3 ms·

I quite like the fragility of it, it makes it more apparent that everything is transient. In a way I wish the IA had a half life on content, that it would decay

I quite like the fragility of it, it makes it more apparent that everything is transient. In a way I wish the IA had a half life on content, that it would decay over time, pages and images would be randomly deleted. Little by little it would rot and become nothing, a reflection of humanity. I suppose that's the internet itself...

627467 2y ago
> everything is transient I agree. Permanence should be tied to individual wills, not collective inertia. If you want a permanent thing, work for it, host it and publicize it
- PKop 2y ago
  Sort of describing entropy yes? All things will decay unless external energy is continually applied to the system to maintain an ordered state.
- andybak 2y ago
  Every future historian is hissing at you right now. So much of the past is completely opaque to us because of decay, intentional destruction and lack of interest. I think there's a moral imperative to preserve.
  - samwillis 2y ago
    Things that are important to society will naturally be preserved. I believe in the moral right to be forgotten. We cannot, and should not, preserve all of knowledge forever. Don't get me wrong, I love the internet archive, and the team behind it are incredible. As a resource it's very important to maintain and preserve. However, I'm sure that at some point, either due to the economics of it or through hardware failure, the content saved by the AI will begin to be lost. I don't see that as a bad thing.
    - user_7832 2y ago
      If someone requests for their content to be deleted, IIRC the IA does it. In other cases however I don't see the need to remove old(er) content. Particularly also because older content/webpages were far lighter than modern equivalents - you may need to delete 10 or even 100 old website archives to store one new one. Decay is natural, but so is the human/animal urge to stop it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- drsopp 2y ago
  Yes. Both content but also the technology to display this content. I put this on my personal web page 21 years ago: http://trondal.com/magisk/magic.html http://trondal.com/magisk/magic.html At the time (or maybe a few years before), clicking this button would show a dropdown menu linking to a bunch of web pages. Now, the button doesn't work anymore and I think most of the links go to missing content.

627467 2y ago

> everything is transient I agree. Permanence should be tied to individual wills, not collective inertia. If you want a permanent thing, work for it, host it and publicize it

PKop 2y ago
Sort of describing entropy yes? All things will decay unless external energy is continually applied to the system to maintain an ordered state.
andybak 2y ago
Every future historian is hissing at you right now. So much of the past is completely opaque to us because of decay, intentional destruction and lack of interest. I think there's a moral imperative to preserve.
- samwillis 2y ago
  Things that are important to society will naturally be preserved. I believe in the moral right to be forgotten. We cannot, and should not, preserve all of knowledge forever. Don't get me wrong, I love the internet archive, and the team behind it are incredible. As a resource it's very important to maintain and preserve. However, I'm sure that at some point, either due to the economics of it or through hardware failure, the content saved by the AI will begin to be lost. I don't see that as a bad thing.
  - user_7832 2y ago
    If someone requests for their content to be deleted, IIRC the IA does it. In other cases however I don't see the need to remove old(er) content. Particularly also because older content/webpages were far lighter than modern equivalents - you may need to delete 10 or even 100 old website archives to store one new one. Decay is natural, but so is the human/animal urge to stop it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
drsopp 2y ago
Yes. Both content but also the technology to display this content. I put this on my personal web page 21 years ago: http://trondal.com/magisk/magic.html http://trondal.com/magisk/magic.html At the time (or maybe a few years before), clicking this button would show a dropdown menu linking to a bunch of web pages. Now, the button doesn't work anymore and I think most of the links go to missing content.