Conspiracy theory time!!!!
I remember being younger and thinking, this world was messed up and there are evil powers behind the scenes that control the mass of the population.
Now that I'm older, I'm convinced it's no longer a theory lol
But there's been one 'theory' that I've held pretty close to my heart and it started around a decade ago. If you've read my blog posts over the years, this may sound familiar but here it goes, for those that may not have heard me ramble before...
Fahrenheit 451 (the classic sci fi novel by Ray Bradbury) will go from science fiction to science fact in the future.
Now let me give you a bit of history on why I believe this. I'm a big book guy! Like, my perfect afternoon is a cup of coffee in my reading nook with either a great book or my bible.
I honestly cannot think of a better way to spend my free time.
And for decades now, I've been building my personal library. Not on ebook readers, not on my phone, physical books....And I treasure them more than words can say.
My 'conspiracy theory' was that in the future, the powers that be will want to control information and the eduction of the masses. And they will do that by simply 'changing the words' found within the printed pages of your favorite book.
And I'm not even going to get in on what I think 'tech' will do when it comes to religious texts. That's pretty much why I've been buying up bibles left, right and center over the pat half decade or so.
Imagine my 'shock' when this popped up on my social media feeds this morning...
So I did some digging and apparently this is a real thing lol
These tech and AI companies are buying up printed books to scan them and have them uploaded digitally. Which is fine but look what they do with the printed versions after....
They shred them.
Fahrenheit 451 is literally becoming a reality.
If you aren't aware of the story, basically in the novel, books are outlawed. Burned in fact. And the 'powers that be' control the information that you can digest.
Yeah, this isn't a good thing at all.
And another reason why I've never been a fan of the obsession people seem to have with Skynet. While I'm sure there are plenty of fantastic use cases for this kind of tech, when you start deciding what is and what is not fact because of opinions...Welp.
This is not going to end well.
So what can we do? The little peons in this game called life?
I continue to buy printed versions of books.
I continue to buy printed bibles.
And I will most definitely continue to build my personal library for years to come, God willing.
Maybe I'm just looking way too much into it. But I just can't help but think, these kind of announcements of what is happening with printed books, is dangerous.
Maybe it's the book lover in me....Maybe it's something else.
Maybe....We should read some more ;)
8 comments
It just seems like AI is going into everything churning out as much slop as they can. It makees m wonder sometimes.
I think there could be some big time business models for the counter-AI culture that is quickly developing.
Read books, collect books, write, and fight censorship. When I was a librarian, I saw the left try to restrict books based on accusations of "racism" and "hate," while the right wants to do the same based on calling it "degenerate." We don't have to agree with someone's views to oppose efforts to silence them.
"They aren't't really banned, because you can go buy them at Amazon!" Bullshit. If your politics dictate what a library carries instead of allowing staff to select books based on community interest and what is a hot-button topic, you are absolutely engaging in censorship. Don't want to fund books you dislike? I don't want my tax burden funding authoritarian nationalist warmonger bullshit, but here we are. Censorship doesn't strike the root.
Yeah we are now being told what we are to believe. Scary times ahead.
It is sad to hear that physical books are being shredded after feeding the information to the AI
it is for sure
That is very concerning and dangerous if they are deliberately destroy books
very much so