One day in an undetermined distant future there will be no books, as they will have been banned due to some new-age pinko tree-hugging warlord declaring them environmentally unsound. Everyone will be ingesting the New World fascist pulp which has been sanitised, edited and 'authorised' for public use - the daily download of propaganda straight to your Kindle. Freedom of the written word will be gone and the digitised manipulation of mankind will be under way.
e-readers are the first step in our abdication of free thought.
Originally posted by divegeester One day in an undetermined distant future there will be no books, as they will have been banned due to some new-age pinko tree-hugging warlord declaring them environmentally unsound. Everyone will be ingesting the New World fascist pulp which has been sanitised, edited and 'authorised' for public use - the daily download of propaganda straight to your K ...[text shortened]... mankind will be under way.
e-readers are the first step in our abdication of free thought.
E-readers are indicative of a society that is fundamentally flawed, but not for the reasons you put forward.
Originally posted by divegeester One day in an undetermined distant future there will be no books, as they will have been banned due to some new-age pinko tree-hugging warlord declaring them environmentally unsound. Everyone will be ingesting the New World fascist pulp which has been sanitised, edited and 'authorised' for public use - the daily download of propaganda straight to your K ...[text shortened]... mankind will be under way.
e-readers are the first step in our abdication of free thought.
Puleeze. The book and printed page was the e-reader of the past. Your notion is that any media can be controlled and turned into government propaganda, and that is true. It isn't the media's fault.
The fact is that in the year I've owned a Kindle, my reading has increased probably five fold due to the convenience, low cost, and availability of books often not stocked at book stores, or found in local libraries. Before the Kindle, my laptop was a way of getting material, without dedicating a new bookcase every year to storing books I might never read again.
Originally posted by normbenign Puleeze. The book and printed page was the e-reader of the past. Your notion is that any media can be controlled and turned into government propaganda, and that is true. It isn't the media's fault.
The fact is that in the year I've owned a Kindle, my reading has increased probably five fold due to the convenience, low cost, and availability of boo ...[text shortened]... rial, without dedicating a new bookcase every year to storing books I might never read again.
Try to look past my tongue-in-cheek Ray Bradburyish OP and consider a future where we have embraced technology to the point where we are trapped and controlled by it - is it such a stretch of your imagination? Do you think the establishment doesn't try to control information now? Imagine a society where there are no books because everything is online -no books, no newspapers, no magazines, no local libraries - just e-readers and what is available to download.
Originally posted by divegeester Try to look past my tongue-in-cheek Ray Bradburyish OP and consider a future where we have embraced technology to the point where we are trapped and controlled by it - is it such a stretch of your imagination? Do you think the establishment doesn't try to control information now? Imagine a society where there are no books because everything is online ...[text shortened]... ewspapers, no magazines, no local libraries - just e-readers and what is available to download.
Originally posted by divegeester Try to look past my tongue-in-cheek Ray Bradburyish OP and consider a future where we have embraced technology to the point where we are trapped and controlled by it - is it such a stretch of your imagination? Do you think the establishment doesn't try to control information now? Imagine a society where there are no books because everything is online ...[text shortened]... ewspapers, no magazines, no local libraries - just e-readers and what is available to download.
We don't need to imagine. The Dark Ages were dark because reading was suppressed. Books, starting with translation of the Bible into living languages by reformers began to enlighten people. Many languages in Europe were not written languages.
I can see reasonable guards against government controls of the press, libraries, and publications. All the more reason to keep government out of controls on the internet, despite the cries of folks determined to stop pornography or unpopular ideas.
As already stated, I love my Kindle. In the last ten months I've been able to read stuff I'd have had to make extraordinary efforts to get, and most of them were nearly free. I only wish more older books were available in this format. Bruce Catton's A Stillness at Appomattox was great and so much easier to handle than the hard cover copy of the same author's The Coming Fury.
Originally posted by divegeester One day in an undetermined distant future there will be no books, as they will have been banned due to some new-age pinko tree-hugging warlord declaring them environmentally unsound. Everyone will be ingesting the New World fascist pulp which has been sanitised, edited and 'authorised' for public use - the daily download of propaganda straight to your K ...[text shortened]... mankind will be under way.
e-readers are the first step in our abdication of free thought.
Spot on!! It's only a matter of time.
It reminds me of them tinkering with movies. For example, Blazzing Saddles I think was targeted as not being politically correct enough because they used the "N" word. Of course, the ironic part of it all was that the entire movie was a spoof on the stupidity of racism.
Originally posted by normbenign The Dark Ages were dark because reading was suppressed.
So why does the advent of a new age where reading is even less suppressed than before, apparently cause you to have the opposite reaction? Until the advent of the internet, communication and access to information was highly suppressed (not deliberately but largely due to cost and lack of technology.)
The internet has transformed the world so substantially, that one could justifiably call the period prior to the internet 'the dark ages'.
Originally posted by normbenign We don't need to imagine. The Dark Ages were dark because reading was suppressed. Books, starting with translation of the Bible into living languages by reformers began to enlighten people. Many languages in Europe were not written languages.
I can see reasonable guards against government controls of the press, libraries, and publications. All th and so much easier to handle than the hard cover copy of the same author's The Coming Fury.
Of course I am part of the potential problem, having just bought my wife a Kindle as an early Christmas present. Like you she loves it, and is already contributing to the downfall of the paperback by purchasing loads of stuff via the "convenient to use" wifi link straight to Amazon control.
Destroy all e-readers
30 Oct '11 09:16
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