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It's a funny way of putting forward a very true phenomena: there's less effort and risk involved with saying what you want to say in a book or pamphlet, leading

It's a funny way of putting forward a very true phenomena: there's less effort and risk involved with saying what you want to say in a book or pamphlet, leading to people who pick up those ideas and take them further. Ideas can spread like wildfire, easily, with no social or physical threats to curb them. There would be a great deal less of that, if it weren't for the printing press.

drekipus 3y ago
Someone has to print and distribute your book. It has to get through someone, and cost real money. There's still, obviously, a cost element involved. The internet is automated, it removes that risk. I can tell you that I had sex with your mother, and there's nothing you can do about it except try and report me to dang. Or flag it to some automated system, which doesn't exist the same for all systems. A newspaper is a better analogy. Crappier newspapers would die out quicker.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  There's always a cost involved. The printing press reduced the cost by orders of magnitude, just as the internet did -- but it's not free, even if it might seem virtually free compared to how much things cost before. The idea that New Technology is harming us isn't new and it's mostly wrong. It's cheaper for the bigot to share his ideas and it's cheaper for others to share counter-ideas, whether it's via the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, the tape recorder, e-mail, USENET, the world-wide web, social media, etc. There's _less_ cost and risk with each advancement, but that doesn't mean _no_ cost and risk. Consider e-mail spam, which is really really cheap to send but it still isn't free. Notably, spamming larger volumes adds some economy of scale but also introduces new costs and risks because the larger volume makes it easier for folks to identify and block the spammer.

drekipus 3y ago

Someone has to print and distribute your book. It has to get through someone, and cost real money. There's still, obviously, a cost element involved. The internet is automated, it removes that risk. I can tell you that I had sex with your mother, and there's nothing you can do about it except try and report me to dang. Or flag it to some automated system, which doesn't exist the same for all systems. A newspaper is a better analogy. Crappier newspapers would die out quicker.

brightlancer 3y ago
There's always a cost involved. The printing press reduced the cost by orders of magnitude, just as the internet did -- but it's not free, even if it might seem virtually free compared to how much things cost before. The idea that New Technology is harming us isn't new and it's mostly wrong. It's cheaper for the bigot to share his ideas and it's cheaper for others to share counter-ideas, whether it's via the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, the tape recorder, e-mail, USENET, the world-wide web, social media, etc. There's _less_ cost and risk with each advancement, but that doesn't mean _no_ cost and risk. Consider e-mail spam, which is really really cheap to send but it still isn't free. Notably, spamming larger volumes adds some economy of scale but also introduces new costs and risks because the larger volume makes it easier for folks to identify and block the spammer.