Quote:
Originally Posted by Ankh
Uhm... I've got impression that his fear was more specific, that he fears the loss of identity of "The Book" during the transformation. That one Project Gutenberg is sentenced to the irrelevance if it is forced to live in the cacophony of... not so good content that defines "The Net" as we know it.
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That would suggest that the greatest works of Shakespeare are somehow brought low simply because they are on display in the same bookstore that carries issues of
Maxim. He also suggests by that implication that storing multiple books in a reader, together, somehow devalues them, no matter what books they might be... my Works of Shakespeare are diminished because they share electronic space with each other, plus my collected Dickens and Lem novels.
I don't buy that, and I have a hard time believing that Kaufman can honestly believe that if he's thought it through. How many of us honestly believe the Internet is Evil, has no redeeming qualities, or should be struck down, because of some of the content it carries? I daresay not many. Kaufman seems to be one of those people. He attacks, e-books, the web and the Kindle equally as harbingers of Doom. It's an illogical, nigh-hysterical belief, based on a fear and subsequent denigration and dismissal of the unknown.