The Dangers of Going Digital
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now. Maybe four or five years. I can’t find a way around it. If we, as a culture, store too much information digitally we’re virtually damning future generations to a dark age.
Not only would a future society need to recognize a digital storage device or media as a place where information is held but they’d need alternating current power, a processor, a compatible display device, a compatible input device, a correct version of an operating environment and a correct version of a host application just to read the most basic of our knowledge.
In the past things have been simple. You see carvings in a temple, you compare them to one another and you’re on your way. Even some of the most complicated pre-Columbian languages have been hobbled back to life by good guess work. I wouldn’t put it past a curious person to be able to open a can of motion picture film, stick a light behind it and move it fast enough to see smooth motion. I also wouldn’t put it past a person in a society with electricity to be able to figure out magnetic audio tape… but beyond that we’re hopelessly lost.
I propose a series of technological Rosetta stones to be built. Maybe each major metropolitan area can house one of these artifacts. It would have to be made of very sturdy metal engraved by laser. In several languages it must clearly convey the “concepts” of personal computing to give future man the hint they’ll need to start thinking about how to get “Deep Blue Sea” out of that strange silver disc and on to a crt television display.
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