DVDs, CDs, videos, books: save everything, bad data comes in
There was a time when I had the unrealistic fantasy of a small house where almost all culture could be enjoyed through small devices that would offer all the music, film or literature in the world. Nowadays it is possible to do so. Supposedly, in a digital world, apart from artistic objects or for very specific cases, shelves would not be needed, but with only a computer, a mobile phone, quality speakers, a screen and an e-book you could have everything within reach. Now I don't think so anymore. And not for nostalgic reasons such as, for example, the pleasure generated by the smell and touch of paper. No. Now I think it is definitely time to put everything away to safeguard the contents as they are now. At least for the moment, until we see how things evolve.
The first reason is that the premise that everything is within reach is a lie. Not everything is there, and increasingly more of what there is is paid for. It may happen, in fact, that you may have bought the same film in several formats that have become obsolete and, in the end, you will have to end up watching it on a paid platform that can remove it from the catalogue at any time. It is true that there are still many things freely available on the Internet, but the circle is closing and if you are not a computer whiz it is not so easy to find what you are looking for with the quality you are looking for.
The second is that since the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) or, rather, since AI applications have made the manipulation of content so easy and accessible to many people, it could happen that in a short time those original cultural contents are modified in such perfect and concealed ways. Never before has it been so easy to falsify everything, which will become more common in the coming years or months.
And the third is that the cultural regression that is coming may make many things disappear that we have taken for granted until now. It is not nonsense. Those with the chainsaw do not only want to destroy the internal apparatus of the state, what makes it work, which are the public servants who are not beholden to any party but to the citizens as a whole, but also the cultural references that do not fit what they think. It is not paranoia. Many scientists from many fields, especially those who deal with issues such as climate or biomedicine, for example, have rushed to download and save the studies that they had posted on official pages of the American government because they knew, as has happened in some cases, that they would be withdrawn and put out of public access because they did not fit in with the new theories of the Trump government. Archives are the first things to be destroyed in a war., and the ultimate goal is to erase the enemy's memory and heritage. Culture is heritage, it is shared memory and, therefore, an objective to be fought or modified by those who want it adapted to their interests.
I am aware of my catastrophic drift – at home I feel calmer if there are candles and a radio because, after confinement, I would not be surprised at all by a major power outage due to any unforeseen circumstance – but, right now, the combination of the second and third reasons, that is, scientific and cultural truths, seems especially dangerous to me.
That is why, without living outside the world and also enjoying the wonders that the digital environment still gives us, I think it is time to safeguard, also on an individual level, as much as possible of analog culture, including playback devices. It is time, I think, to treasure those things that you love. For whatever it may be.
