Re: [emacs-humanities] Paper Zettelkasten safety

[Marvin ‘quintus’ Gülker]

Am Samstag, dem 02. Januar 2021 schrieb Paul W. Rankin via
Emacs-humanities:
> Often I see the fear expressed that a fire should burn up everything
> not digitally stored. I wonder whether this is a rational fear, or if
> the technology itself asserts an inflated importance to its own
> medium.

Maybe you are right. Just today I read several articles on Microsoft
locking accounts presumly at will and people complaining about losing
all their data in the Microsoft cloud[1]. It is not that there is no
flaw in technology either.

> The extreme example of this fear is the person concerned about whether
> their server will survive a nuclear holocaust... Can you imagine
> treking through a radioactive wasteland to meet the only other living
> human you've seen in days and they're excited to show you their blog
> is still online?

I see where you are getting at, but I think the comparison is flawed.
Notes for academic writing are quite a bit more important than a
personal blog, which is (normally) only maintained for fun. Those who
work in academia may depend on their notes much more than on a blog. In
his time, he had no other choice, but I wonder what Zettelkasten
inventor Luhmann had done if his gigantic Zettelkasten had burnt down.

> If a fire indeed burnt down your house, would your notes be one of the
> things you miss most? Or does the energy invested into tending to your
> digital garden just make it feel that way?

Of course, you are right. If your house burns, you most definitely have
more pressing problems than your paper notes. Still, if the problem can
be mitigated simply by scanning the notes (as it was suggested), then I
think it is foolish to not have any plans for that case. The notes might
not be the thing to miss most, but (unless they are really only kept as
toys) there are missed.

> This is not to suggest that the loss of paper notes is insignificant,
> but I'd weigh up the pros/cons. I do most of my writing on a
> typewriter. It is the most joyous way to write. I have stacks of
> folders of paper pages that, in the event of a fire, would be toast.
> But for me the tradeoff is worth it because the experience of writing
> is so much better.

This is interesting; I occasionally type on a typewriter as well and
agree that there is something to analogue writing that computers, even
those equipped with our preferred editing software Emacs, lack. And this
is actually the reason why I think about trying a paper-based
Zettelkasten.

Stuff for thought. You have founded an interesting mailing list, I have
to say. Thank you again for creating it.

  -quintus

[1]: Sorry, German, but anyway: 
https://www.drwindows.de/news/wird-die-nutzung-eines-microsoft-kontos-zum-unkalkulierbaren-risiko

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