<nettime> killing gutenberg

[Nis Jasper Nicolaisen <jnicolaisen@gmx.de>]

Dear Mr.Gutenberg,

everybody´s talking about your rotating press right now and what major
changes it´s gonna bring in the way we write, read and even think.
But frankly, I don´t see the point.
We´ve had words before, hadn´t we ? We even had an alphabet to write them
down.I have written thousands of letters in the course of my life and I´m proud
to say I´ve read almost ten books besides the bible.

So what´s gonna change just because we´re gonna have books produced faster
and in larger numbers ? Putting language in another form and distributing it
in another way doesn´t change what can be said with it - or at least that´s
what I think ! Books are and will continue to be only for those betrusted by
god with leading humankind - the church and the nobles, mainly.Why should books
be made available for the simpler folks, anyway ?
And how many books can one single human being read in his life anyway - 10 ?
20 maybe ? That´s just the way it is.That´s human nature, and human nature
can´t be changed.It´s eternal.It´s not subject to social and technological
change.

And what good can printed books do anyway ? They certainly won´t change the
world.The rich and the mighty are going to buy all your printing presses and
tell all the poor and supressed what to think - just like they´ve always
done.With the printing press, you´ve just invented another means for the ruling
classes to rule.In my opinion, the humble peasant would have a greater chance
to free himself from the bonds of slavery if he wasn´t occupied with reading
all the time and having his mind poisioned by the lies of kings and popes and
the likes (I´ve borrowed the term ´ruling class´ from a nice book I´ve
recently read).

So words are words and pictures are pictures and humans are humans and we´ve
all seen that before.Why print all of it again ? Just to make YOU rich,
Mr.Gutenberg ?

Yours,
a thoughtful contemporary

P.S: : Is there any way for me to have this letter printed ? I´d like to use
the possibilities of the new media to spread my opinions about why they
won´t do any good to anyone.

-- 
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net

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