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Notes -
Does anyone still 'collect' music (i.e. keep locally stored copies in some kind of organized database, regardless of format) in the current age of ubiquitous streaming?
I assume that Spotify (and the rest) has all but killed the idea of 'keeping' music on your local computer or phone amongst the youth.
As someone who has a music collection going back to when I first started obsessively ripping CDs to my PC in my teens, I find that I mostly keep doing it through force of habit, and the slight fear that things I like might disappear. Some of the older files in my collection are hard or impossible to find online these days. But with so many different streaming options and, now, an AI that can produce radio-quality music in seconds it seems like there's really no point to keeping a large local music collection unless its related to your career in some way.
So if you DO still store music locally, what are your reasons and methods?
I used to do that up until something over ten years ago, but then the giant HDD I kept it all on broke and I just gave up on the concept.
Nothing in life is permanent, and holding on to anything requires continuous effort and attention. Can't hold on to every piece of data that seemed remotely interesting at some point. The internet is ephemeral, but so is all existence.
On the one hand I agree, on the other, I have had a few occasions where the ability to pull up some vaguely-remembered file I made 12 years ago has been useful, it not critical.
My own policy on destroying data I need but don't want is to wait 7 years, since that's the longest statute of limitations on most crimes in most jurisdictions, barring like rape and murder.
I think I genuinely expect that if a sufficiently powerful AI were to review the contents of my hard drive(s) it could use them to form an accurate approximation of my personality and preferences and thus, if it is friendly, use that to optimize my life for maximum fun and happiness.
So perhaps I'm making a long-shot bet on immortality via being simulated by the future superintelligence thanks to the echoes of my consciousness I stored on my computer over the years.
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