Fahrenheit WWW
The world grew too fast. We've spent too much time feeling certain. We've destroyed the need and demand for hardcopy books and now settle contently for internet publications. Soon the whole of human history, art, and achievement will be instatnly accessable from any cyber-hub in but an instant. Downloaded, read, forgotten. Once that is possible, what possible use would a book be if it were composed of such primitive, savage, and unrefined matter such as paper and ink? Who would buy them? Soon they become but obsolete papyrus. Now, once this final phase of the destruction of the human mind is reached, all publications requested from a database are not only compromisable and expendable, but a record of who requests which could also be automatically created, downloaded, or forged. This is not an attempt to scare people with paranoia. I am simply describing the ultimate course of events. The timetable here is huge. Is it unimaginable that in 20 years this will be true? Fine. Let us suppose the technology for such a database wouldn't be around for even 500 years. Then man has only 500 years to live. No, worse still. Man has only 500 years left to think.