ZUCO.ORG

All the knowledge we have from ancient times comes from solid, physical storage materials, like stones, papyri and any other long term durable means used in the past to store some information. Of course, people at that time didn’t store information in a stone only because it would resist the centuries to come. Well, they maybe think about that, but it’s also important to keep in mind that there was not so many means to store information at that time.

The other way we are obtaining information is from natural evidences of the influence of mankind in the world. Like pollution, artificial reshaping of natural land and so forth. Also genetic research and the study of DNA is helping a lot to discover more about our history.

But let’s think about the future. Where are we storing our information nowadays? In digital formats on means that won’t last more than few years. The worst thing about all this is that nobody will be able to recover that information in case of a cataclysm or any other worldwide destruction. If I’m lost in an island and I have a hard drive, I will probably attach it into a stick and use it as a weapon to kill some animal and feed myself. I won’t be able to develop, by myself, the technology to recover that data, copy it and store it again in another “machine”.

Think about it, all your pictures, your documents, your own videos, everything lost just because digital storage won’t last more than a few years.
So just as ephemeral as human lives are, so our data is. Information dies as people do, and only some small pieces of that data remain, thanks to the unknown laws of fortune.

I suggest to keep some pictures in paper. Just print from time to time some of them, the one that you would like to last forever. Of course it’s a dream, nothing is eternal, but at least I can assure you that, those few pictures in paper will survive many more years that all your DVDs, Hard disks, memory cards, etc. In case I find myself lost in an island or as a survivor of a cataclysm, I can always look at some pictures in my wallet of beloved people or places. Your mobile phone is useless in such environment.

Also try to write sometimes some hand written letters. Email is ephemeral as well. It doesn’t even exist in our hard drive anymore. More and more people keep it in remote servers, so just imagine. Almost all your life is documented in emails. It’s like a personal diary. Everything lost forever. But remember that ancient books exist today because of paper: in proper conditions it can resists centuries. No data-center will survive more than 100 years without maintenance.

This post is just to remind you that technology is great but it’s still weak. We spend more money developing weapons and developing ways to increase profit than thinking about human inheritance. Knowledge is one of the first things that human will loose when mass scale disasters happen. People priority is survival. Everybody follows that instinct as a general rule. Knowledge is not so important when you are hungry. Let’s think about it :)