Impermanence (Part 1)

In principle, everything that is on the cloud will stay there forever unless of course its data centre burns down OVHcloud data centre fire.

Hence paper-based storage may still be relevant to some extent, unless (again) if there is flooding or earthquake or fire (or human negligence) destroys these documents. Same case as the data centre. It could equally be damaged by natural disasters.

I watched a movie called The Book of Eli once, about a man (Eli, played by actor Densel Washington) who had memorised the Bible. When the Bible was completely destroyed he was able to recite it from memory, for another man to re-write the content. Muslims have this practice too, there are many "hafiz" around the world, who holds the Quran's words in their hearts and minds.

What is my point? 

- Nothing is permanent. Cloud storage may theoretically last a longer time than human memory, but is threatened when natural (or unnatural) disasters occur.

- Humans can be reliable when we have to be. We transferred much data to the cloud because our brains and documents cannot hold massive volumes of everything, but if we work together we could piece together knowledge

Incidentally data centres are less environmentally friendly compared to humans. They just get too hot and may combust, like the story presented in the news report. Sweden, for one, is taking the initiative of using heat from the data centres to heat homes Making use of data centre heat.

The only permanent entity is the Almighty Creator, and to Him we shall return.