How Can We Bear to Throw Anything Away?

Hello, Jacob- I've been a long time fan of your channel- I subscribed for the videogames but stayed for the existential dread. :-D This last video- which I had in my "Watch later" list, but only recently found the time to watch, hit close to home- as I am the [only] person in the world whose job is backing up Wikipedia! Making sure the long time survival of [rightfully, only a tiny subset of] all human knowledge in the world is not that easy! First, thanks for making the Wikipedia size numbers so accurate- and the facts so correct (e.g. Re: version history archival) it is so easy to get them wrong- and many publications often do. Second, you are so right about the fragility of it- and the new challenges of the digital world. While it is funny to take into account natural disasters, climate change, a civil war, and meteorites hitting the earth as part of your job- other more mundane issues are more likely to happen. I've realized that even in as little as 5 years time, software, operating systems, encryption algorithms and browsers ... can become obsolete and we would "forget" how to read things again if we weren't constantly thinking about updating archived data to the next storage format, despite using exclusively open formats and standards as well as open source software. I just wanted to thank you for throwing some light into the issue that gives me headaches at work and explaining it so everybody can understand it. Please keep the good work going!

Jaime Crespo

A very moving video, thank you. My uncle passed a few years ago and we found out that in obsession for fine and rare old books he had burned through most of the money that had been meant to provide for his family and saddled his widow with an almost insurmountable cleanup task. Moving van after moving van came from antiquarians and left loaded with books and still, 3 years later, she sends me books she finds. I come from a family of librarians and all of us have been trying to be more thoughtful about what we save and what we throw away these days. I too have been struck on re-reading Maus as an adult and often tell people that the one quote I remember clearly from it is Artie shouting at Vladek when he insists on keeping that cereal he cannot eat "Then just save the damn Special K in case Hitler ever comes back!"

Ryland H Garnett

Ofc this video comes out right when I’m moving house 😭

I am once again begging for a hint as to how you stay abreast of the more interesting itch.io games

Sam Sharpe