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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7060 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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Destroying books is generally fine because physical media is obsolete. If they're special books, keep them, otherwise if you really want to preserve them, M-DISC will last longer and is more compact.

But the data shouldn't be destroyed. Storage is cheap, and even nearly useless data isn't completely useless, evidenced by AI training. Nor should Anthropic be the only ones with access to it, there may be other uses.

The authors of these books are long dead, that they're still under copyright is a testament to how flawed our legal system is.

physical media is obsolete

Not remotely. Physical media is the only way to ensure you actually own something. We've seen that even digital "purchases" can be revoked from your account because the media cartel says you don't get to have that any more. But they can't (yet, I guess) remotely destroy your DVDs, paper books, and so on.

Also, when it comes to books specifically, paper is still far and away the best reading experience you can have. Easy on the eyes, requires no tech, and they have a pleasant tactile nature which no ebook reader will ever be able to match.

Revocable digital purchases are a separate problem, you can own something digitally by obtaining the raw text (or Markdown or a simple PDF).

physical media is obsolete

I beg to differ. Books are one of the best medium for storing texts long term because unlike disks and tape, they are driverless and shelf stable. M-DISC is all well and good but the day that there is no longer an incentive to make and/or fix mechanical disk drives, you are SOL. Books only need to be stored properly and you can always recover them with the Mk1 Eyeball.

I agree with the sentiment, but for what it's worth, most modern books don't have this kind of longevity. If you go to a bookstore today, everything you see inside is going to be printed on cheap paper that will decay and become unreadable after a couple of hundred years. Mostly we don't care about this because we have no aspirations of these books lasting that long.

If you go to a museum or academic library and ask the curators about some of their really old books, the ones that have survived are on more resilient media. The Book of Kells is still readable today, in part because vellum is significantly more durable than paper. But this is true of paper as well. If you find, say, a Geneva Bible from the 16th century, those were printed on thicker paper than most mass market books today, and thus have survived in a readable state even with heavy use.

It's the acid content of books from the 19th and 20th century that make them degrade so fast, moreso than the thickness (though the flimsiness of the pages doesn't help).

I'll be honest - I am repeating what I was told by a library curator years ago. I remember that modern books will decay relatively rapidly, while many older books are more resilient, but I do not remember the scientific explanation.

So thank you for the correction! I appreciate it.

It might also be so that there is no longer an incentive to learn extinct languages such as 2026 English.

My intuition tells me it's easier to lapse in maintaining climate in a warehouse than lose disk reader technology.

There are still people who keep old English learnable(indeed, you can get some pretty good online courses)- and unlike Latin, Greek(Greek programs would barely exist anymore if it wasn’t for evangelicals buying ‘New Testament Greek’ lessons to cover expenses), or Hebrew, this isn’t due to religious necessity.

Do most people learn Latin and Greek for ecclesiastic purposes? Seems more of a classicist thing (Princeton's efforts notwithstanding).

The majority of Ancient Greek learners are religious Christians, although in a classroom setting it’s much more split. If you search for Greek lessons the majority of it will be ‘read thé New Testament’. Latin is significantly more driven by academic needs(and there are academic disciplines in which Latin is indispensable), but this is often subsidized by seminaries.

With all due respect to your instinct, how is it easier to maintain access to complex semiconductors and high precision motors than maintain a room dry and free of sunlight on a centuries long timeframe?

Bitrot is a thing, though. One of the cool technologies MS is working on is glass storage technology.

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