Planned Obsolescence?

The Encyclopedia Foundation has as its goal the preservation of knowledge for ten thousand years. To this end we’ve had other articles describing the types of books and book sets we wish to preserve first, on a single metal plate that could easily accommodate the 67,000 pages worth we are wishing.

The Encyclopedia Foundation also has articles on how those 67,000 pages could each be read with a 1,000x Optical Microscope, perhaps even a 500x one. And we’ve even wrote an article on how and why we expect the price to fall to at least $1,000 per plate, if not even a few hundred bucks a plate or less.

So. We have provided the idea, the list of books, the rationale for why they’d be the best, the additional books for a second plate, and all the rationales for that. And how –probably within 20 years – almost anyone would be able to do this exact same thing.

Are we planning then to be obsolete? Will there be much point to our existence when everyone can afford to have a plate or two or three with almost everything one could possibly wish to preserve on it? In a future world (2031) where each plate might only be $250 then four plates would only cost what a good Encyclopedia set cost back in the day. Several tens of millions of people, all around the nation and Earth, may well have a set collecting dust on their coffee tables, to impress guests with how erudite and far sighted they are!

The answer is then yes. And no.

You see, our means of data preservation involves metal plates. Much like the Long Now Foundation is using metal discs. Same technology, in fact, with credit to them for getting such further along. But the means of preserving our plates is the same plan they have for preserving the discs – and that involves wide distribution.

You see, the best way to make sure one of the discs or plates survive is to have millions of them scattered everywhere. So that hopefully at least one will survive 10,000 years. If then this becomes popular, and “everyone” has one on that hypothetical coffee table, then it is not so much that we – or the Long Range Foundation – are obsolete, more like “Mission Accomplished”!

Does this then mean that each long range organization packs up and goes home? No, for there is a difference between one single mission accomplished (spreading the discs and plates far and wide) and every mission being accomplished.

Both the Encyclopedia Foundation and the Long Range Foundation do have other goals. Not speaking to theirs, but ours are to have a 10,000 year library in existence, not just metal plates in existence. We have always said that “for the books to last, the library must last”. And it’s true.

The most popular book for a family to own for several centuries, up till the early 20th, was the Bible. And those books were made with a paper that lasts a good deal longer than the paper we make routine books out of today. A bible made in 1750 would be easily readable today, assuming no unusually harsh environmental factors.

So where are they? You know, the million or so that were made? Well, they were so common – like we hope the metal discs and plates will be – that they weren’t valued all that much. For one lifetime they were used. For a couple of more lifetimes – son and grandson – they might have been kept. At some point they migrated to an attic because a new one was bought. At some point they became trash.

We could advise then checking the landfills, but such conditions would not have let them last long at that point. So now a bible from 1750 is a find. As is one from 1850. 1850 being a period so recent that this author personally remembers hearing my great grandfather speak of people he knew who were alive at that time.

What this means then is that even if these plates and discs catch on as a fad or a craze, and tens of millions are made, that doesn’t mean that they’ll all be around 50 years or 100 years later. True, they will last in a dump longer than a paper book of 200 years ago will. But they are not indestructible. They can be scratched, or they’d not be able to be engraved in the first place. Moisture, repeated freezing and thawing, even simple erosion by wind and rain, none of these things are going to bode well for the information on the abandoned plate to be readable.

There are then, other “missions”. Besides spreading those discs and plates far and wide and hoping, there is also selectivity at play. For instance, the Encyclopedia Foundation has plans to see to it that the Long Range Foundation, the Catholic Church, the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints, and a Buddhist Temple have copies.

Another mission though, and more to the point of our continued existence, is not only to give such long range organizations copies, but to ourselves be one of the long range organizations. Like the “Library of Utility” we wrote of in another article, we plan on being a place where the information can be safely stored for 10,000 years. Not just a long lasting plate, but a long lasting building. And not just a long lasting building, but a long lasting organization.

If we can say – and do – that “for the books to last, the library must last”, then it can also be said that “for the library to last, there must always be librarians”.

A daunting task, to have an organization last 10,000 years. To do so requires a number of factors. But that’s another article. Suffice to say, we will not be obsolete, we will be preserving the books, assisting those in need, and acquiring and transcribing new knowledge and more of the old knowledge as appropriate.