Einstein said that the most important decision you ever make is whether you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe– in a positive universe or a negative universe.
This relates very strongly to what is perhaps the greatest idea I came up with in all my college years, which was that you make more difference in the world taking something good and making a better thing out of it than by undoing something bad. . . .
When we describe our heroes and superheroes, we often described them only in terms of the bad things they have undone.
However, this is not ALWAYS the case, as TIME magazine managed, in an era of fairly unprecedented biased journalism, to elect a “Person of the Millennium” who had actually taken a good thing, A VERY GOOD THING. . .books. . .and MAKE THEM HUGELY BETTER.
Herr Gutenberg did not have to think he was undoing some evils, all he had to do was think of making more books, better books– faster books, etc. . .as more books were published in just that first fifty years of his invention’s use than in all of history for five thousand years.
However, other people noticed that certain evils associated via book censorship and other practices of the-powers-that-be might be undone by the application of Gutenberg’s invention.
As a result, The Roman catholic Church, which has stood for the previous 1500 years, was shaken by a non-violent earthquake and has still never recovered to this day.
In an interesting side note, those who had written the Church’s books in ye olde handwritten manuscripts managed to survive via the application of a restraint on The Gutenberg Press, known as “copyright law.” We should note, however, that it took them an awfully long time to get that law passed. . .over 250 years.
Today “The Stationers Guild,” followed by “The Stationers Co.,” and their direct descendants in a number of countries control a world of publishing in a far more complete manner than a Church Office of the Inquisition ever did. . .and they used the states and nations of the world to do it, even becoming a part of that greatest of world political organizations, The United Nations.
It is hard to believe that The United Nations, known chiefly as a helping hand all over the world, is the prime factor in world publishing monopolies due to it being the home of WIPO: “World Intellectual Property Organization,” who writes, lobbies, etc., nearly all the copyright laws throughout the entire world.
In case you haven’t noticed, copyright has changed from a point of having approximately 50% of all copyrighted materials expire into the public domain around 100 years ago, to the point where not even 1% of all copyrighted materials will have expired when we look back from 100 years into the future.
And this is true even if our copyright laws are not extended in the 21st Century as they were so greatly in the 20th Century.
[N.B. I talk mostly about U.S. Copyright Law, since that is my home, but we should be aware that WIPO and the U.S. persuaded a great number of other countries to also extend copyrights, even in the face of stated governmental policies NOT to extend.]
The result is that books that used to cost the same as a gallon of gasoline now cost 5 times as much as a gallon of gas, but it is not reported in the media since the media is part and parcel of the very publishing empire that controls copyright.
This is not something you need to take my word for, you can get examples of books from 50 years ago at nearly any garage sales, and you will see that the average paperback cost about 25 cents during the 1950’s, plus tax: for a total of just about exactly the same price as a gallon of gas, tax included: interesting.
One example is the James Bond novels that were just coming out, and are now averaging over $15, tax included to make comparison to gasoline prices consistent.
So what we see in our media is a constant reference to the cost of a gallon of gasoline, and I must admit I have never once had a chance to see any reports on the hyperinflation of such books as are described above.
Let’s see:
$.27 would buy either a gallon of gas or a paperback in 1957.
Today the price quoted in the national media is over $3. . . .
12 times as much as it was 50 years ago.
Today the price of a new James Bond paperback is about $15.
60 times as much as it was 50 years ago.
But that is not newsworthy!!!
[Just go down to Borders or Barnes & Noble to see for yourself]
There will always be some who won’t believe this, even with the proof as easy to come by as this, but they are easily separated like the wheat from the chaff:
“For those of you with an open mind, A certain amount of proof is needed; For those of you with a closed mind, No amount of proof is sufficient.” Tao Te Ching [paraphrased]
In this sense I am only too happy to cast the Project Gutenberg books into the world at large and to let those who would read a book be the judge of that book while letting those who wouldn’t read the books make fools out of themselves by commenting on an assortment of other factors than the actual contents.
You might not believe how many of the critics of eBooks are the kind who do just that. . . .
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Which brings us back to the initial quotation by Einstein:
“The most important decision you will ever make is whether you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe.”
If you think you live in too friendly a universe, you should be expected to do very little to fight “the triumph of evil.”
Why?
Because you wouldn’t believe there is that much evil to fight.
However, even for those who know there is plenty of evil there, we should warn them that simply undoing evil can only bring the world back to where it was before the evil brought it down, the undoing of evil is not going to make the world a better place– better than is was without the evil.
The ONLY way to make the world a better place overall is to get going on making the things that are already good even better!!!
eBooks Are the Archimedean Lever that will Move the World!!!
Just as The Gutenberg Press did in its day, eBooks are changing the world faster than the-powers-that-be, the pundits, the news and most of the rest of those who think they are in control are likely to want to think.
It’s NOT that they CAN’T think it. . .they just don’t want to.
They have all the news at their command but they choose what to ignore and what to think. . .they can afford it. . .they think.
However, as result of eBooks, a trend they cannot now stop, the result will be just as it was with The Gutenberg Press:
- More eBooks will be published in the next 50 years than all the paper books in all previous history.
- The literacy rate will jump from “The Developed Countries,” such as the G7 and G8 to “The Undeveloped Countries,” in just a way as literacy jumped from the elite to the rest of the world, as a result of The Gutenberg Press.
- A Scientific Revolution will follow, just as did originally from The Gutenberg Press, as the result of a billion illiterate people finding they can afford to read the great books on their cell phones. . .which. . .as of this year. . .will pass the 1/2 way mark to maximum penetration of the marketplace: 3 billion.
- A “Neo-Industrial Revolution” will follow the Scientific as it did in the days following the first literacy revolution, and the first Scientific Revolution, and the masses would realize a fact that has only been rumored for the past half century–that the world COULD make all the food, clothing, reading material & all that jazz necessary for for anyone who wanted to change the way their lives work, to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
The World Is Flat
I believe that eBooks are part of “The World Is Flat” ideal, as put forth by the likes of Thomas L. Friedman, but even moreso.
The great thing about eBooks is that they have no real value as physical objects. . .oh, perhaps someday some of my early first floppies, first CDs, etc., will be worth something. . .but this is a different idea. . .you can’t really SELL an eBook in quite the traditional sense, other than to libraries, etc., because a book of this nature is really a virtual item, has no reality in the sense of shipping tons of Harry Potter books right now to a number of Borders and Barnes & Noble stores and the idea of the books being pre-sold in quantities of 1/4 billion or the like.
The only real value of an eBook is in the person reading it.
If you don’t read it, it has no value, it doesn’t make any kind of good “coffee table book” or anything else you can show off– you actually have to read the book, understand it, and make the contents of the book come alive inside yourself for the book to have any value.
Of course, this is much more likely to change the world of that kind of people who have never been able to read much than it is to change the lives of people who have always had books.
Thus “The Flat Earth” analogy. . . .
eBooks will level the playing field today just as Gutenberg’s a half a millennium ago. . .will move literacy from upper classes to lower classes just as it did half a millennium ago, and, the result will be something as unforeseen as was the recent demise of Dan Rather as “The Most Trusted Man In America” due to works of people who live in the virtual world and who are never seen, rarely heard of, until they topple a sleeping giant such as Dan Rather from job worth a billion dollars in Katie Couric’s life.
There will never be another Dan Rather, or Walter Cronkite, for the coming generations, because the networks don’t have a power base monopoly the way they used to, just as the monk and scribe lost their power to The Gutenberg Press, but there will always, always, always be another Edward R. Murrow, a person who learns the new medium before anyone else does, becomes household words via personal ability, rather than network policy and politics– someone who has something to say in a new way.
Murrow understood this in a way no one else did, and his way of showing the power of television by showing live shots of both a spot on the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean simultaneously so the people could see both for the first time in history, was a masterpiece of not only understanding the new technology, but of relaying that understanding to the public.
As we have seen both in real life and via movies like Network– the media is intentionally “dumbing down” the public forums for their own purposes, namely to make the public easier to lead to whatever conclusions the-powers-that-be might want to push.
The whole enterprise is dedicated to making the masses less the literate and well informed public required for democracy to put anything sensible together, and more the less informed kinds of herd animals that will follow their leaders into Iraq, Viet Nam and other places where the only plan is to make Americans pay a lot to “The War Toys Industry”. . .a trillion dollars in total, but with no winning goal in sight, from the days of Korea to an assortment of similar non-goals since then.
Even Robert McNamara said there was never a plan for Viet Nam– and he was the person most responsible for the war. . . .
This Is A War About Control. . .Control of the Media
I’m not talking about the military operations, those have none, none at all, of the traditional military goals, or political.
I’m talking about the fact that the real enemy is the public.
The people the war machine fear the most is the public, because the public can turn the leaders of this country into just plain citizens, can ruin their places in the history books, just by a trip to the voting booth, to their own little media platforms– and can drive people such as President Nixon and Dan Rather out of power without any of the trappings of power.
These people are fighting the war of the media as surely as any soldier out there ever fought in any war, only the rules change with the times and with the game, and most of us don’t know the war is on. . .don’t know our minds are hostages of information, misinformation and disinformation. . . .
We don’t even know, most of us, the war is going on. . . .
This Is A War About Control. . .Control of the Money
I’m not talking about the military operations, those have none, none at all, of the traditional military goals, or political.
I’m talking about the fact that the real enemy is the public.
The people the war machine fear the most is the public, because the public can turn the leaders of this country into just plain citizens, can ruin their places in the history books, just by a trip to the voting booth, to their own little media platforms– and can drive people such as President Nixon and Dan Rather out of power without any of the trappings of power.
These people are fighting the war of the money as surely as any soldier out there ever fought in any war, only the rules change with the times and with the game, and most of us don’t know the war is on. . .don’t know our money is a hostage of inflationary spirals controlled by those to whom money is merely a pawn in a game that has billions and trillions and quadrillions of pieces on a board that extends well into virtual hyperspatial twists.
Rule #1
Money is fictional.
It’s hard for most people to believe, but money has no reality, it is no more real than money that comes with MONOPOLY games or all the others. . .the only differences are what persons should be expected to give you for that money.
If you find this hard to understand or grok, try the definition or Robert Anson Heinlein in “Time Enough for Love.”
By the way, get some original MONOPOLY money and you might find it is worth more than it says, fictional or not.
Rule #2
Make sure nobody who isn’t playing the game your way can create internationally used money, or even private money, if you can.
If you haven’t heard about the Chinese manipulating their money then you just haven’t been listening. . .but, on the other hand there is a report every six months or so that has to say in the unbelievable, literally unbelievable in this case, language the United States Government Offices use, stating that China is NOT manipulating their money.
Why?
Because if the told the truth, then other laws would kick in to forbid trading with such an untrustworthy nation.
Get it?
China is a trading partner we can no longer ignore.
China is a trading partner we can no longer avoid trade with.
China is already changing the world economy, and has been for a few years now, and most of us have no idea what is happening.
Where are those cheap Chinese button batteries from last year?
Where are all the rest of those cheap Chinese goods?
They are the same place all those cheap Japanese goods went the way of after the Japanese began to make goods that will compete in any world market with the goods of “The First World.”
The Chinese have already passed that point, and did it in years so few in number that many of us will never remember it. . .and the general history books may never even record it.
History Is A Very Peculiar Business!
My favorite little comment about History concerns the David and Goliath battle of a couple thousand years ago.
In this commentary, Goliath has been killed by a stone from the sling of David, just as has always, but in this case that stone struck Goliath in the family jewels.
The various kings, nobles, priests, scribes, etc., surround the body of Goliath immediately and begin to confer. . . .
After some time the meeting ends and we once again see the body of Goliath, only things have been rearranged to make it appear, for the record, that Goliath has been struck in the head.
The chief herald announces to both armies and the crowd. . .
“LET IT BE RECORDED THAT HE WAS STRUCK IN THE HEAD!”
and so it was written down for billions of the coming years.
We like to think of history, our own history in particular, for the ages to come, as somewhat of a more honest telling of those events that “alter and illuminate our time,” but the truth will always be, just as it always has been, that the victors write a history that suits them and their oft rewritten agenda, just as in the commentary about David and Goliath.
Just as psychologists tell us that children aren’t born knowing how to lie, so, too, it appears that civilization wasn’t born a lying civilization, but had to learn it little by little.
Of course, this is a circular argument, and could be entirely a falsehood, perhaps just looking better because so few had those tools necessary to leave records back in the days of antiquity, before The Gutenberg Press leveled the playing field in manners of speaking akin to Thomas L. Friedman’s Flat Earth scenario.
However it was with antiquity, we know that Modern History will be written with a strong bias from the ruling class, but with a proviso that the middle class, and now even the lower class, is likely to leave a separate but unequal commentary, just as they may have done in the case of Goliath.
The vast majority of Americans don’t believe the assassinations of Jack and Bobby Kennedy were anything like history records.
The vast majority of Americans don’t believe the Viet Nam War’s beginnings, middle, or end, were anything like the records that were kept at the time.
The vast majority of Americans don’t believe Gulf War II had an fair and balanced reasoning.
Even the start of America’s involvement in World War II has big questions concerning whether Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor, not to mention that World War I’s beginnings were not quite the stuff of hard core decision making.
As the CIA is releasing more and more evidence of information’s history being one of misinformation and disinformation, perhaps the history books will eventually start to comment on all this, and perhaps the FBI, NSA, and other agencies will have to join, however belatedly, in this kind of revelation, though it is the kind of thing that nearly always happens only after the careers of the major players are over.
Today we find out that some of the groups the FBI was watching, particularly back in the days surrounding President Nixon, were so heavily infiltrated that it is possible they would have been unable to maintain their existence without the dues paid by the numbers of FBI agents who could seemingly afford them while the actual people under surveillance didn’t have the money to go on without the assistance of the various agencies.
Some of these reports go so far as to make it appear that agent participation may have been so strong as to be “entrapment,” of a nature to maintain an organization just for the purposes of a conspiracy to attract people so they could be arrested.
The history books COULD be full of such things, from a harmless example, such as that it was illegal to mention Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character in certain places back in WWI, simply because the ignorance of the public about this gave them morale boosts by “knowing” Mr. Holmes was after the German spies.
In such cases it is obvious “the end justifies the means,” with the government being able to lie about something for the morale of both the general public and the military.
Immoral morale builders. . .as some may refer to it.
The numbers of these stories are legion, but the history books, such as they are, rarely decide to include them, leaving such a task to the more shadowy publications of individuals, not those corporations entrusted with the memory of our civilizations.
In World War II it was common for people to believe Roosevelt’s legs worked well enough for him to walk, as a morale builder.
However, by the time of those famous Yalta pictures with Stalin and Churchill, it was necessary for all to be seated, as even a second for a picture was too much for President Roosevelt.
The same kind of reporting apparently covered up indiscretion’s other half, when it came to President Roosevelt’s love life.
These were apparently “open secrets” in Washington, New York or other locations.
Not so in modern times, when the Republicans insisted on trying President Clinton for saying he never made love with Lewinsky– a question millions of Americans would have answered the same– without thinking they were lying. . .and they insisted on trial by the press when they knew before they even started that their ranks could not support an actual vote of impeachment.
In addition, Congressmen Henry Hyde, turned out to have so much more to hyde than President Clinton, but never batted an eye in the moments after it was revealed he had done ever so much more over the course of the past 26 years. . .but this will not read in an of our history books that mention the impeachment.
Nor will J. Edgar Hoover’s transvestite photographs ever be the stuff of the record books, though their existence has been made obvious enough. . .nor will the fact that their existence had a certain effect on how Mr. Hoover ran the FBI in a manner that a responsible history would want to reveal.
The fact is that it appears that our previous history was a big effort to protect the country, whatever the country, while late efforts seem to have been more on the order of political hacks.
But again, that could be a circular argument, mentioned above.
In Conclusion, Back To Einstein’s “Most Important Decision”
The question as to whether we live in “a friendly or a hostile” universe. . .”a positive or a negative” universe, has to be the kind of question that demands some serious research.
True, your life may be much more enjoyable if you feel you live in “a friendly positive universe.”
True, your life may be much less enjoyable if you feel you live in “a hostile negative universe.”
Those express the most egotistic and egocentric points of view.
However, equally egotistical or egocentric are the other points of view of those such as the late Tony Soprano, who felt people were there just to be fleeced, and that the only way to work in the world was to find a nice middle ground between those powers above and those below, where you could be fleeced by those with more power than you, and you could fleece the rest.
There are many people in the world who feel just this way.
Millions.
Perhaps billions.
“Screw or be screwed.”
“Dog eat dog.”
“Do unto others before they do unto you.”
But. . .you must ask. . .do these persons live in that universe of “friendly positive” existence???
so, if not, then why do they choose to live in that universe?
Because it is the only universe they know!!!
THAT is what Einstein was referring to. . . .
An Alternate Parallel Universe
Think of a different kind of universe for just a moment.
Still hostile, still negative, but one in which YOU can make an alternative to the world just described above.
Not simply that you might have the ability to undo some bad but also that you might be able to do some actual good.
Remember, even if you undo ALL the bad stuff, all you have done is to bring things back to where they were without the bad, not made the basic life of your world any better.
The real changes in the world are not undoing evil, even though these are important, they are more like changing the oil in car engines before the oil gets so bad as to kill the engine.
These events are called “maintenance.”
Some people define the necessity of maintenance as an evil, but they forget that every breath you take is maintenance of oxygen in the bloodstream, everything you eat and drink is maintenance of your body’s metabolism, every time you get ready to sleep by washing up, brushing your teeth, washing your clothes, and this also applies to keeping up homes, cars, etc., etc., etc.
Why do children hate baths and toothbrushes?
Because they are too busy GROWING to think of MAINTENANCE.
They are growing SOOO fast that they don’t even GET these whole concepts of maintenance because their world is changing so fast that nothing seems the same to them from day to day, other than the maintenance. . .which seems so boring when going soo fast.
The older you get, the more your life stabilizes, the more your time becomes involved in keeping things maintained, because you HAVE so many things TO maintain and because you are NOT growing as fast as when you were a child. Think about it for a minute.
A kid is mostly motion. . .going. . .growing. . .learning and a new experience changing every single day of life. . . .
An adult is mostly repetitive motion, the rat race treadmill of the regularity of clockwork, getting ready for work, going from home to work, doing the morning work, having lunch at places by where you work, doing the afternoon’s work, getting ready to go home, and back onto the commuter treadmill. . .and that’s whole days of whole years of whole decades, not the kid’s life.
Even with the shorter workday of modern times, the holidays and all that, the average worker today spends more time treadmilled to the same pattern than they did a short time ago. . .European workers do seem to have a real idea of vacation that somehow is not picked up by the rest of the world.
However, the point here is that YOU can make alternatives to an already operating universe of this kind, simply by stepping out of the boundaries and providing alternatives for others.
Yesterday I received a call from my neighbor whose lawnmower is something I borrow once in a while, it had stopped cold and the thing wouldn’t start again. It only took me perhaps 30 minutes total out of my schedule, the schedule of garage sales, to make a few trips back and forth to analyze the problem, get tools to change the spark plug, and get the thing running again.
This is someone I like very much, someone whose newspapers were a part of my route when I was a kid, a person whom I think came from Italy originally, long ago, from “the old country,” and it is just so nice to be able to do something for such people, who are always doing for others. . . .
When I was done, she wanted to pay me, and I wasn’t insulted by this, but I explained to her that sometimes the greatest gift a person can give is to let someone give something to them.
MY universe is a better place today for helping her yesterday!
And so, I hope, is hers. . .and perhaps her neighbors’.
If you know what I mean. . . .
Hopefully you have noticed that sometimes these things go waves at a time, and everyone ends up having a wonderful day, all the result of a few “random acts of kindness.”
THAT is just ONE way YOU can change YOUR universe.
Other Alternate Parallel Universes
The world at large is hard to change this way as even our Nobel Peace Prize winners have found out.
I was VERY impressed that the Nobel committee awarded the prize last year for giving out micro-loans, it means that they have a new perspective, a new point of view, that allows the work done at the bottom of the pyramid to be rewarded in this manner.
“The continuing standard of living of humankind is how we measure the value of all things.” mh
The way to change the world at large is to change things from a wholistic point of view, a perspective that includes the world, at large, rather than one particular piece of the world.
This can be approached from either the top or the bottom of the pyramids of power, but the truth becomes obvious that if worlds of people are going to be changed, you have to get those worlds of people involved, and not just in military conflicts.
From the Top Down
“The Trickle-Down Theory of Economics” as purveyed by President Ronald Reagan [the Hollywood actor, also President of SAG] [The Screen Actors Guild], worked on the opposite point of view that making a change for those at the very top was certainly going a long ways farther down the pyramid to make changes for those at the bottom. . .yet you can easily see that the results have the opposite effect, that the benefits given to the wealthy elitist group at the top have merely solidified their top position as a wider and wider gap has been created between themselves and the lower ranks of the pyramid.
“The Rich Get Richer While The Poor Get Poorer.”
Other approaches from the top down get some attention, namely a predilection for elitist education.
Several examples jump out over the past half century or so, big ones concerning SEPARATE BUT EQUAL segregationist practitioners being overthrown by the U.S. Supreme court in the mid-1950’s at a time when education, particularly at the higher level, wasn’t such a common thing.
However, when you look at the actual response in education with reference to these events, you will see that this marked a more destructive than constructive force in universal education.
The response of the more wealthy whites was “white flight,” the creation of new suburban communities that blacks simply weren’t able to afford, so the school district lines remained black for this side and white for that side.
In addition came the greater and greater numbers of white kid’s enrollment in private schools, even to the point where majority children of public school teachers sent kids to private school.
Another point that didn’t really make the headlines. . . .
The education of Americans has fallen pretty drastically in the intervening years, certainly enough to deny credibility to that Reaganomics “Trickle-Down Theory” that helping those at the top will help everyone in general.
While the U.S. economy may be able to be made to appear strong, given various and sundry reporting methods, nothing happens for education to make it look any better. . .other than restructure of the college entrance exam scoring to boost scores without an actual boost in performance.
BTW, the change from GNP [Gross National Product] to GDP [Gross Domestic Product] was designed to do exactly the same thing, to deny the existence of the deficits to make production look like it was better than if the deficits were included.
From the Bottom Up
However, not all people, and certainly not all capitalists, for at least the previous ages, have gone by “Trickle-Down Theories of Economics” and those people have changed the world at large.
Obviously the very earliest inventions could be shared by whole populations who saw them, simply because they were so obvious.
The Lever.
Fire.
Tanning.
Agriculture.
Weaving.
The Spear.
The Bow and Arrow.
Animal Domestication.
But then things changed. . . .
While these things took some practice and effort to master, the underlying principal of each thought process was obvious when a person saw it in action. It might take long time, a big effort over that time, but these could be duplicated by all.
However, when things got to a more complicated stage of thought they could be kept secret for longer and longer periods of time which increased the separation created by the inventions.
One such example was Damascus Steel.
Damascus Steel was so much better than any other metal of ages, that it kept Damascus alive as a center of power for more ages.
However, the recipe for making it was kept SOOO secret that the secret was lost when the small number of people who know it all were wiped out at the same time. . .before any of them could do anything to pass on the secret.
Thus came one of the great stories of lost technology of great, long past empires that surpassed anything of modern times.
In fact, it has only been due to the recent computer revolution that the secret of Damascus Steel has been broken and now there are a few new kinds of steel on the market particularly good to make swords with. . .just ask Jackie Chan, who bought one of an extremely limited first edition.
Today it possible, even desireable, from the top level powers– to keep everything possible big secrets, even worthless things.
Remember when “the intelligence community” was revealed as some kind of place where the standard policy was:
“Never tell the truth when a lie will do.”
This is no longer just the “black ops” philosophy of spooks and politicians, it is now the prevailing philosophy of business in the world at large, and, as a result, progress is slowing down, only saved by The Computer Revolution started by two wacky kids in a garage in Cupertino, California, now called Silicon Valley and known around the world.
Who knows where we would be without those two kids, two Steve’s named Woz and Jobs. . . .
The truth is that “the-powers-that-be” didn’t want computers in the home, couldn’t even conceive of them when the heads of IBM, Hewlett-Packard, etc., said there was no need for computers out there numbering more than a handful, and Bill Gates said, “640K is enough for anybody.”
Today you can buy 64G on a flash RAMdrive/USBdrive, etc.
Note of current events:
Quest boss makes 1600 times as much as the average Quest worker per year, and now that this has become public
Apparently he will be leaving while the quitting is gook, and a report of his gold-encrusted platinum parachute is missing from the public record.
AT&T, Quest, etc., were sued for collusion, but Supreme Court’s recent decision was not even to allow for the discovery process that would have been the next step before bringing to court, so it’s pretty much all over.
Keeping secrets and money closer and closer to the vest is what is going on today, and has been the trend ever since 1955.Please note that this is about the same period of hyperinflated paperback book prices, and the time that royalty structure data were last made public at 1 cent per copy for the first printing and 1.5 cents per copy thereafter, usually split 50/50, between the author and the hardback publisher.Thus Ian Fleming probably got half a cent for the original Bond paperback printings and 3/4 of a cent per book thereafter.A million seller paperback; less than $7,500 to the authors out of $250,000 dollars in sales.[1 million pennies is $10,000, half is $5,000, 3/4 is $7,500.]The funny part is, of course, that just as much went to the old hardback publisher as to the author, much like “selling” player “X” from one ball team to another.
[These figures from Freeman Lewis, R.R. Bowker, World Almanac– 1953 edition, pp 315-316]
This is why there was such controversy marking the start of the paperback industry, even though about 1/4 BILLION in paperbacks were already being sold per year around this time.
Paperback profits and royalty structures were a real issue when the authors complained that they mostly got half a cent per.
Put this together with the James Bond statistics previously put in the above sections and you begin to get the picture.
[More statistics of this era available on request.]
However, I MUST bring this little essay to a close, because I am leaving to give presentations for Prof. Marvin Minsky at MIT and another in Hartford, CT, as soon as I can get packed and do a little eating, cleaning up, and perhaps a nap before driving, less than a thousand miles, but it still takes all day long.
So. . .back to “Einstein’s Most Important Decision
This time via George Bernard Shaw:
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Admiral Grace Hopper, of “nanosecond” fame said:
“The most damaging phrase in the language is: It’s always been done that way.” Grace Hopper
The major point is:
“Without deviation, progress is not possible.”
The real subject here is making the biggest life decision.
On that subject, I defer to President Thomas Jefferson:
“A people cannot hope to be both ignorant and free.”
Commenting on the current levels of contempt for education, and freedom of the media, not to mention the public domain, I quote Rabindranath Tagore:
“Contempt kills the light which ignorance merely leaves unignited.”
The light we should be speaking of should be placed as high and unobstructed as we possible can.
I refer you also to my previous articles on:
“The Chandelier Diatribe”
and I close, in response to “The New Dark Ages” with:
Matthew 5:15
Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Mark 4:21
And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?
Luke 8:16
No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light.
Luke 11:33
No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.
by
Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg