A2
the more technologically advanced a system is, the more fragile it is
A2a
media requiring complex systems to even view is doomed to be lost forever
A2a1
compare the technological requirements to store and view data carved into stone vs. data encoded as a jpg file
A2a1a
a jpg will much sooner be lost than a stone tablet
A2a2
this phenomenon is evident even in the time-scale of my own life: i have lost countless digital photographs yet retain all film images i have taken. my family keeps a trunk of childhood photographs that will likely outlive us
A2a2a
for this reason i value low-tech formats for storing my work: film for photography, tape for audio, paper for text, etc.
A2b
the digital/internet age will at some point be a dark age to future historians
A2b1
f. g. jünger asserts the industrial age will also be dark: "[...] archaeologists [...] would find but little [...] for the stuff with which the factory system works is not aere perennius." and "the earth-spanning power of technology is of an ephemeral kind" ("the failure of technology" p. 23)
A2c
it is not only the system itself and its artifacts which are fragile, but also the people who rely on it. when the system falls, so too do those who have no connection to traditional methods (or "grounded to the earth", ernst jünger "the forest passage")
A2d
at the root of this phenomenon are technological solutions whose short-term performance surpasses that of traditional solutions. the technological solution replaces the traditional one and eventually the traditional is forgotten. or the technological fosters conditions which make going back to the traditional impossible. but the technological is fragile in the long term
A2d1
f. g. jünger uses fertilizer as an example: "[...] if we did not have fertilizer, we should no longer be able to feed ourselves at all" ("the failure of technology" p. 22)