by latexr | 2025-06-28 15:33:26+00:00
> They don't, your mind isn't big enough to worry about everything you store digitally.

Patently incorrect. I did worry. Not about the contents of every little thing, but the fact that they existed. Some unmanaged, some improperly categorised, some perfectly triaged but no longer useful…

> The article at least established personal issues with maintaining the notes, but you failed to even try!

What does that even mean, “failed to even try”? Did you fail to even try to give me a recipe for chocolate cake? I didn’t think that would be relevant, so I didn’t mention it. But alright, I gave you some details in the rest of the post. All you had to do was ask, no need to criticise others for not doing something they didn’t even knew you wanted.

> How is it relevant when "your feelings don’t apply to them and their decision."?

That’s not the jab you seem to think it is. It is relevant precisely as way of example of something similar to the author. It is precisely so I don‘t speak for them that I gave you a personal example that is close enough. It presents “the other side” (people who delete) in a way we can engage without assuming anything about the author.

First you complain that I “failed to even try” to talk about my experience, then you complain when I talked about my experience in that very same post. Please make up your mind.

> What crystal ball with the perfect visibility into the rest of your life have you glanced this certainty from?

Do you not see how this counter argument is counter productive? By the same token, I could ask you by what crystal ball do you know neither I nor the author are better off by the deletion of material. The answer is: you don’t. And maybe I can’t know for certainty either, but I sure as hell know myself better than you know me. And I do know what I threw away in the past, and the things I lost accidentally (tangential issue), and I know what my attitude and life repercussions have been. And for that, I can say with certainty I prefer things as they are, with the deletion.

> I didn't talk about regret.

Changing your mind about something you did isn’t regret? Alright then, let’s forget the word, replace it instead of “that feeling of wasted time”. Doesn’t really change the argument (because, crucially, that’s not what an ad hominem is).

> You don't have the old version, so you wouldn't know whether you've confirmed or rejected anything.

Deleting a digital file doesn’t erase your memory. But either way, I meant confirmation in the sense of reasserting the research. Doesn’t matter what the old version said, only that the new one is correct. Also, crucially, if in your scenario you can’t be sure of what the old version said, then you also don’t know if the time was wasted or not.

> Don't stop here, what's the usefulness?

It’s in that exact same sentence you quoted. It’s literally all the rest of it that you cut from the quote.

> You could say exactly the same thing about reading your old notes

With the monumental difference that in this case the old notes were a cause of stress. In hundreds of notes, maybe you’ll have to recreate one or two. Or maybe none. Yet not having all the other cruft is absolutely worth the trade off. Maybe not for you, but certainly for me, and probably the author of the post.