We need seeds

Writing about grain elevators made me think of seeds and seed storage.

Plants know how to preserve their genes until good times return. Seeds are just alive enough to recognize the good times, and just dead enough to avoid wasting energy during the bad times.

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Newspapers and low-frequency radio are both dying for the same reasons, a mix of tech succession and business failure.

Both are important types of communication. We need to keep their systems available in case the web becomes utterly useless. This event seemed unrealistic until a few years ago when bots essentially swamped out humans on BOTH sides, reading and writing.

I’m NOT talking about the weird hacking shit that fills the news right now. This particular shit is meant to force regulations that will stiffen Amodei’s Dow Dick and shrivel Altman’s Dow Dick. I’m talking about the proportional dominance of bots, both the older SEO type and the newer AI type.

Papers and AM are worth seeding because both can be RECONSTITUTED with minimal tech.

Newspapers have been around since 1620, and they’re dissolving quickly now. Their failure is on the business end, not the tech end. Radio and TV didn’t substitute for what papers did best. Craigslist was able to supplant classifieds because papers got fussy, refusing realistic job ads or sales of non-progressive items. Facebook was able to replace local news because papers refused to print accurate descriptions of criminals or crimes. Podcasts were able to replace editorials because editorials spewed vicious snobbish hatred on most readers.

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The seed of printing isn’t hot-lead typesetting, it’s intaglio. The KEY development for large-scale printing was reliable mass-produced paper, not movable type. Woodcuts and engravings were printed on cloth for a few hundred years before Gutenberg.

I considered this point ten years ago.

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When we think about the history of symbolic representation we normally focus on painting and writing. Using pigments to leave a trace on a hard surface.

What if we think of engraving first? Scratching, scraping, indenting. I’m going to run wild in TEDX mode here, imagining the standard prehistoric dudes hunting the Sabertooth on the Savannah………

Good old Guk is trying to leave a message showing Ik where the big meat is, so that Ik can help Guk haul it across the Savannah back to the cave. Does Guk get out his paints and paintbrush? Not at first. He would use his finger or toe to draw an indented diagram or map in the sand, pointing directly to the big meat. After this habit became ingrained (heh), Guk might accidentally run his toe onto hard rock where the dirt would leave a trail. Aha! What happens if I take a stick, dip it into the dirt, and use it to draw the map on the cliffside? And what happens if I spit on the stick first to make the dirt hold together? Much easier to see than the scratching in the dirt, and less likely to get erased when the Sabertooth Tiger stalks the Savannah.

Scratching in clay was even more permanent. Hmm. What happens if I snap off a stick to make a sharp linear edge, and push it into the clay instead of scratching? I can use this stick to make a regular and reliable set of notches to count how many times I helped you haul big meat, so I can show you how many times you need to help me haul big meat.

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A stylus can inscribe clay or wood. It’s easy to scratch your name on wood or wet cement. Write backwards with steady pressure and you’ve got a fast cheap route from thought to mass production IF you can get enough paper. Spread the board with berry juice, wipe off the surface, then use a roller or plate to squeeze the paper into the slots.

Hams and other ‘maker’ types are a well-organized seed storage for radio, and hams used to sprout in emergency conditions. We don’t have an organized seed storage for printing. A few artisans like Daniel are admirably maintaining the movable type end, using old fonts and proof presses. This is still too hi-tech for real seed storage. Movable type needs several extra layers of organized manufacture compared to intaglio.