From what I understand, a lot of knowledge was lost following the collapse of the Roman Empire as manuscripts were no longer being copied at the established frequency and information that had lost relevance (for certain jobs etc.) wasn’t being passed down.
If a catastrophic event were to happen nowadays, how much information would we theoretically lose? Is the knowledge of the world, stored digitally or on printed books, safer than it was before?
All the information online for example - does that have a greater chance of surviving millennia than say a preserved manuscript?
Unless special means to safekeep it are done, electronic means of data storage are less likely to survive a millennia than papers kept in a cave, assuming no one is around to maintain things.
I can’t remember who did it (Discovery, BBC or History Channel; one of those), but there was a whole big documentary special about what would happen to Earth if humans just up and vanished one day. About the only things that would really last a decent amount of time, were things made of granite or marble or other stone not much affected by erosion.