[amerine]

I think you are severely underestimating the complexity of preserving digital data for 200+ years. It’s not trivial, but a family could totally put a box of notebooks and loose papers in a box in a dry/somewhat safe location and pretty much guarantee they will still be usable/viewable in 200+ years without any electricity/file format/solar flare/emp/etc/etc issues to have to consider.

I’m not disagreeing that it’s wonderful to be able to make multiple backups, offsite storage, etc of digital data, I’m just making sure you understand how difficult it is to keep digital data stored long term without significant attention to that desire.

Dropping some markdown in git is not a long-term (using 200 yrs as my example) plan.

I spent years and years working in a newspaper publisher trying to preserve the output digitally and it required serious investment (network storage, auto backup to LTO tapes, and verifying recovery is possible years later). It was and almost always is easier to ship two or three copies of the physical paper to separate storage facilities. I had to remind folks countless times that things like a dvd-r or cd-r have a maximal lifetime where we can trust that the data is retrievable.

Maybe long term storage of personal data will have some future breakthroughs that make it dead simple to trust they can be viewable in 200+ years but today that’s not the case.

I will say that most personal data (sans photos imo) isn’t useful after a few years (maybe 10+) and digital options are great for that. But for stuff we want to keep for centuries, it’s extremely hard and expensive today.

[FalconSensei]

> I think you are severely underestimating the complexity of preserving digital data for 200+ years

although I doubt my personal notes will be necessary in 200+ years

[amerine]

Big same. It might be a curiosity to my kids (or grandkids if I have those) but I doubt anyone beyond that will care

[jackthetab]

_Ea-nasir enters the chat_

[bluGill]

Most paper will not last 200 years in a normal climate. The acid treatment often used ensures it will break down in less than that. Sure if you actually have a dry climate and archival grade paper it can last thousands of years. However most of us don't have that.

However most of us don't need that either. There are very few things you care about. I threw my kindergarten art out long ago when I realized I wasn't interested in seeing how I improved (back then I thought it would be cool to look back and see). There are things I have done I will care about, but not too many.