>In the event of global catastrophe we won't even know what we need to learn. It's worse than that since even if we had books the real knowledge about how to r

>In the event of global catastrophe we won't even know what we need to learn. It's worse than that since even if we had books the real knowledge about how to rebuild is stored in past generations of doers. Even if you had a physical book on how to make a smelter, or a car factory, or even how to hunt for food, that is far different than actually doing it, having experience with it. I think many people, especially geeks, vastly overestimate their ability to adapt to changing conditions with the aid of books, physical or otherwise. Also, you're right - all things being equal, digital content in lieu of physical books is strictly worse. The oldest words we know of were written in stone, clay, papyrus. Words that were written in magnetic particles only 10 years ago are lost entirely.