BFTP: Dawin and data

This post will be the last impostion on your time and attention for a couple of weeks since I will be wildnerness canoeing and then traveling with grandsons to DC. I hope you take some time off this summer!

"WARNING: Do not look into laser with remaining eye." -- On a laser pointer.

I know if sounds heartless, but I am in increasing sympathy with those who believe we've gone too far with labels, laws, and regulations designed to keep stupid people from harming themselves. You've seen the lists. Mandatory seat belt and motorcycle helmet laws run counter to Darwinian principles. Let people do what they would naturally do and in a few generations, such laws wouldn't be needed since idiots would have been bred out of the system.

I was at a regional tech director meeting a couple weeks ago where an automated data back up solution for PCs was touted. The salesman began his pitch by asking how many districts have provided their staff a mean of backing up their data. All hands went up. But then he asked, "What percentage of your staff actually DOES back up their data?" The hands went down and the faces all looked a little sheepish. The salesman went on to explain how his little commercial product would take responsibly for backing up computer workstations out of the hands of the individual user and place it firmly in the lap of the technology department - for the low, low price of...

Here is my question: Do we really want the work of people who won't back up their data preserved? Might there be a kind of Darwinian "survival of the fittest" when it comes to digital information? The work of the lazy, incompetent, and careless disappears forever with the crash of a single hard drive. The work of the industrious, intelligent, and cautious is preserved for posterity through back ups.

Orignal post June 3, 2010