Paper books will never die
The most synergetic way of storing knowledge
(Ironically, when I typed “book” to find an illustration for this article, the first results were e-readers…)
In a previous article about analog design, I wrote that I would come back in more details on the topic of paper books. I personally think that paper books are more relevant than ever and here is why.
Digitalization
Digitalization of the ways we gather and store knowledge or art is a real phenomenon that is quite global, with some differences in countries with a culture attached to the print book format. For now, paper books are not an endangered species but I do think that we should be aware of what is going on in terms of access to the means of creation, dissemination and retention of knowledge and art.
Most of the stats we can find about paper book market is the number of books that are sold per year but if we dig a little bit we realize that it is mostly about fiction. How-to books are also in vogue and this can be good news in terms of synergetic way of life as long as the content is relevant and seriously presented (a prerequisite that we cannot really certify unfortunately or just for a few books, since the quantity of publications is gigantic).
But some of these books are now bought in their audio format, that is mostly digital! And even if it is not the majority of them, it still has an impact on our way of accessing information.
Historical works and essays are apparently quite rare in terms of purchase and that is honestly a bummer. Indeed, when you deprive people from knowing who they are and where they come from, you tend to get whatever you want from them and this is not something desirable in my opinion, even regarding the principles of synergetic design (mostly because it tends to squash and prevent innovation).
Philosophy, epistemology, logic but also any kind of science (meaning an activity whose aim is to find the truth, and it therefore includes history) are extremely useful tools to better understand our reality and figure out where we want to go. I am not saying that this is absolutely necessary but the positive effects of these fields of knowledge can be numerous, even if they are not exempted from all the possible human biases. In short: better have it than being deprived.
Algorithms
In parallel of digitalization, we are facing today a wide spread of very complex algorithms marketingly called “artificial intelligence” or AI.
These modern algorithms can help anyone automate works that would otherwise require months to be done without this technological assistance. These works can be positive or neutral in terms of synergy, I totally recognize it. But, and this is important here, AI can also help making super antagonistic works (anti-synergetic).
In fact, when the media began two years ago to talk about AI in unison every day with very excited or terrifying headlines, I immediately thought about digital content.
Totalitarianism
If we add to these first two pieces of information the fact that it is now common for editors to consider books as re-writable because their original version does not fit in their standards/agendas, we have every data in hands to see what horrible future could emerge.
If we are heading towards a highly digital, AI-monitored, totalitarian-designed future, George Orwell’s most nightmarish dystopia would be pale in comparison.
Just imagine for a second that most of our knowledge would be stored on the big cloud, and that its content could be re-written at will by the people that would control the algorithms.
And please, please, do not try to convince me that free software will solve this. As I already explained in a previous article, free software is impotent as it is, and probably will be forever. I am not talking about setting up a self hosted Mediawiki, I am talking of people that can implant undetectable spyware in microchips, that have the power to whitelist Internet packages or even unplug connections if they want to.
I am not saying that they will do all of that everywhere at the same time. In fact, it is better for them not to since the Internet is also a way of gathering data to know people better and can be used as a valve of security for contestations but this is off-topic.
What I am saying is that at one point, we could be totally unable to be sure that what we are reading is what we are supposed to be reading. We could reach levels of control over information that could withdraw any autonomy and any form of certainty from us. And, again, this is some of the best way of creating an antagonistic situation and I am certain that this is also a very straightforward path to spiritual collapse, depression and madness.
Freedom of information
I use here the word “information” in its broadest sense and, as I explained in my article about the design of knowledge, the way we deal with it is extremely important for the synergy of our designs and our lives in general.
About paper books, I consider them as the most satisfying way of solving the problem I previously raised. Of course, we could think about Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 but I am sure that even the most extreme measures of censorship cannot destroy all the paper books of people that want to keep their free will somehow.
That said, it is not necessary to go that far to worry about our immediate access to information and that is why, I personally gather for a while now paper books that I consider important (mostly practical books but I invite everyone to get a maximum of paper books of any sort, that appear interesting, relevant, amazing, etc.). Acting this way, we tend to ensure that we will keep access no matter what to vivid information and on that matter, the closer to the original work of the authors, the better.
Long live print books!
Great article :)