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Comment by ekidd | Hacker News Reader

The largest preservation effort along these lines—though not using ceramics—is probably the Internet Archive, which seals physcial materials into shipping containers. Some examples:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/01/internet-archi...

http://thecontentwrangler.com/2016/05/13/payback-machine-int...

This includes books, pamphlets, cassettes, etc. It would be possible to transfer these to stable mine-based storage (which is available commercially) or bury them in the North African desert, which is dry enough to preserve the hair of mummies for thousands of years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II#Mummy

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> In 1974 Egyptologists visiting his tomb noticed that the mummy's condition was rapidly deteriorating and flew it to Paris for examination. Ramesses II was issued an Egyptian passport that listed his occupation as "King (deceased)".

Humanity is simply amazing... we have come so far. A king who died ~3500 years ago was flown thousands of kilometers on a plane and was issued his own passport!

> bury them in the North African desert

How viable do you think would it be to setup a business that provides storage space and tracking capability in the Tunisian desert? I'm from Tunisia btw, and I think government seed funds would be happy to fund something like that. The biggest issue is who would actually pay for a service like that?

One big question in the minds of many customers might be political stability. Tunisia had a revolution in 2011, correct? Switzerland, in contrast, hasn't been invaded for 500 years IIRC, despite being literally in the middle of two world wars.

There's definitely a commericial market for storing paper documents for decades, maybe up to a century. This is currently addressed by existing mine-based storage companies, among other things. Plus mines are secure: There's often only one way in and the storage is surrounded by rock.

Burying things under sand and rock in the desert obviously works for millennia; the ancient Egyptians were onto something.

> One big question in the minds of many customers might be political stability. Tunisia had a revolution in 2011, correct?

Correct, but the transition was from an autocracy to a fledgling democracy; the opposite would be more concerning. Security and infrastructure are both improving. Foreign investments are on the rise.

This is the absolute best time to be setting up a foreign business in Tunisia, since the government will basically pay you money to do so. Oh, and skilled labor is extremely cheap and the currency is at a low right now. The only issue is that English is a 3rd language - French is more common - but Tunisians are starting to adopt English more as it opens more doors, especially on the internet.

> Switzerland, in contrast, hasn't been invaded for 500 years IIRC, despite being literally in the middle of two world wars.

Great, but the labor costs and bureaucratic overhead alone would be prohibitively high - 500 years of stability doesn't come for free! Another issue for such a business specifically is that Switzerland is landlocked. Tunisia's access to the sea is excellent, and it has a number of ports spread from north to south (the beaches are amazing btw!). Tunisia is also very close to Europe, and is the northernmost country in Africa.

The advantage Tunisia has over its North African neighbors (Morocco, Algeria, and Libya) is that sea access is better, and getting to the desert is easier as Tunisia is smaller in size.

> Correct, but the transition was from an autocracy to a fledgling democracy; the opposite would be more concerning. Security and infrastructure are both improving. Foreign investments are on the rise.

The issue is less "how's it going right now" and more "how will it be in a few centuries".

I can name several empires and/or civilizations that were stable for much longer than Switzerland has. The ones that remain are now essentially third-world countries.

The current world super power was colonized by a foreign force just 300 years back. That same occupying force can now be crushed by said super power.

The two great powers of the 15th century are now each facing a severe economic crisis.

The past is not a reliable indicator of the future.

> Correct, but the transition was from an autocracy to a fledgling democracy; the opposite would be more concerning.

Alas, Egypt just recently went from a (fledgling) democracy under Morsi to a military autocracy under Sisi.

Yes, and I'm still not over that to be honest. We were in it together, but foreign interests didn't seem to align with the will of the Egyptian people.

Egypt is a regional power, so they wouldn't let it off as easily. Plus, I recall that Morsi made some questionable decisions throughout his (short) term as president.

I wish my Egyptian brothers and sisters the best.

"Burying things under sand and rock in the desert obviously works for millennia; the ancient Egyptians were onto something."

I'm of the mind that burying such records in a highly-conspicuous site on the Moon might be a better solution. Much less risk to geological processes or tomb raiders; if you can get that far from Earth then you might be responsible enough to deal with the archive.

But our successors may not have the technology to access an archive on the Moon - e.g., post-nuclear war - which defeats the whole purpose.

Edit: Just noticed your last remark. What does responsibility have to do with being able to access an archive of human knowledge and culture?

My thought was that if a party can coordinate a flight to the Moon then that party is intelligent enough to recognize and appreciate such an archive...rather than destroy it. As opposed to the likes of the Taliban, who made a point to destroy historical works.

None of this means that multiple, redundant archives cannot be created. I just think that the Moon offers a unique level of protection from those would would destroy or otherwise degrade such a collection.

Who cares about any possible "successors"? I say we should put this archive on the Moon (or better yet, copies on the Moon, Mars, and all the geologically-inactive planets or planetoids in this system), not for us, but for any alien archeologists who happen to make it here, so they can document our existence and use it to learn about the mistakes of a failed civilization. Because if this information is ever needed, we'll probably have wiped ourselves out, and this planet is not a safe place to store such information as it'll either be destroyed by our weapons of mass destruction or by natural forces over time after we're extinct. If we actually do have successors, they'll probably destroy the archive when they get their hands on it, just like the Taliban do to everything historical they find.

Seems a bit puerile, like writing "I was here" on a planet then joy-riding home with a big grin on your face. Humanity just got over doing that on all continents, though it still exists in some small communities (eg. mountain climbers). We have a long way to go.

Leaving a complete historical record for your civilization hardly equates to writing "I was here". I'm sure Wikipedia's diligent workers will be happy to know that all their efforts equate to graffiti in your view.

As a Wikipedia administrator myself, I do believe it's important to take a distant perspective at times. The capacity to laugh at your own efforts and predicament certainly has value. At the time scales of the rise and fall of civilizations, one should not take oneself so seriously!

>if you can get that far from Earth then you might be responsible enough to deal with the archive.

Seems a little bit optimistic; could you imagine if the Cold War's space race had the additional prize of an archive of advanced alien technology?

It didn't? ;)

Oh, I concede that there is no guarantee that an organization or country advanced enough to launch a mission to the Moon would be responsible custodians of the information (alternate timelines where Germany or the Soviet Union land men on the Moon come to mind). But they might be less inclined to destroy it outright instead of seeing what they can use for themselves.

The best we can hope for is to make data available to the future; what they do with it is ultimately out of our hands.

Some of the oldest libraries in the world were in Timbuktu, in Mali. Much of that material was destroyed during the 2012 civil war in Mali, in which Ansar Dine Islamist forces (aligned with Al Qaeda) smashed everything that did not align with their particular interpretation of Islam.

It's very difficult to design a library that can survive the waves of human political conflict for millennia.

redundancy. i feel like it would be unlikely to have a war that spanned multiple continents. (i know about the world wars , but those didnt affect south america or most of africa and asia.)

of course, you'd have to be ok with photocopies instead of originals. for the purpose of preserving information, i dont see a problem with photocopies.

> (i know about the world wars , but those didnt affect south america or most of africa and asia

Really? Russia, Japan, the fall of the Ottoman empire, the creation of the state of Israel and its ongoing repercussions, the start of a century of US involvement in South America to protect the Panama Canal and other assets, Mussolini, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco were not enough for you? China lost 14 million people to WWII...

WWII is pretty much singlehandedly responsible as a turning point for the ongoing mess in South America, North Africa, and the Middle East.

my point was that archives in multiple locations would be much more resilient to destruction. Even if there is conflict, no single party could easily destroy the entire library if it was distributed. they might get one or two, but we wouldnt lose access to the libraries contents.

The war that destroyed historic artifacts in Timbuktu already spans multiple continents. Ansar Dine learned their approach from Saudi clerics who came to Libya via Pakistan. The same movement did the 9/11 attacks in the US. It's a hot war in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and it's terrorism in Europe and the US.

And redundancy? Around 240BC, the first Qin emperor in China had all non-technical books burned. We have much of the oldest Chinese literature because it was restored from memory after his death.

If someone wants to burn it all, and can get enough power, they will find a way.

lol, I was not expecting that comment to generate any controversy. :)

So you feel that even if we had archives buried in bunkers underground, on 6 continents, that somebody could still destroy all of it? I hear what you're saying about if they can get enough power, I just don't see anyone succeeding in taking over the entire world. I guess I'm an optimist :P

You don't need to take over the whole world. You just need access to six nuclear weapons...

Why would a dead body need a passport?

Yeah this sounds more like an example of human stupidity than ingenuity.

There's definitely a market for it, but the market also tends to be adverse to international shipping. It would also likely view North Africa as a region, not politically stable enough overall (not speaking about Tunisia, just the whole North Africa region in aggregate) to make them comfortable with using such a facility.

I wish more people would donate to them. So many tech billionaires, you'd think at least one of them would be aware and not mind spending what amounts to loose pocket change for them to preserve information.

The Sahara might not be the best choice, it has seen wetter periods in the past. Other deserts have been stable for far longer time spans.

I had understood that all deserts (save Antarctica) were man-made. So none have been stable for vast time spans.

How exactly did humans create the likes of the Saharan, Arabian, Gobi, Kalaharian, or Patagonian deserts?

Deforestation

That's quite an extraordinary claim. Do you have a source I can read on that?

One source is the satellite radar of the Sahara for instance - all the hidden roads, rivers and towns swallowed by the desert.

Then the American Southwest was grasslands, until gold rush and westward expansion including cattle and sheep, resulting in overgrazing and irreversible changes.

The Gobi was widely inhabited in prehistoric times. People arrived and wham! desert. Its still expanding today, one of the fastest-growing deserts in the world. Because, people.

The Namib is indeed old. Its also almost the smallest desert - #25 on a list of 27 worldwide. So lets grant an exception there.

First of all: correlation != causation. People do live in semi-arid regions bordering on deserts, so if the local climate was even slightly better than it is today people would have lived there and as things changed they would have given up settlements. People living there previously is not proof of them causing desertification.

Also roads going through deserts does not prove much since they could just connect oasis or move goods across the desert without people living within it.

The Sahara itself also is fairly old[0]. Of course its total extent is variable and subject to natural and man-made climate change and other human influence. But there is a huge difference between human activity creating a desert and influencing its extent or aridity.

Most deserts are naturally created through the rain shadow[1] and other precipitation-reducing effects of geographic features.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhongshi_Zhang/publicat... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shadow

Regions get less rain because of rain shadow. They can become deserts because of removal of water-conserving ground cover. Its a delicate balance, and wholesale deforestation or grazing can unbalance it with effects lasting for thousands of years.

So you're saying that the majority of the world's deserts only exist due to human activity?

No, there are many deserts far older than human agriculture. Humans are reponsible for some desertification, but often that's just making existing deserts worse/larger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib_Desert

> Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the Namib may be the oldest desert in the world[1][3]

Wow. Just to put that in perspective, it was a desert when North America was still joined to Europe, India wasn't and Australia was an Antarctic appendage:

http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/geology/gc065mya.htm

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