[StartupTree]

They are archiving the "wrong" thing. There have been similar "archive this!" movements this year, generally focussed on online communities targetting their political opponents.

In 50 years what is going to be "hard to find" and unarchived? The things that NOBODY is talking about now! You need to be coldly unemotional and consider what your community DOES NOT CARE ABOUT. This will often be things that are politically awkward for you and your community. There will be 1000s of people archiving this event and NONE archiving events which do not suit the political narrative. Accepting this is difficult!

What is happening here is the equivalent of your parents keeping a newspaper of man first landing on the moon, which is now the most common vintage newspaper that exists.

[boomboomsubban]

The fear is that that these events will end up falling down the memory hole, so it's best to ensure as much remains as possible. They want to ensure the actual moon landing newspaper is not replaced by the millions of replicas sold each year.

Beyond that, let people archive what they want. If you think there are more important targets, archive it yourself or politely ask their community for assistance.

[sethc2]

If we use this logic then we are saying what people aren’t talking about will be the “right” thing to archive.

Is this a true statement? Is it not that popular things are the things that people remember? The Beatles were popular. But that’s not why they are remembered. There were other popular bands completely forgotten.

Things become popular for various reasons. Sometimes it is because it reflects a truth of the time, or it was simply good, or beautiful. Other times it is because it’s something that feeds a craving. Mass produced food isn’t necessarily good, but it is popular. I think the things that are good beautiful and true, can be the popular things, but they often aren’t. However the things that last are often good beautiful and true and the things that don’t aren’t.

Then again our memory of Hitler lasts, and he wasn’t good, but he did reveal what good was, because it shone so bright against the dark evil of his way of thinking that permeated that culture so well. If you think of Hitler’s murder of Jews, then think of the stories told about those unknowns who risked their lives hiding Jews. The stories show that an utterly unknown person is a vastly better person than Hitler, and his name will never be celebrated the way that unknown person is.

We’d do better as a society if we told less stories about Hitler, and more stories of the unknown, courageous, good sacrificial man, who saved the lives of many Jews.