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Comment by petermcneeley | Hacker News Reader

The catholic church fought the printing press for hundreds of years. Lets see how long our rulers fight the internet.

No they didn’t, quite the opposite, they were the main customers and and certainly accelerated the spread of the technology. Of course banning the printing of specific books is another matter.

Islamic countries OTOH handle banned or strictly restricted its use. Coincidentally most progress there ceased and they were stuck in the 1500s for the next 400 years or so..

The printing press was very much an invention /not/ at the disposal of the citizens. It analogizes poorly to the Internet.

Actually it's perfect. How long did it take rulers to go from fighting the printing press to using it for propaganda and their own ambitions? The internet has just speed run that same course.

> How long did it take rulers to go from fighting the printing press to using it for propaganda and their own ambitions?

Probably the moment something negative was published about them.

> The internet has just speed run that same course

And citizen journalism has never been more powerful.

There will be no invention of man that will eliminate jealousy, avarice or hatred. Objectively I'd rather be alive today than at any point in our recorded history.

Of course not, it’s the books that people had access to.

How many people are involved in ISPs, data centers, and other internet backbones? Most people are consumers rather than producers or "printing press" operators.

You just broadcast your voice to millions of people, became instantly archived in google and several other sites, all at zero direct cost to yourself, other than the monthly access fee.

There is an obvious distinction.

Finally I'd ask you to observe the entirety of social media's existence.

The vast majority of people never broadcast to the public like we're doing right now.

Best to revisit your ideas pf which leaflets were popular, and who was making them in the 1500s

It's far worse.

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