I don't want to restart this rather long (but very interesting) topic, but I'd like to point out / remind people that a couple of well-placed fires could wipe out most of wikipedia et al. as we currently know it - surely the first priority, before thinking about the real long term, is to sort that out? Remember the Library of Alexandria...
Mike On 7 May 2009, at 15:21, Aryeh Gregor wrote: > On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Platonides <platoni...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> In that futuristic approach I find it more likely that there will >> be no >> paper / printer, but instead everthing will be stored into >> computers/PDAs and transfered between them. So in the event of the >> catastrophe you'd be only able to access it with the surviving >> devices. > > In such a futuristic world, I would expect that the major sources of > power would be things like solar and geothermal that don't require > long-distance supply chains. Then even if the world falls into > anarchy, some well-stocked parts will still have power for a good long > while. So you wouldn't need to actually print it out, you'd have > computers running continuously in some places. > > Even if 95% of humanity was wiped out, you'd still have a few hundred > million people. Not one of them is going to be in a position to save > some computers? Even militaries, which are prepared for all sorts of > disasters -- some of which will have computers in multiple > geographically distributed bunkers deep underground with enough fuel > on-site to keep them running for days to years? > >> You have a copy of wikipedia on your hard disk. You can access it. >> But your computer lifetime is finite. And you also don't know for how >> much time you'll still have electric current. >> What do you do? > > Screw Wikipedia. If I want to preserve useful knowledge, I'll make > sure to safeguard my textbooks. In terms of utility for rebuilding > society, the value of Wikipedia is zero compared to even a tiny > university library. And there are many thousands of university > libraries already conveniently scattered around the world, not a few > of them in subbasements where they'll be resistant to nasty things > happening on the surface. > > On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 12:16 AM, Tim Starling > <tstarl...@wikimedia.org> wrote: >> I wouldn't go quite that far. The idea of doing it (or having done >> it) >> makes people feel good, due to the collective sci-fi-like fantasy >> implicitly promulgated by the project itself -- a future world of >> poverty and decay, saved by the serendipitous discovery of a >> time-capsule sent from the past. It's a spectacle, a stunt, and it >> has >> PR value. >> >> I certainly don't begrudge the Long Now Foundation for having done >> this with the Rosetta Project, since their primary goal is to >> encourage long-term thinking, and expensive stunts are obviously a >> key >> part of that. >> >> But Wikimedia's goals are somewhat different, and we could probably >> find some stunts which are more relevant to our mission. > > Okay, I can agree with that. > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l