Home Libraries Will Save Civilization

As someone who likes to read things of technical, scientific and practical nature, my only issue is their usefulness to the next generation, a problem which bothers me whenever I attempt to embark on this sort of project. Am I, an avid hardcover first edition signed by author book collector, wasting my time by amassing the texts du jour whose practicality is already on the edge? Never mind the ancient texts I collect, not as a collector per-se, but because I want to read them as they were once read and intended to be read. To posit, I really like the old books on electricity and discovery of phenomena, by the likes of Thomson for example who in turn calls out Maxwell and so on. But absolutely nobody has any use for that shit nowadays as the methods of teaching and distilling information have far surpassed these long dead inventors. I then ask, we’ll what’s the point other than a curiosity? So I find myself at a loss. How to stock up a library that will serve a future generation rather than an old dog like myself. And I keep going around in circles as a result.

The newer books of course compared to the old are by their technical achievements quite a marvel to look at. Even a coffee table book nowadays has an immense value to the curious mind due to the degree that they are able to capture in detail things which previously we hemmed and hawed over with crude drawings.

Physical books are great. I love physical books. But (among other downsides) they take too much space. I've got just over 2,500 books on my Kindle. That's more than 200 linear feet of shelf space if they were physical books.

My ideal library is a hybrid: physical for art books, kid's books, reference books, large format or special edition, signed copies or sentimental treasures, etc., and digital for everything else. An iPad as a digital card catalog for the entire collection and a couple of Kindles for actual reading. (Impossible to browse on a Kindle ...)

The decline of literacy is unfortunate.

But I would mention that most people were illiterate in most societies known as civilizations (ancient Greece, etc). Mass literacy is a society phenomenon - coming out of industrial societies.

The thing were have now, however, isn't so much illiteracy as pathological scattering of attention. Perhaps that would go away if our society experienced a cataclysm disabling all the smart devices out there.

There's not much space between having a "Home Library" and hording... it's way too easy to get carried away, and cross it. 8(

It's sad to contemplate, but I think the closing of bookstores leads the eventual disappearance of home libraries. Everything could be digitized and saved, but the copyright cartels aren't about to let that happen, are they? 8(

Totally expected this to be about how, after earth’s digital information is wiped out by a solar event, the knowledge of how we do anything will only be preserved in physical books.

I think about this often, as I’m reading or listening to a digital book, and I’ve started going back to buying more physical books.

> Home libraries will save civilization. Why? Because a home overcrowded with books sets the tone for how its inhabitants spend their time at home. Bored? Read a book. Want something to do for fun? Read a book. Have friends over? Read a book together. Relaxed family night at home? Start a read-aloud.

As much as I would like this to be more true, it is just very disconnected from reality. Lots of homes have books and other things that are maybe healthier ways to spend time. But that doesn’t stop the occupants from being sucked into the vortex of social media or television or whatever else. Things like TikTok activate all the pleasure pathways that exist, especially in young children that don’t have the self-control needed to withstand their addictive qualities.

Or take your kids to the library

When private edifices rival public institutions, it should give people pause that there is policy failure or decline teetering on collapse.

I find the idea of a home filled with books and its inhabitants talking about them pretty romantic.

Does anyone else find themselves talking about insipid “headlines” with certain relatives? Like various wars and political events

Because that stuff is saturating our media environment and seems to be what people read

We need to carve a few (many actually) books onto stone tablets. That's the only way they will be preserved. We could easily build stone cutting machines to do it.

The tablets could be stored in caves.

I go through phases of mostly reading online vs mostly reading printed books. I strongly suspect that pieces like this, which focus on saving print culture, are driven more by emotion than reason.

Just because it's in print doesn't mean it's worth reading. For example, many printed books are literally fiction. If you read something online, more likely than not it is at least "based on a true story".

Our culture attaches a certain significance to reading printed literature. It's supposed to make you deeper and more cultured. That's very nice, but I don't think reading classic literature as a hobby is meaningfully different from, say, listening to avant-garde jazz or reading old superhero comics as a hobby. I'm skeptical reading fiction makes you a better friend, worker, or citizen. Just makes you more "cultured". (Which is fine!)

What about nonfiction? A lot of nonfiction doesn't respect the reader's time. "This book should've been a blog post; this blog post should've been a tweet." Nonfiction print authors tend to devote many words to irrelevant anecdotes, stating common sense, or repeating a point they already made.

And just because it's in print doesn't mean the information is accurate. I know one blogger who started doing spot-checks and concluded many printed books have inaccurate info:

>I was worried my epistemic spot checking project was doomed before it began. The well regarded Sapiens dismissed a link between cultural and genetic evolution, and Last Ape Standing made two explosively wrong errors in the first chapter. Neither related to human evolution (one was about modern extreme poverty and the other about cetacean evolution), but I just couldn’t let them go. I worried that every book was terrible if you actually fact checked it, or maybe just every book on the emergence of homonids?

https://acesounderglass.com/2017/04/18/epistemic-spot-check-...

Finally -- we forget much of what we read anyways!

So in conclusion, I don't think it's print culture which is good, so much as social media that's bad.