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- Perhaps we should be thinking not just about our personal or cultural ephemera, but attempting to preserve a core kernel of human knowledge in case the worst were to happen. Plenty of once-great civilisations have collapsed, and our current industrialised society is by no means invulnerable – in fact, due to the intricate interconnectedness of production and economies around the world today, our technological civilisation is perhaps more prone to a sudden collapse than other societies through history. We buy life assurance to help provide for those left behind if we die suddenly; surely it is also rational for us collectively to safeguard our informational heritage, accumulated over the centuries, to help accelerate the recovery of the society after our own?
Everyone will die eventually, and all direct traces of them will be wiped from the world eventually. It's more a question of when than if. As to society, our info will be wiped out by progression just as much by a collapse. We already can't access half the stuff from 80's computers.