The shortest century: our culture can disappear, its preservation can save us

By Stefano Cariolato

Today the development of digital technology continues at an accelerated pace, but the problem of information retention arises, which previously was mainly entrusted to paper printing. But while a book or letter can be read immediately even centuries after their writing if they have resisted time, digital information still has a short life, even in the absence of the deterioration of the media used: this due to the same technological development, which quickly makes any recording obsolete by irreversibly changing both the hardware and the reading software. Other registrations are also volatile by their very nature, such as emails or web pages, although they may host information that may have value in the future. The problem is particularly relevant in this century precisely because we are at the initial stages of a new and important need, but we are not yet equipped to deal with it and we are not sufficiently aware of it. The past century has been baptized "the short century", but our present century risks being known by posterity as the "shortest century", precisely because they will not have much information about us. Preserving digital documents for their future use has not only a mere historiographical purpose, but also a concrete and irreplaceable value for future generations. Because if we don't keep the data, we can't reuse them. They are a kind of renewable resource, whose real value is in their reuse. So it's important to be at least aware of this problem, which the book tries to answer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Release date: Jan 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9791221459630

Book preview

FOREWORD

Towards the middle of the twentieth century the digital revolution began with the introduction of the first electronic computers, first used in companies and state bodies, then widely spread in private homes as personal computers; later all of these computers were linked together by a global telecommunications network called the Internet, which underwent enormous development at the turn of the century and became the backbone of the worldwide circulation of information. At the beginning of the 21st century the digital revolution was completed and information of any kind (texts, images, video clips and TV broadcasts, music and songs, WEB pages) are now recorded and broadcast in digital format rather than with a traditional medium. (paper, film, magnetic tape), with a change that involved all human activities of any kind, both collective and individual.

While the development of digital technology continues at an accelerated pace, the problem of information conservation arises, previously mainly entrusted to printing on paper, now in the process of being abandoned: printed documents are increasingly transformed into digital format because they are more practical and new information is generated directly in electronic form. But while a book or a letter can be read immediately even centuries after their writing if the paper support has withstood the test of time, digital information still has a short life, even in the absence of the deterioration of the medium used, due to the same technological development. , which quickly makes any recording obsolete by irreversibly changing both the reading hardware and software; other recordings are also volatile by their very nature, such as e-mails or web pages, although they may host information that may be of value in the future. Furthermore, digital recordings are made in a great variety of different formats, sometimes incompatible with each other or subject themselves to obsolescence and abandonment, thus unnecessarily complicating the task of preserving their content.

To be even clearer, suppose we distinguish culture into two distinct parts:

- Current culture, that is the set of data and notions usually and commonly used daily in all areas of human activities; until yesterday this set was normally contained in traditional format (paper, film, vinyl, etc.) and today also in digital format, and since it is widely used it is also adequately maintained and continuously reproduced in copies. This process of continuous cultural preservation will also be active in the future, precisely because it will be a heritage used both in the scientific-technological field and in the production of goods and services; tomorrow it will be mainly available in digital format and will obviously consist of data and notions of the future as well as the documents of the past continuously reproduced. Types of support and reading devices will be those proposed by the technological development of the time and adequately produced by industry, in such a way as to always keep intact the current culture of each historical period.

- Historical culture, that is the set of data and notions not included in the current culture of each period because they are no longer or only rarely consulted, such as a good part of history, literature, poetry, music, scientific documentation, journalistic, corporate or institutional documents of the past, as well as all the notions and data that refer to obsolete and no longer used technologies. It will be objected that this has always happened, the world moves on the crest of a cultural wave leaving behind what is no longer needed. Who is interested in the novel written in the eighteenth century by an obscure author little read even in his time? Who cares about Charles Guiteau, that in 1881 altered American History shooting the President Garfield ?

However, there is a big difference, as information on the past still exists, mainly on directly legible paper support, and is jealously guarded in public and private libraries all over the world or even in homes; we also add information on microfilm from newspaper archives, movies on film and musical compositions on vinyl or tape, even if they require appropriate reading devices, which brings them closer to digital recordings and the problems dealt with here.

If the way and the will to preserve the content of digital documents is not found, similarly to what was done in the past with paper documents, gradually the historical culture left to the descendants in each period will diminish until it will disappear.

A history without a future would create a future without a history.

Normally we are not very concerned about the conditions in which our descendants will live, children apart, and therefore this type of problem is not intended to mobilise public opinion and consequently politicians, but we should remember that we did not have to invent the wheel because others had done it before us; if we are grateful for this then we can perceive the duty we have to leave the maximum to future generations, who have the right to inherit the result of our life and all previous ones.

The problem is particularly relevant in this century precisely because we are in the initial stages of a new important need, but we are not yet equipped to face it nor are we adequately sensitive to this need. The past century has been baptised the short century, but our present one risks being known by posterity as the shortest century, precisely because they will not have much information about us. 

All human culture, gradually poured into electronic form, could in fact vanish, risking to deliver to those who follow us a world without a history of its past: this book describes the current situation and what we are trying to do to remedy the danger.

The future will hold great problems and great challenges for us, which as usual will be faced when they fully manifest themselves; the problem that will be represented in the future by document preservation, however, will be one whose solution was found in the past, that is today. Our future therefore depends on what we will be able to accomplish now.

One last warning: if you finish the reading worried and confused it will be because this book has perfectly achieved its purpose,

that is ring an alarm bell to you.

* As the author is not an English mother tongue, the text may sometime have a weird taste to you, bound to raise a few eyebrows and to think With the greatest respect ......

So the author begs your pardon for possible mistakes and, counting on your good will, hopes that it be at least understandable and possibly clear, what his real goal was.

Thanks

** Sometimes through the text are reported the Internet addresses (URL) of the referenced issues, but please note that these can change in time. If the link is not any more valid you can perform a search on the basis of the text itself.

INTRODUCTION

Since prehistoric times, man has left signs of his world, his culture and his history, first in a naive and graphic form with the rock paintings in the caves he inhabited or with graffiti engraved in the rock as in the Acacus, basically representing the environment in which he lived and his activities. Subsequently, with the invention of writing, the human ability to record and exchange information had an extraordinary development, and although it was originally intended for the performance of government or trade activities of the time, today it allows us to know the main cultural traits of ancient civilisations and to reconstruct their historical events.

Cave_painting_at_the_National_Museum_of_Natural_History.jpg

Drawings of lions in the Chauvet cave in France dating back to 30,000 years ago

Nine_mile_canyon,_Hunters_Petroglyph_Panel.jpg

Nine Mile Canyon, Petroglyph panel of hunters

Inga_Stone

Inga stone, Brasil

Tradrart_Acacus

Petroglyph of a giraffe, Tradart Acacus, Fezzan, Libya

Obviously this is possible as long as these ancient records are found and are still legible, a fact that depends both on the luck and patience of the archaeologists and on the nature and resistance of the support used for the purpose.

In fact, information always has two distinct aspects, namely its abstract meaning and the corresponding materialisation on a readable support. It cannot be communicated without its materialisation in any physical form.

Starting with the Palaeolithic graffiti carved in the caves, followed by inscriptions on rocks, cuneiform writings on clay tablets, texts on parchment or silk and papyrus rolls, to end with paper, we have always recorded the information we need in a persistent form immediately readable by a human being who knew that type of writing.

cuneiforme

Cuneiform writing

Demotic_Scripts_Rosetta_Stone_Replica

Rosetta stone

Papyrus

Writing on papyrus

Cippo_perugino,_con_iscrizione_in_lingua_etrusca_su_un_atto_giuridico_tra_le_famiglie_dei_velthina_e_degli_afuna,_02

Memorial stone from Perugia with inscription in the Etruscan language

Lapide_di_Bescanuova_scritta_in_glagolitico_croato

Baska plate, written in Croatian Glagolitic, around 1100, island of Krk

psalter_on_vellum

Miniated psalter on parchment

The availability of this information over time depended on the relative durability of the medium used, with a maximum of tens of thousands of years for graffiti, then decreasing following the changes that occurred for the media used, and ending with a minimum for writing on paper. To maintain the availability of the information, we have also adopted the method of copying and disseminating the content to be kept to reduce the impact of random and destructive events in the text concerned. We owe the survival of a large part of both medieval and classical culture to the extraordinary duration of the ancient supports and the copying activity of the monks: the author was struck by seeing, for example, in the library of the Abbey of Novacella a perfectly preserved parchment bearing the seal by Frederick I Barbarossa.

Pergamena_Federico_Barbarossa

Frederick I Barbarossa parchment

The obsolescence of the information therefore coincided with the duration of the support itself, obviously in addition to the comprehensibility of the language.

Now technology has given us what is commonly called digital support (magnetic, optical or solid state memories), the use of which is much more practical and faster than that on paper and allows both quick searches and immediate copies of the contents. But with a flaw, the information content is no longer immediately readable without an appropriate device and reading software.

laptop

 Laptop 

The availability and usability of these devices and software therefore have an impact on the persistence and readability of information, thus introducing another obsolescence factor that we must consider.

Latins said verba volant, scripta manent (words fly, writings remain); also in our days it is possible saying the same for digital communications. Infact while the electromagnetic support during communication with radio or TV broadcasts or Internet is by definition volatile, other types of digital permanent supports are today used, which allow durability and readability over time. It is therefore necessary to ask ourselves the question of how