source - https://www.printerland.co.uk/blog/2016/02/who-invented-mass-printing-2/
We are all into this decentralization trend of the 21st century that is pioneered by our beloved bitcoin invented by Satoshi Nakamoto. We talk about blockchains, distributed ledgers, cryptocurrencies or tokens with our brains fantasizing all kinds of futuristic all new world applications. Irrefutable, Irreversible and Unalterable … they are the new buzz words…
Yesterday, when I was hiking on a mountain trail in Beitou of Taipei, an idea came to my mind and I am quite surprised to find out this analogy so I write this post to share with all of you. This statement that I construct might not be very rigorous, but it is definitely interesting and maybe even thought provoking to some… who knows? I don’t know if anyone else in the world has already said so, but I definitely wasn’t aware of any.
Here we go.
What is the oldest form of irrefutable, irreversible and unalterable content?
What possess these qualities prior to the blockchain technology? The answer is …
Books.
Yes! Think about it. Books are mass printed since long time ago - in thousands, tens of thousands of copies and distributed to the hands of so many readers. How many nodes do bitcoin or ethereum blockchains have? As per my impression, thousands or tens of thousands at best. Each copy of a book is like a node of its invisible chain.
So, once the book is published and distributed, its content, in some sense, is relatively irrefutable, irreversible and unalterable. Of course, you can always try to manipulate it like what evil miners would do. But it’s also very difficult - you need to take back enough quantity (maybe 50% more?) of the books and replace them with your own version of it, but even so it is probably still not enough as many people might have already read it, memorize it, copy it somewhere… How can you change all that?
Amazing, isn’t it? Books, yes, books! They have already done the trick so long ago without the help of fancy IT technologies!
But of course I won’t call it decentralization as there isn’t much active participation from the reader crowd. Still, there is much resemblance, especially when we compare it with our blockchain of content publication - Steem!
So when you submit anything to Steem, it’s like you have finished publishing a book of your own that no one can alter the content you wish to present. Sounds nice right?
Maybe that’s why authoritative governments or dictators must control the publishers so they cannot publish at will and create a mass that cannot be undo, because the power of mass printing is powerful enough, long time ago.
So, ladies and gentlemen, may I present you,
Satoshi of the 15th century ….. drum roll ….. Johannes Gutenberg!!
The man who invented mass printing 500 years ago.
Do you read and do you think so? ^^
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