“Undesired knowledge is useless knowledge,” said Dors. “Can you imagine all the time, effort, and energy expended in a continual refurbishing of unused data? And that wastage would grow steadily more extreme with time.” “Surely, you would have to allow for the fact that someone at some time might need the data being so carelessly disposed of.” “A particular item might be wanted once in a thousand years. To save it all just in case of such a need isn’t cost-effective. Even in science.
