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Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:49:58 -0700

submitted by marquis_of_chaos
[link] [18 comments]

HotTop on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-06T18:46:26.632889-07:00-0700

With humanity's luck, all that would survive would be one partially degraded copy of the king James fucking bible.

postdarwin on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T08:05:26.248229-07:00-0700

If you're intrigued by this idea, I can recommend [The Clock of the Long Now](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clock-Long-Now-Responsibility-Computer/dp/0465007805/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265555075&sr=1-2).

stevetac on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-10T14:09:23.264455-07:00-0700

Cool. Thanks for the link.

rm-rf_linux on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-06T21:35:11.718170-07:00-0700

this is pretty much while i'm against a paperless, e-book only society that we seem to be ramping up towards.

janey24516 on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T13:04:06.828037-07:00-0700

People still read and publish books to this day. There's these places called libraries? I don't know. Seems rather mythical.

foxfaction on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T00:03:16.452789-07:00-0700

A disaster that would destroy all the worlds computer archives would probably also destroy all humans as well, so I'm not too worried.

lostvorlon on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T07:24:37.165101-07:00-0700

A strong solar flare heading directly to earth would probably short every unshielded electronic gizmo, but most humans would survive.

foxfaction on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T07:32:15.959644-07:00-0700

All hard drive data would survive, since they're shielded. Maybe the computers themselves would be fried, so the internet might be down for a little while, but the data wouldn't be lost.

lostvorlon on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T08:11:45.727579-07:00-0700

well hard drives not connected to any long wires, like power supply or utp, those will act as big antennas and could easily gather a enough energy to fry everything connected to them.

foxfaction on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T08:24:22.539005-07:00-0700

Even if the electronics on the hard drive gets fried, the data on the actual platters will still be unharmed, unless the read/write head crashes in to it, which is a possibility. Even then, it would only damage a portion of the sectors. The data would still be recoverable.

lostvorlon on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T08:38:16.196285-07:00-0700

With what? Most technology capable to read them is destroyed, the plans for them and their parts were destroyed or locked on now unreadable parts which are degrading fast. so even if humanity makes some well coordinated progress in finding the tools and using them on the most useful data (all communication networks are destroyed so this is not really likely) many of it would be lost by the time they reach them.

foxfaction on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T08:44:50.803003-07:00-0700

It would take some time, but it's not like hard drives degrade in a matter of weeks. They last 20+ years, which would be more than enough time to remake a lot of the electronics necessary to salvage the data.

lostvorlon on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T08:50:06.276924-07:00-0700

It takes a working technological economy to do that, you need to restart the industries first which supply the materials without working tech and documentation that in itself would at least take 10-20 years.

foxfaction on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T08:53:46.941380-07:00-0700

Well not every single piece of electronics would be destroyed. We started from scratch not all that long ago. We can do it again. I definitely think we could do it in the time span of recovering the data from the hard drives.

lostvorlon on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-07T08:57:14.159691-07:00-0700

If civilization does not collapse in the meantime, and with the distruption of transportation networks feeding cities becomes a real problem.

stevetac on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-10T14:05:36.686544-07:00-0700

Most of the "information" passing accross the Internet is crap like we generate here. Discussion and opinion. In the event of such a large scale catastrophe, I think survival would be the first goal, and there are lots of private libraries that can help with that. If they lose my SSN and such, well that's life. Maybe they'll lose my credit history as well.

Sephira on Books last for centuries. Computer memories last only decades. If disaster struck, how much of our knowledge would future humans be able to retrieve?

2010-02-06T21:45:23.358896-07:00-0700

Considering most of the garbage that is on the Internet, I'm not sure it's much of a loss.