alt Hacker NewsI think that for situations like this we should invent a device that can hold information for an arbitrary amount of time even without electricity. Maybe we could call it "BOOK" or something like that.
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dorianmariecom • yesterday at 9:33 PM
and then we have a lot of “books” so we collect them in “shelves” then in “libraries” then we want to search them etc etc
This isn't clever or insightful. You can of course condense down critical information into a survival handbook, but in existential crises you don't necessarily know in advance what you'll need to know. Wikipedia (as a benchmark repository of knowledge) is ~5 million pages and would require a decent-size room to store if printed out. By contrast, a laptop + solar panel can fit in a backpack. SD cards/USB sticks with the capacity to store all of Wikipedia are a few $ each.
If things are so bad that you need to factor in the non-operability of any electronic devices, how many indestructible paper libraries are you planning to build and manage in advance, and at what budget?