A Brief History of the Internet: The Bright Side: The Dark SideHart, Michael
History
A Brief History of the Internet: The Bright Side: The Dark Side
Hart, Michael
Computer networks -- United States -- History; Internet -- History
Those who would prefer to think their worlds would be
destroyed by infinite availability of books such as:
Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Aesop's Fables or the
Complete Works of Shakespeare, Milton or others, have
ridiculed the efforts of those who would give them to
all free of charge by arguing about whether it should
be: "To be or not to be" or "To be [,] or not to be"
or "To be [;] or not to be"/"To be [:] or not to be"
or whatever; and that whatever their choices are, for
this earthshaking matter, that no other choice should
be possible to anyone else. My choice of editions is
final because _I_ have a scholarly opinion.
1A. My response has been to refuse to discuss: "How
many angels can dance on the head of a pin," [or many
other matters of similar importance].
I know this was once considered of utmost importance,
BUT IN A COUNTRY WHERE HALF THE ADULTS COULD NOT EVEN
READ SHAKESPEARE IF IT WERE GIVEN TO THEM, I feel the
general literacy and literary requirements overtake a
decision such as theirs. If they honestly wanted the
best version of Shakespeare [in their estimations] to
be the default version on the Internet, they wouldn't
have refused to create just such an edition, wouldn't
have shot down my suggested plan to help them make it
. . .for so many years. . .nor, when they finally did
agree, they wouldn't have let an offer from a largest
wannabee Etext provider to provide them with discount
prices, and undermine their resolve to create a super
quality public domain edition of Shakespeare. It was
an incredible commentary on the educational system in
that the Shakespeare edition we finally did use for a
standard Internet Etext was donated by a commercial--
yes--commercial vendor, who sells it for a living.
In fact, I must state for the record, that education,
as an institution, has had very little to do with the
creation and distribution of Public Domain Etexts for
the public, and that contributions by the commercial,
capitalistic corporations has been the primary force,
by a large margin, that funds Project Gutenberg. The
500 volunteers we have come exclusively from smaller,
less renowned institutions of education, without any,
not one that I can think of, from any of the major or
near major educational institutions of the world.
It would appear that those Seven Deadly Sins listed a
few paragraphs previously have gone a long way to the
proof of the saying that "Power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely."
Power certainly accrues to those who covet it and the
proof of the pudding is that all of the powerful club
we have approached have refused to assist in the very
new concept of truly Universal Education.
Members of those top educational institutions managed
to subscribe to our free newsletter often enough, but
not one of them ever volunteered to do a book or even
to donate a dollar for what they have received: even
send in lists of errors they say they have noticed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account