Comments on: From digi to p-books: A fun ‘What if?’ http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:55:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Steve Jordan http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/comment-page-1/#comment-1134606 Steve Jordan Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:00:40 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/08/25/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/#comment-1134606 Or maybe I should try this scenario: Since we've obviously had electronics since the 1400s, that would mean we've also had the incredible infrastructure that goes with it, including the pollution caused by 500 years of (probably coal-fired) electric plants, and global warming that started 300 years ago. Suddenly, we discover paper... and to fuel the world's "paper frenzy," we start clearcutting forests, at just the time when our ecosystem is the most vulnerable. Hello, paper. Goodbye, already-suffering planet. Or maybe I should try this scenario: Since we’ve obviously had electronics since the 1400s, that would mean we’ve also had the incredible infrastructure that goes with it, including the pollution caused by 500 years of (probably coal-fired) electric plants, and global warming that started 300 years ago.

Suddenly, we discover paper… and to fuel the world’s “paper frenzy,” we start clearcutting forests, at just the time when our ecosystem is the most vulnerable. Hello, paper. Goodbye, already-suffering planet.

]]> By: Steve Jordan http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/comment-page-1/#comment-1134601 Steve Jordan Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:52:05 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/08/25/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/#comment-1134601 Following Dan's logic, they'll still fall... but by the time they hit the ground, they have become sticks and stones. All in all, it's just a silly way for Dan to make the point that he'd like to see people go back to the old ways (at least the way he imagines them as he <em>writes his web blog</em>). Since I don't have an overriding nostalgia for the "good old days," I really wouldn't see the point in going backwards, any more than I'd see the point of abandoning high speed trains in favor of steam engines. Following Dan’s logic, they’ll still fall… but by the time they hit the ground, they have become sticks and stones.

All in all, it’s just a silly way for Dan to make the point that he’d like to see people go back to the old ways (at least the way he imagines them as he writes his web blog). Since I don’t have an overriding nostalgia for the “good old days,” I really wouldn’t see the point in going backwards, any more than I’d see the point of abandoning high speed trains in favor of steam engines.

]]> By: David Rothman http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/comment-page-1/#comment-1134508 David Rothman Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:21:06 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/08/25/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/#comment-1134508 Now, Steve, what about Billy Pilgrim's vision in the Vonnegut book on the firebombing of Dresden---Slaughterhouse-Five? Going backwards, will we now talk about the bombs <em>still</em> falling---rather than <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/04/01/incompatible-arrows-ii-kurt-vonnegut/" rel="nofollow">going back up into the bomb bays</a>? David Now, Steve, what about Billy Pilgrim’s vision in the Vonnegut book on the firebombing of Dresden—Slaughterhouse-Five?

Going backwards, will we now talk about the bombs still falling—rather than going back up into the bomb bays?

David

]]> By: Steve Jordan http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/comment-page-1/#comment-1134482 Steve Jordan Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:30:18 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/08/25/from-digi-to-p-books-a-fun-what-if/#comment-1134482 Well, I suppose eventually, the world population would decrease from the billions to the millions, fewer people in the world would mean a reversal of global warming, until the glaciers advanced, mankind was pushed back to Africa where it devolved back to its simian ancestors, until the dinosaurs came back, only to be wiped out as the planet lost its cooling ability and resumed being a molten mass of elements careening around the young Solar System. Boy, that was fun! Let's do it again! Well, I suppose eventually, the world population would decrease from the billions to the millions, fewer people in the world would mean a reversal of global warming, until the glaciers advanced, mankind was pushed back to Africa where it devolved back to its simian ancestors, until the dinosaurs came back, only to be wiped out as the planet lost its cooling ability and resumed being a molten mass of elements careening around the young Solar System.

Boy, that was fun! Let’s do it again!

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