Re:Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are ...
by webmaven on Thursday August 09, 2018 @11:53PM
(#17730566)
> (Third one if you count the printing press, but the adoption happened over generations, so societies had time to adopt)
Even though the printing press kicked off societal changes that took a few centuries to mature and settle down, it was only slow by our current standards. The societies and institutions that were being disrupted evolved in an environment that changed on millenial timescales, so they were, in some senses, shell shocked for most of those 'few centuries' due to a failure to adapt despite having ample (by our standards) time, and the new institutions that arose were regarded as disruptive upstarts for generations (eg. the Lutheran church).
Anyway. An order-of-magnitude change is going to be just as disruptive, even if the change is from "snail's pace" to "tortoise-like".
Even though the printing press kicked off societal changes that took a few centuries to mature and settle down, it was only slow by our current standards. The societies and institutions that were being disrupted evolved in an environment that changed on millenial timescales, so they were, in some senses, shell shocked for most of those 'few centuries' due to a failure to adapt despite having ample (by our standards) time, and the new institutions that arose were regarded as disruptive upstarts for generations (eg. the Lutheran church).
Anyway. An order-of-magnitude change is going to be just as disruptive, even if the change is from "snail's pace" to "tortoise-like".