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Chris Who

If you could do me a favor, the next time you buy a book from an indie bookseller or Amazon (bleh), buy a physical book.

The Dark Ages occurred in part because the Christian Church outlawed books and learning, and the only reason European society didn't fall even further back than it did was because other cultures (most notably Islam) collected books in huge libraries.

Now think of how many books you/we will have if Tech billionaires decide books don't really need to be a thing.

Hoard books.

@chriswho

Agree with buying physical books. Choose an indy book seller first though! Amazon should be last resort. Bezos doesn't need a bigger yacht!

@chriswho

Thinking about this....

Given the high consolidation of the publishing market, even buying books mostly means buying books approved by people who have the approval of a handful of mostly rich white men.

Somehow we need to not just support the indy book sellers but also the indie publishers and the self published works out there who did not get the capitalism nod of approval.

@chu Definitely! Hunt the local bookseller, or the local used shop for wierd, interesting or out of print books. Get in the indie bookseller grapevine!

@laprice Thank you for that. Edit made.

I guess it was really only correct if an Orcish swarm was bringing you their war machines and their top ten reading list. 😜

@chriswho I recommend alibris.com/ --> new and out of print books - no ebooks

@chriswho Yeah, but then your room fills up with books and there is no room for anything else including you.

@MarkAsser @jredlund Bookshelves on the walls of every room solves both this problem and the irritation of painting/decorating with anything but books.

Two birds with one stone.

:blobcatcaramelldansen:

@chriswho If the point is to have as many redundant copies as possible of literature in case of a sudden loss of some portion of it, digital books are actually a boon to that effort. Of the books I own, I usually have a decrypted copy on two computers and several e-readers. The real danger is that people will buy licenses to temporarily access encrypted versions of books, and not realize that they don’t really own them. Buy DRM-free!

@odd Yes! Definitely. Space can be an issue for individual home library. So more DRM free books are a solution. DRM free is the minimum we should be asking for. Also, if you have some good paper and a proper printer, don't feel bad about printing them out (double sided) and displaying them proudly!

@chriswho

The Renaissance and Enlightenment could only happen when this information seeped back in to the European consciousness

@Henrysbridge Absolutely! Imagine where we'd be right now if we hadn't lost those centuries to ignorance and superstition.

I'm not against religion - as I mentioned Islamic cultures really helped preserve classic literature during the Dark Ages - but the church is once again looming large in what it considers an appropriate book for anyone outside of church/government leadership.

But thank you for that comment. You said more in one sentence than I was able to in 2 posts. :blobcat_praise:

@chriswho You sound like someone who owns their own home and/or can afford to pay for professional movers. I've lived in the same apartment for 10 years but after having to move four times in five years before that I refuse to own more than 10 linear shelf feet of physical books at one time now.

@mnemonicoverload I understand where you're coming from, but neither of those things are true in my case

I'm mid fifties and have rented my entire life as from 2000 I was unable to work. I'm also a huge fan of technology and all the ways in which it can enhance our lives

I do feel strongly that when we as a civilization rely on the largess of billionaires and tech companies to permit access to our written knowledge and history we are introducing a massive weak spot to our continued literacy.

@chriswho "I do feel strongly that when we as a civilization rely on the largess of billionaires and tech companies to permit access to our written knowledge and history we are introducing a massive weak spot to our continued literacy."

That we very much agree on. For me, for practicality's sake though that means my first preference is to support authors who release their works in downloadable formats without DRM. Physical books come second for me with the knowledge that once I've finished reading it's getting passed on to someone else.

@mnemonicoverload Mastodon...where people have discussions and pleasant interactions! :AI_Yay:

@chriswho what's wrong with drm-free epubs and pdfs?

@isibell Intrinsically, nothing. However they still rely on technology in order to be usable.

I am not saying we're likely to experience an event that will render technology unusable and therefore render anything on that technology useless.

I am, however, pointing out that in the past the resiliency of a civilization has been in media that were able to be passed through centuries, if not millennia in a similar format.

It's also a great reason to hoard books. :D