I'd like to offer a contrary perspective. I actually like the idea that some of our "stuff" ends up being ephemeral. By accident or design. I'm not really talking about burning the occasional Alexandrian Library, but the stuff that didn't seem important enough for anyone to really care about.
And if something I made only exists on Soundcloud, I either don't really care or I'm a bit stupid.
For most of our history nearly everything we thought, said and did was ephemeral. Not recorded and then gone. We've become pack-rats. We're at the beginning of technology civilization and already we have amassed so much that for any major genre of music there exists more content than a human being could consume in a lifetime.
And the vast majority of it is, at best, unremarkable.
I think we are wired for worrying about losing information because it used to be a disaster. We used to be terrible at recording information. We're not anymore. Oh boy are we not. We'll just make more. Or we'll repeat whatever process brought us there.
And if it can't be repeated you now have the rarest and most unique gift: a cultural experience that only exists in the memory of those present.
Imagine the storage space we as a civilization are going to use for storing worthless shit just in the next 100 years.
And if something I made only exists on Soundcloud, I either don't really care or I'm a bit stupid.
For most of our history nearly everything we thought, said and did was ephemeral. Not recorded and then gone. We've become pack-rats. We're at the beginning of technology civilization and already we have amassed so much that for any major genre of music there exists more content than a human being could consume in a lifetime.
And the vast majority of it is, at best, unremarkable.
I think we are wired for worrying about losing information because it used to be a disaster. We used to be terrible at recording information. We're not anymore. Oh boy are we not. We'll just make more. Or we'll repeat whatever process brought us there.
And if it can't be repeated you now have the rarest and most unique gift: a cultural experience that only exists in the memory of those present.
Imagine the storage space we as a civilization are going to use for storing worthless shit just in the next 100 years.