To have the Internet Archive come in and save it all might
be... unfortunate for some.
Say you write something at the age of 14 that's regrettable at the age of 24, acutely embarrassing at 34, and career-ending at 44.
That sucks. I feel you.
How about fifty years later? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand?
Archive.org archives for the ages. There's a brief band of time when you're alive to be embarrassed by a statement, then the vast gulf of eternity where that archived stupidity may be the only evidence that you were ever alive at all.
When I think about this it makes me think about Pompeii. The sheer delight we have at discovering the preserved minutia of everyday life -- but 1000 years old. Of course, if you asked those people what they’d rather have, I bet they would have taken being forgotten.
For most, embarrassing Facebook posts are not life and death or even career ending. But I’ve got to think that most of us want better control over our legacy, even if that’s an unrealistic aim. I’m not saying that archiving it is a bad thing, I’m just wondering what level of control we’re allowed over what the future thinks of us.
That sucks. I feel you.
How about fifty years later? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand?
Archive.org archives for the ages. There's a brief band of time when you're alive to be embarrassed by a statement, then the vast gulf of eternity where that archived stupidity may be the only evidence that you were ever alive at all.