> The vast majority of the planet stores knowledge in people and references it via direct communications.
i'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense based on some kind of ignorant, fantastical misunderstanding of how non-western people live. in fact it's pretty damn offensive if you really think about it.
let me give you a hint: east and southeast asia, india, middle east/northern africa have all been pretty big fans of writing stuff down for a while now, and represent well over half the world's population. you're telling me these people don't read books or go online?
"The global literacy rate for all people aged 15 and above is 86.3%. The global literacy rate for all males is 90.0% and the rate for all females is 82.7%."
Well, technically speaking, writing can be used for both [nearly-]ephemeral communications (letters/messages) and persistent storage (books), so literacy levels alone don't immediately imply that the knowledge is archived and distributed this way.
But your point is absolutely valid, because, I believe, every (or so) civilization that had invented writing, had books or similar concepts (tablets, etc). Persistent information storage in form of written text just can't be "western" thing. Libraries had and continue exist nearly everywhere, regardless of the culture.
i'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense based on some kind of ignorant, fantastical misunderstanding of how non-western people live. in fact it's pretty damn offensive if you really think about it.
let me give you a hint: east and southeast asia, india, middle east/northern africa have all been pretty big fans of writing stuff down for a while now, and represent well over half the world's population. you're telling me these people don't read books or go online?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_...
"The global literacy rate for all people aged 15 and above is 86.3%. The global literacy rate for all males is 90.0% and the rate for all females is 82.7%."