(2016-03-07) Szabo The Trouble With Books

Nick Szabo: The trouble with books (Printed Book)

Chinese printed works were vast but rare. European books were smaller but still too long. Internet works are the actual length a reader needs (cf Thin Book), they are (or soon will be) available practically everywhere, and often readers can interact frequently with the author.

Magazines and newspapers involve smaller form factors, but they still draw from a very small pool of authors. These authors can only write in detail about a wider variety of subjects by pretending to know things that they don't (Gell-Mann Amnesia).

On the Internet you can read much less per-author text (and thus, potentially at least, far more thought out per word) from a much greater number and variety of authors.

The Internet also can be more interactive with more select groups than the old face-to-face + snail-mail + books regime— providing much more opportunity for Socratic dialog, glossing, and other intellectual processes that were too often neglected after Gutenberg.