Quote:
Originally Posted by CazMar
One of the reasons we don't have a huge amount of writing from the ancient western world (Greece and Rome) is not because they couldn't do "data transfer", i.e. rewriting the texts every few years because papyrus deteriorated, but because political and religious zealots simply decided it wasn't appropriate. I would say that with the digital rendering of many old books they are less likely to disappear now than at any time in history. And if the human race is reduced to a few scattered tribes living in a post-apocalyptic state then the whole book thing is probably going to be the least of their problems....
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That is EXACTLY what I was thinking!
While issues such as bleed-through on magnetic tape reels are real, I think it is incorrect to frame the issue of data loss as a technological problem; I see it as purely a human stupidity issue. We have always had the technology to make back-ups and transfer/update to new media, we just fail to use it.