-Removed-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.
-Removed-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.
-Removed-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 normbenignSo 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 Dark Ages were dark because reading was suppressed.
The internet has transformed the world so substantially, that one could justifiably call the period prior to the internet 'the dark ages'.