Anyone who’s ever read anything about the Great Library of Alexandria (especially those who played Sid Meier’s Civilization 2) would always be reminded about the wealth of ancient knowledge we lost when it was destroyed. Science writers always speculated how we could have shortened the duration of the Dark Ages if the contents of the Library was somehow preserved. (This is a bias, because eastern civilizations were flourishing as Europe took steps backwards at this time. Stupid white men…)
Ever since reading about the Great Library, I wondered time and again if current policy makers have thought of ways to prevent this massive information loss from happening again. That somewhere in the world today, the collective knowledge of humanity has been stored in an underground bunker so that future civilizations would have a backup in case of some societal systems crash aka apocalypse.
And then I read about The Crypt of Civilization. And some part of me breathe a sigh of relief.
All we have to do now is build more backup systems. And update them often.
I agree. With so many things that could change in such a short span of time, some things are worth saving.
Reading an old book is a bit like opening a time capsule, since the author inevitably seasons his stories with the flavor of the times. Like opening your Beerlenium gives you a whiff of 1998-the Philippine Centennial, the Magic Eye posters, CMT, etc. Looks like L’s already doing his share of recording and preserving civilization 🙂 I wonder how history will percieve the beerkadets.