably very good reason why he ought to be upset. Chances are that someone else entrusted those publications to his care. If that is the case, the VCF managed to violate the trust that someone else placed in Jason Scott, and not just Jason Scott's trust in the VCF. That being said, humanity creates mountains of stuff. We cannot afford to keep every last example, or even every last example that collectors manage to get their hands on. For all of this talk about the current generation not valuing old things and older generations preserving things for generations, well, that never really happened. At least not in the way people are suggesting. In most cases, those old things were "preserved" because they were significantly cheaper to maintain than to replace. Even in the case of publications, one would find that most libraries ended up disposing of publications and only a handful specialized in archiving materials. In the end, what we should be doing is looking towards the future while keeping an eye on the past. By only looking forward, we miss the richness of our past and any lessons it may have to offer. By only looking to the past, we embracing stagnation and placing improvements in the human condition at risk. While the latter may sound extreme, we only have so many resources (even in our age of plenty).