This is something that keeps me worried at night. Unlike other historical artefacts like pottery, vellum writing, or stone tablets, information on the Internet can just blink into nonexistence when the server hosting it goes offline. This makes it difficult for future anthropologists who want to study our history and document the different Internet epochs. For my part, I always try to send any news article I see to an archival site (like archive.ph) to help collectively preserve our present so it can still be seen by others in the future.

  •  Ludrol   ( @Ludrol@szmer.info ) 
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    81 year ago

    This comment gave me a really tough moral dilemma. On one side I want the best for you on the other I want a rule to preserve everything even if this is illegal, dangerous and uncomfortable.

    There are multiple examples that I can think of that are dangerous for the individual (in power and without power) but it’s not like you are in serfdom and must tile ground for your master. You are free enough man to move where you live. Maybe you are held hostage by your friends, family, house and job but that aren’t things that can’t be work around.

    Also who should decide if something should be preserved? Is this game that has 50 players at it’s peak and nobody has heard of it, and is two years old should be preserved? No? Then among us wouldn’t be preserved.

    I sadly conclude that to prevent the harm of many people by individual in power I need to allow a danger to an individual by archiving everything that is possible to archive.