The Third Cultural Revolution

August 15, 2023

Looking back at how knowledge was produced and distributed over the centuries, I like to define three crucial inventions that each changed the economics of this process: writing, printing press, and Internet.

First Cultural Revolution: Writing #

The importance of writing in knowledge distribution is so self-evident that almost doesn’t need any other argument to describe it as a cultural revolution. Before that, knowledge could be transferred only by direct example or orally as stories. However, the worst written record is far more durable than the best told story and written records, in stone or clay or papyrus, became the preferred method for knowledge preservation. From an economic point of view, writing was not cheap. Producing an inscription on a pyramid required skill, time, and effort. Besides there was no way to reproduce and distribute that knowledge. Technological advances replaced stone and clay with papyrus, parchment and paper, lowering the cost of producing knowledge and allowing it to be reproduced. Sometimes, reproducing was a necessity imposed by the limited life of ink and paper. In the libraries of medieval monasteries many monks were transcribing manuscripts just to preserve old, deteriorating ones.

At any rate, the cost of both producing and distributing knowledge was high and that explains the elitist status of reading and writing. Very few had access to knowledge and masses needed intermediaries, in most cases priests, to tell them what was written in those books.

Second Cultural Revolution: Printing Press #

Gutenberg’s printing press changed the economics of knowledge distribution by dramatically lowering the cost of reproduction. While it was still time-consuming and expensive to produce a book, reproducing was relatively cheap and permitted a large dissemination of knowledge. Before, only the super-rich (like royalty) or super-rich institutions (like the Catholic Church), could afford to have a library i.e. a private deposit of knowledge. Now even middle class people could begin to afford one.

The first two Gutenberg “best-sellers” prove the bewildering impact of this invention on society: the Bible and the Witches’ Hammer. On one side printing promoted the Protestant Reform by spreading Martin Luther’s 95 theses throughout Europe in only two months and thus starting the religious wars that extended well into the 17th century. On the other side it inflamed the witch trials that led to more than 40,000 deaths¹.

Anyway, books continued to spread becoming the backbone of the Age of Enlightenment and inflaming society with revolutionary ideas. Arguably, Diderot’s Encyclopedia was a contributing factor to French revolution. It might not be a pure coincidence that the end of feudalism begins when the printing starts.

Creating books still remained an expensive proposition. Diderot’s encyclopedia, mentioned before, represents the work of 1000 people during 24 years. Even for normal books, due to economic reasons, publishers needed to choose wisely what they would publish and in most cases they choose conservatively, preferring well-known authors to up-and-coming ones. Having a good editor was essential for a publisher to avoid the trap of books that don’t sell because they are either too avant-garde or too boring. The punishment was swift and came as bankruptcy.

Third Cultural Revolution: The Internet #

The age of personal computers, the Internet and the AI has again uprooted the knowledge production and distribution. It doesn’t cost anything to publish a book and tens of thousands of people have jumped to sites like Kindle Direct Publishing to have their books published. That dreaded person, the editor, the gate-keeper, has been removed and suddenly anyone can create ‘knowledge’ and distribute it. The problem is just that: the gate-keeper has been removed and there is no way to say if the knowledge you get is worth the time you spent on reading, or listening, or looking at it. Even worse, it is hard to say if said ‘knowledge’ is true or simply an invention.

We are starting to see some of the effects. First, we find that we are not well-equipped for critical thinking. It was probably a reason why in past centuries the job of literary critic was left for the few who had an inclination for such pursuits. Most of us are subject to confirmation bias and instead of looking at ideas that don’t fit our frame of mind, we prefer to stay with sources that confirm our own beliefs.

Secondly, because we have to invest time in acquiring knowledge of dubious value, we start to take it only in little portions like tweets or TikTok videos. From a consumer’s point of view, it is a reasonable strategy: at least he or she doesn’t loose much time if the information is useless. Few people are willing to invest a few hours of reading or viewing on the Internet for content created by a complete unknown or a fabulation from an AI bot. That forces information creators to break it down in smaller and smaller pieces: from emails and blogs down to Facebook posts, tweets and TikTok videos. Unfortunately there isn’t much knowledge that can be acquired from 140 or 280 characters.

Quo Vadis? #

The economics of knowledge and information field changed in three steps: expensive to produce, expensive to distribute; expensive to produce, cheap to distribute; cheap to produce, cheap to distribute. How will we be able to handle the flood of petabytes and exabytes of information produced now? Steve Jobs was saying that you can connect the dots only looking backward². So looking back from the French Revolution we can trace a line to Diderot’s Encyclopedists, to religious wars and to Gutenberg’s printing press. Looking the other way, you might say that Gutenberg indirectly invented the guillotine; but then what did Zuckerberg invent? It’s probably safe to use Zhou Enlai’s apocryphal quote about the French Revolution: “Too early to say”. At least we’ve got to live the Chinese curse – we are living in interesting times³.