I love the idea of archiving everything we can, but does anyone else feel like the arctic archive was created by people who got wrapped up in too much science fiction? I feel like there’s a lot more practical short-to-mid term archiving of historical physical and electronic data that really needs to get done, that also has a much higher chance of being needed in the future. But perhaps I am just being short-sighted. I am also fully aware that one form of archiving does not mean other forms can not happen. But there does seem to be limited resources for this sort of activity.
I think the main motivation for doing it in Svalbard is the seed vault, which benefits from the cold, dry environment in the permafrost. And sure, that the remote location lends its self to Foundation-like restore-civilization-after-the-dark-age scenarios, but it works fine for shorter-term back up too. If there's a blight that wipes out corn or something we can use the seed vault to replant. (Assuming we can cure the blight... cf the American Chestnut.)
I think somebody has to do it. It's like backup, we don't think we'll need it much until we need it.
Imagine if we as human had started preserving our knowledge since Ancient Greek (and, not burning the libraries..), collectively we could have been at a better place.
To go at it from a little different angle, perhaps there is benefit in doing something thats a little sci-fi on the basis that that alone might make it more exciting (and therefor actually get done!). There seems to be limited resources for it because it just isn't a high priority for people, so they don't donate their time or energy. So, maybe this addresses the cause of the fundamental restriction (desire).
