For the amateur psychoanalysts out there, I suppose you might have noticed that two of the first three Friday videos I’ve posted feature dark post-apocalyptic futures. This probably gives some insight into the “sky is falling” pessimism that seems to run deep in publishers. There’s a great old joke that after the Bible, the second book to come off the Gutenberg printing press was about the decline of the publishing industry.

So with that in mind, enjoy this bit of dark humor, the residents of 2068 looking back at The Internet, one of the greatest disasters to befall mankind.

David Crotty

David Crotty

David Crotty is a Senior Consultant at Clarke & Esposito, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategic issues related to professional and academic publishing and information services. Previously, David was the Editorial Director, Journals Policy for Oxford University Press. He oversaw journal policy across OUP’s journals program, drove technological innovation, and served as an information officer. David acquired and managed a suite of research society-owned journals with OUP, and before that was the Executive Editor for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, where he created and edited new science books and journals, along with serving as a journal Editor-in-Chief. He has served on the Board of Directors for the STM Association, the Society for Scholarly Publishing and CHOR, Inc., as well as The AAP-PSP Executive Council. David received his PhD in Genetics from Columbia University and did developmental neuroscience research at Caltech before moving from the bench to publishing.

Discussion

3 Thoughts on "The Internet: A Warning From History"

…”in something called the Daily Mail Online an actress from Emmerdale snagged her bikini on an immigrant”….

Probably meaningless to those outside the UK, but just beautiful, priceless, pithy satire.

“To this day I have no idea who Kim Kardashian is.” Lol, as we say on the Internet. Note the reference to cutting the power cords at the “national grid center,” as though there were one.

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