Humanity is simply amazing... we have come so far. A king who died ~3500 years ago was flown thousands of kilometers on a plane and was issued his own passport!

> bury them in the North African desert

How viable do you think would it be to setup a business that provides storage space and tracking capability in the Tunisian desert? I'm from Tunisia btw, and I think government seed funds would be happy to fund something like that. The biggest issue is who would actually pay for a service like that?

There's definitely a commericial market for storing paper documents for decades, maybe up to a century. This is currently addressed by existing mine-based storage companies, among other things. Plus mines are secure: There's often only one way in and the storage is surrounded by rock.

Burying things under sand and rock in the desert obviously works for millennia; the ancient Egyptians were onto something.

Correct, but the transition was from an autocracy to a fledgling democracy; the opposite would be more concerning. Security and infrastructure are both improving. Foreign investments are on the rise.

This is the absolute best time to be setting up a foreign business in Tunisia, since the government will basically pay you money to do so. Oh, and skilled labor is extremely cheap and the currency is at a low right now. The only issue is that English is a 3rd language - French is more common - but Tunisians are starting to adopt English more as it opens more doors, especially on the internet.

> Switzerland, in contrast, hasn't been invaded for 500 years IIRC, despite being literally in the middle of two world wars.

Great, but the labor costs and bureaucratic overhead alone would be prohibitively high - 500 years of stability doesn't come for free! Another issue for such a business specifically is that Switzerland is landlocked. Tunisia's access to the sea is excellent, and it has a number of ports spread from north to south (the beaches are amazing btw!). Tunisia is also very close to Europe, and is the northernmost country in Africa.

The advantage Tunisia has over its North African neighbors (Morocco, Algeria, and Libya) is that sea access is better, and getting to the desert is easier as Tunisia is smaller in size.

Alas, Egypt just recently went from a (fledgling) democracy under Morsi to a military autocracy under Sisi.

Egypt is a regional power, so they wouldn't let it off as easily. Plus, I recall that Morsi made some questionable decisions throughout his (short) term as president.

I wish my Egyptian brothers and sisters the best.

The issue is less "how's it going right now" and more "how will it be in a few centuries".

The current world super power was colonized by a foreign force just 300 years back. That same occupying force can now be crushed by said super power.

The two great powers of the 15th century are now each facing a severe economic crisis.

The past is not a reliable indicator of the future.

I'm of the mind that burying such records in a highly-conspicuous site on the Moon might be a better solution. Much less risk to geological processes or tomb raiders; if you can get that far from Earth then you might be responsible enough to deal with the archive.

Seems a little bit optimistic; could you imagine if the Cold War's space race had the additional prize of an archive of advanced alien technology?

Oh, I concede that there is no guarantee that an organization or country advanced enough to launch a mission to the Moon would be responsible custodians of the information (alternate timelines where Germany or the Soviet Union land men on the Moon come to mind). But they might be less inclined to destroy it outright instead of seeing what they can use for themselves.

The best we can hope for is to make data available to the future; what they do with it is ultimately out of our hands.

Edit: Just noticed your last remark. What does responsibility have to do with being able to access an archive of human knowledge and culture?

None of this means that multiple, redundant archives cannot be created. I just think that the Moon offers a unique level of protection from those would would destroy or otherwise degrade such a collection.

It's very difficult to design a library that can survive the waves of human political conflict for millennia.

of course, you'd have to be ok with photocopies instead of originals. for the purpose of preserving information, i dont see a problem with photocopies.

And redundancy? Around 240BC, the first Qin emperor in China had all non-technical books burned. We have much of the oldest Chinese literature because it was restored from memory after his death.

If someone wants to burn it all, and can get enough power, they will find a way.

So you feel that even if we had archives buried in bunkers underground, on 6 continents, that somebody could still destroy all of it? I hear what you're saying about if they can get enough power, I just don't see anyone succeeding in taking over the entire world. I guess I'm an optimist :P

Really? Russia, Japan, the fall of the Ottoman empire, the creation of the state of Israel and its ongoing repercussions, the start of a century of US involvement in South America to protect the Panama Canal and other assets, Mussolini, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco were not enough for you? China lost 14 million people to WWII...

WWII is pretty much singlehandedly responsible as a turning point for the ongoing mess in South America, North Africa, and the Middle East.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib_Desert

Wow. Just to put that in perspective, it was a desert when North America was still joined to Europe, India wasn't and Australia was an Antarctic appendage:

http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/geology/gc065mya.htm

Then the American Southwest was grasslands, until gold rush and westward expansion including cattle and sheep, resulting in overgrazing and irreversible changes.

The Gobi was widely inhabited in prehistoric times. People arrived and wham! desert. Its still expanding today, one of the fastest-growing deserts in the world. Because, people.

The Namib is indeed old. Its also almost the smallest desert - #25 on a list of 27 worldwide. So lets grant an exception there.

Also roads going through deserts does not prove much since they could just connect oasis or move goods across the desert without people living within it.

The Sahara itself also is fairly old[0]. Of course its total extent is variable and subject to natural and man-made climate change and other human influence. But there is a huge difference between human activity creating a desert and influencing its extent or aridity.

Most deserts are naturally created through the rain shadow[1] and other precipitation-reducing effects of geographic features.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhongshi_Zhang/publicat... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shadow