I think that, given current estimates on lifespans and advances in nanotechnology, it's plausible that I'll be around when Y10K happens, and being able to search through my collected writings in a simple, uniform way will be nice. I'm lazy, and would be unlikely to write a script to convert the dates automatically.

I think it is significantly less likely that I'll be around when Y100K hits. I don't particularly care about anything that happens after my death. That's somebody else's problem.

You know how silly this all sounds right? The idea that you need to add 0s in front of comments that already have post dates for context, yet nanotech will make quantum leaps. Those two circles don't square. If the nanotech proposition comes to fruition, you won't need 0s in front of dates for old texts to be properly contextualized.. You'll have NLP tech so advanced that adding 0s will look like you were rubbing sticks together.

On the broader subject of the 0s, it's ironic that they are added for reasons of long-term optimism. Because if NLP hasn't advanced to understand the context of shorthand dates in old texts in 10,000 years time, I'd say thats a pretty pessimistic view on long term progress.

The computing device I use most right now is twenty years old, and powered off of two double-A batteries. It serves all of my non-entertainment needs, and I will never need anything more for essential use. It is fully-programmable, and works fine. If I go a thousand years in the future, I want my thrift-store Palm Pilot to continue working. Some people drive old cars, I like old PDAs.

Natural language processing is a joke of a field, and I don't see any future in which I will run a natural language processor that works on my old computers and takes all information and reformats it in a way that makes it most aesthetically pleasing to me. As a result, my only option is to write in a way that aesthetically pleases me and allows me to get away with the least amount of future effort. Rather than dedicate hours of my life to reformatting old text, I'll just write it correctly now.

Fair.

> "write it correctly now"

Though in my opinion, your version of correct is quite amiss and misses the forest for the trees.

We don't need to put 0s in front of dates before 1000. Why do we need to do it for dates before 10000? Any date after that will have at least 5 digits, which distinguishes it from dates before then, which only have four digits.

Is this really how some people think? Eye opening

I've never been much for sentiment, but I am one for making my life easier. I assume it's how many people think.