From what I understand, a lot of knowledge was lost following the collapse of the Roman Empire as manuscripts were no longer being copied at the established frequency and information that had lost relevance (for certain jobs etc.) wasn’t being passed down.
If a catastrophic event were to happen nowadays, how much information would we theoretically lose? Is the knowledge of the world, stored digitally or on printed books, safer than it was before?
All the information online for example - does that have a greater chance of surviving millennia than say a preserved manuscript?
The concern about digital media compatibility and longevity is definitely valid. But even in the unlikely event that all electronics simultaneously went kaput, the knowledge to recreate working systems, as well as the materials, are still going to be there. Also, the average person has more knowledge than even just 200 years ago, not too mention the fact there is still more print media around than then too.
Yes our current global data footprint could take a massive hit, and would feel like a huge step back, but it’s still going to be comparatively huge compared to any other time in history. Not so much going back to the stone age as going back to the 1980s.
Information his always degraded over time. Some being lost, some being made obsolete, some evolving (like culture). I think given our short term digital experience as a species we just find it a bit of existential crisis to view our digital data as having a shelf life too.
The problem of restoration after a catastrophic event might be less technical and more about sifting the knowledge from the misinformation and idiocy. There’s worthwhile known fiction as well, cultural icons that are understood in context but after a longer loss might just be clutter, or even cause trouble.
Think about how, after the fall of the Roman Empire, a lot of technical knowledge was lost but the Bible was not only preserved but increased its influence in the practice of medicine, and politics, maybe architecture, certainly art. What if, instead of every town having a church full of gilded pictures of saints, there were pictures showing how to build an aqueduct and bath house? Or even cat pictures? Arguably keeping cat-worship alive could have prevented the devastating losses of the Black Plague.
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Great story indeed, and a big inspiration for the first couple of Fallout games.
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Amazing book. Haven’t thought of it in ages!
Unless special means to safekeep it are done, electronic means of data storage are less likely to survive a millennia than papers kept in a cave, assuming no one is around to maintain things.
I can’t remember who did it (Discovery, BBC or History Channel; one of those), but there was a whole big documentary special about what would happen to Earth if humans just up and vanished one day. About the only things that would really last a decent amount of time, were things made of granite or marble or other stone not much affected by erosion.
Just a stone toss away from the World Seed Bank is the Arctic World Archive which houses tons of data in an arctic vault that can last up to a thousand years.
Yeah theres more copies of everything than ever before, so need to lose a lot of copies to completely lose smth.
Do you reckon the physical copies would last longer than digital?
Yeah, some infos that had to be stored really long times, like the location of buried radioactive waste, are written on paper. Because with current tech, we can make really good paper that doesn’t tear easily or rot for hundreds of years and really good ink that doesn’t fade, but we can’t make digital drives that can last nearly as long. Even regular paper and ink, if in the right conditions, may last longer than an SSD or HDD…
