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Comment by settsu | Hacker News Reader

But also? Let things die. Let them languish half-remembered for years until they're gone forever. (Until they're not and then are again.) Let things go. What's that, your 'tism won't let you? Learn to. Grow. (Is that effectively impossible for some? Sure. But clearly that's a different problem. If you're reading this, most likely you can accomplish it.) I'm glad we have the Internet Archive and all those amazing things. But I'm convinced that just because it is technologically possible to personally save everything forever, it is in most cases entirely unnecessary and probably ultimately unhealthy.

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I'm sorry, but that's a terrible perspective. Just in the last few months, I've run into issues in finding original texts for archaeological records from Iran and Iraq site digs from the 19th century. The archaeologists published books with artifact photographs, but it's extremely difficult to find the books because they're out of print. Because of wars and looting [0], many of the physical sites and structures are gone. Hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been looted.

There used to be web sites that also had the images, but those sites are now gone. The sites have also been removed from archive.org, too. Luckily on Anna's Archive, I found a digital scan of one of the books, but it's partially corrupted.

There is serious money being spent by powerful people to erase history. I can't see how anyone who values truth be ok with that.

[0] an interesting and unknown fact is that immediately after the start of the U.S. gulf wars "professional looters" came in with heavy equipment and dug up some sites 10 meters down. Apparently, you can see the damage from satellite photos, but I haven't checked.

I thought it was obvious enough that that's an entirely different thing: personal accumulation vs preservation of human knowledge.

One man's personal accumulation is another man's human knowledge.

There's a difference between data and knowledge. Knowledge is what's extracted and made intelligible from data. Production and storage of knowledge was so expensive and scarce that if you find something from Iraq 3000 years ago there's a high likelihood there'll be some knowledge in there.

Most stuff produced today is not only not knowledge, as of now the majority may not even be human. If you're living in the metaphorical Wall-E garbage mountain filtering and disposal are much more important skills than accumulation

Guess I was wrong.

> The archaeologists published books with artifact photographs, but it's extremely difficult to find the books because they're out of print.

Oof, this so much - I've tracked down some early and mid 20th century books about a hobby and that was tough and expensive.

Exactly. Yes, keep some stuff that you cherish but this idea of data hoarding everything is a little odd ball.

Back in 2001 the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan statutes. The only people who didn't get to upset were the Buddhists. That is because if the Taliban did destroy them, maybe a flood would, or an earth quake, or eventually just erosion. It doesn't mean just accept reckless destruction but also is a lesson as accept that everything passes with enough time.

Dont strangle life and hold everything in place but let it flow like sand or water. Some sticks, most doesn't.

There are plenty of fanatic holy-war-type Buddhists both in modern times and in ancient times, although maybe not in modern Afghanistan.

I'd say most Buddhists are closer to that than to Boomer Californian eat your veggies to cure cancer LSD Buddhism.

Enough to save your favourites. Something that matters to you. As said.

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