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As you rightly pointed out our reords will be forgotten much more quickly because clay tablets and animal hides can last for centuries. None of our currently em

As you rightly pointed out our reords will be forgotten much more quickly because clay tablets and animal hides can last for centuries. None of our currently employed methods would last nearly as long.

scubbo 4y ago
A counterpoint is that verifiably-perfect duplication of data (and non-invasive integrity checking of backups) with our current methods is orders-of-magnitude easier than older ones. Sure, any _particular_ modern-day record has a shorter shelf-life than a clay tablet - but the lifespan of "a piece of information recorded and actively upkept on digital media" is much longer. Swings and roundabouts. One approach lasts longer in a state of passive neglect, the other lasts longer in a state of active upkeep. As the meme says: it depends.
- pixl97 4y ago
  One that exists as long as the power stays on. Had the Carrington event happened 100 years later we'd have realized the weakness in this assumption.
  - samatman 4y ago
    Hard disks can park themselves with an immediate power cut, whether that corrupts the filesystem is mostly about the filesystem but it's been decades since a head crash was a realistic possibility. SSDs even more so. Contrary to your, frankly rather odd, assertion about digital media, they do not need power to store data. I did think tapes, DVDs, and USB thumb drives were common knowledge. A Carrington event is probably not a big deal these days, but let's pretend all the transformers blow, and the grid is down so badly that rural parts of North America don't get it back for two years. Data loss? Minimal. Any radiation which could get inside a hard drive or SSD and fry it, would kill us all, that's like a gamma ray burst. Some corruption from power spikes maybe, but for the most part, fuses and breakers work.
    - rolenthedeep 4y ago
      Most of the media we use today is only good for a handful of decades at absolute most. If you want something to last more than a century, you're looking at slightly exotic archival gade blu-rays, or something even more exotic like laser etched quartz or whatever. Hard drives are a non-starter. Mechanical drives have the obvious mechanical issues, and over long term can develop bitrot. SSDs store bits as static charges which slowly deplete. Magnetic tapes seem to be the best option, but require climate control to last for more than a decade or so. We don't really have any good way to store digital data unpowered for long periods of time. 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.
      - 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 ago
        You appear to be arguing for a solution (active upkeep) which cannot apply to the actual problem in this context (discontinuity of civilization).
        scubbo 4y ago
        We 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!)

scubbo 4y ago

A counterpoint is that verifiably-perfect duplication of data (and non-invasive integrity checking of backups) with our current methods is orders-of-magnitude easier than older ones. Sure, any _particular_ modern-day record has a shorter shelf-life than a clay tablet - but the lifespan of "a piece of information recorded and actively upkept on digital media" is much longer. Swings and roundabouts. One approach lasts longer in a state of passive neglect, the other lasts longer in a state of active upkeep. As the meme says: it depends.

pixl97 4y ago
One that exists as long as the power stays on. Had the Carrington event happened 100 years later we'd have realized the weakness in this assumption.
- samatman 4y ago
  Hard disks can park themselves with an immediate power cut, whether that corrupts the filesystem is mostly about the filesystem but it's been decades since a head crash was a realistic possibility. SSDs even more so. Contrary to your, frankly rather odd, assertion about digital media, they do not need power to store data. I did think tapes, DVDs, and USB thumb drives were common knowledge. A Carrington event is probably not a big deal these days, but let's pretend all the transformers blow, and the grid is down so badly that rural parts of North America don't get it back for two years. Data loss? Minimal. Any radiation which could get inside a hard drive or SSD and fry it, would kill us all, that's like a gamma ray burst. Some corruption from power spikes maybe, but for the most part, fuses and breakers work.
  - rolenthedeep 4y ago
    Most of the media we use today is only good for a handful of decades at absolute most. If you want something to last more than a century, you're looking at slightly exotic archival gade blu-rays, or something even more exotic like laser etched quartz or whatever. Hard drives are a non-starter. Mechanical drives have the obvious mechanical issues, and over long term can develop bitrot. SSDs store bits as static charges which slowly deplete. Magnetic tapes seem to be the best option, but require climate control to last for more than a decade or so. We don't really have any good way to store digital data unpowered for long periods of time. 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.
    - 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 ago
        You appear to be arguing for a solution (active upkeep) which cannot apply to the actual problem in this context (discontinuity of civilization).
        scubbo 4y ago
        We 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!)