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Comment by adrianmonk | Hacker News Reader

I don't think the meme was ever supposed to mean it's safe to rely on the internet to preserve your data. Instead, it means you should never assume you have the power to delete data once it's out there.

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Funny how this is cutting both ways. If you want it gone, expect to be disappointed... and if you want it preserved, expect to be disappointed.

This is pretty true about reputation in general not just online

An alternative formulation is that if you want it gone, just wait, while if you want it preserved, save it yourself.

That's what I tell myself as I pirate everything online. Couldn't afford to preserve everything by buying it. The only way to guarantee preservation, personally, is to save it personally.

Even if you could afford to buy everything you care about, much of it is only legally available through DRM which limits or downright removes your capacity to ensure the availability of your copy to you.

Every so often you hear a story about a recording that was presumed lost but has been found on someones VHS collection[1].

Then there are examples like Marion Stokes[2] who recorded 71000 tapes over 30 years.

Fast forward to today (ha ha), and I do think there is some justification for downloading 'pirate content' for archival purposes. In the same way that I think LibGen is a very important project even if it angers some.

To be clear, I believe in buying the items I'm actually going to read or watch to support the creators. Not just pirating everything.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/28/apollo-11-ta... [2]: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/marion-stokes-televisi...

Or as it’s also called, “unreliability”.

yes, because they are both absolutes in opposite ends. if you want something to be perfect expect to be disappointed.

Human life is so far a game of cross-purposes. If we wish a thing to be kept secret, it is sure to transpire: if we wish it to be known, not a syllable is breathed about it. - Hazlitt

“Only wimps use tape backup. REAL men just upload their important stuff on ftp and let the rest of the world mirror it.”

― Linus Torvalds

The important part is that someone has to mirror it.

the bit you missed is that he implied your stuff has to be so good that people choose to mirror it!

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