Jamais Cascio Quotes

The most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.

The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, sometimes one forgets which it is.

The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern commander.

Technology gives us the facilities that lessen the barriers of time and distance - the telegraph and cable, the telephone, radio, and the rest.

the day Johannes Gutenberg finished his wooden printing press in 1440. Western civilization turned onto a path toward more efficient, accessible communication of knowledge.]

I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in.

The problem and privilege we all have is being alive in this century and able to read this language. It makes any list meaningless except the list of an illiterate.

Men knew little, formerly, of what was passing beyond ... their own immediate neighborhood, but now, through the ... newspapers ... town and country, state and nation, and the most distant parts of the world are brought together, and whatever is new, rare and important, is conveyed with rapidity to every reader ... set forth in the most succinct manner, and in a style adapted to the comprehension of all.

Nothing was more valuable than the printed word.

But every time our ability to access information and to communicate it to others is improved, in some sense we have achieved an increase over natural intelligence.

The more everybody knows about all aspects of the problems we face, the better off all of us will be. Less time spent explaining things means more time for coming up with creative solutions.

The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.

It created a global platform that allowed more people to plug and play, collaborate and compete, share knowledge and share work, than anything we have ever seen in the history of the world.

You can't have an industrial revolution, you can't have democracies, you can't have populations who can govern themselves until you have literacy. The printing press simply unlocked literacy.

What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.

When we change the way we communicate, we change society.

The biggest invention of modern time is the book. The book is a digital medium; book text is written in a different form and replicable. What it really does is it allows us to replicate cultural information, scientific technology, and information out of the human brain.

If you think about it, the printing press allowed everyone to print books - it democratised the printing of information. For the first time, we could all print.

Globalization cannot take shape without the speed of light.

Truth travels slowly, but it will reach even you in time.

If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.

Back when people couldn't read, other people would take newspapers and turn them into theater so that people would know what was going on in the world. That is a powerful thing.

People sometimes announce that we have entered 'the information age' as if information did not exist in other times. I think that every age was an age of information, each in its own way and according to the available media.

A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.

The reason is that till date, in spite of advances in information technology and strategies of information, the written word in the form of books still remains one of humanity's most enduring legacies.