I think reading books is a waste of time, and I'm a little tired of people telling me I should read them.
Books are archaic, and the idea that you aren't intelligent or informed or cultured unless you read them is just pure dogma at this point.
We have internet-connected devices now. Content can be published, peer-reviewed, and disseminated to an international audience in under an hour. I can have a dialogue with the person who wrote it, ask questions and submit corrections that can be published 10 minutes later.
To me that is such a massive improvement over the old model that I no longer have any time for the old model. I don't have to wait for content from a small handful of people at a publisher in New York, and I'm extremely thankful for that.
I can appreciate some books as works of art or just for entertainment, but books are an incredibly inefficient method of pursuing knowledge and culture, and for that purpose I wouldn't recommend them to anybody.
So to answer the question posed by the title of this article: We can, we just shouldn't, which is convenient because we don't want to.
It depends. I think both have their place. Online content tends to be much shallower. But it allows you to explore a much broader content quickly.
Books tend to be deep, and good ones have gone through many iterations. Do you think you can get the ideas presented in, say, SICP or Principles of Mathematical Analysis by going through online material?
I think it may be possible, but it's actually harder.
> Do you think you can get the ideas presented in, say, SICP or Principles of Mathematical Analysis by going through online material?
The parent was making the point that it's possible to have a much better system where the book authors communicate with the readers online which improves both the quality and ease of understanding.
As of now, it may not be the situation but in future there surely will be better ways to do things.
Also if we go by the literal meaning, book is defined as "a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers". The part which requires "approval and published by a publisher" is a model of a book making and there may be better models out there.
Books surely still have a place and reading them isn't just pure dogma.
I'm currently reading Gods Bankers by Gerald Posner about the history of the Vatican Bank. It has about 10 pages of referenced bibilography on what must be at least 300-400 sources, and 170(!) pages of footnotes from referenced interviews, articles, online reports etc.
You aren't going to get that type of in depth coverage of a subject from something that was curated and thrown together in 10 minutes and put up on the web. Long form writing and investigative journalism still has it's place if you are looking for an in depth view of a subject you are interested in.
As publishers on the internet (bloggers etc) strive to earn an audience they condense more and more value into blog posts. This is an excellent way to get high-quality information quickly. I've read few books that provide a similar level of information density (SICP maybe?).
The pursuit of culture - I believe you should only do this if you enjoy it. Profound immersion in 'culture' (however you define it) for the sake of obtaining it is like going to the gym for giant muscles you don't need. Pointless, unless you actually enjoy it.
Books are archaic, and the idea that you aren't intelligent or informed or cultured unless you read them is just pure dogma at this point.
We have internet-connected devices now. Content can be published, peer-reviewed, and disseminated to an international audience in under an hour. I can have a dialogue with the person who wrote it, ask questions and submit corrections that can be published 10 minutes later.
To me that is such a massive improvement over the old model that I no longer have any time for the old model. I don't have to wait for content from a small handful of people at a publisher in New York, and I'm extremely thankful for that.
I can appreciate some books as works of art or just for entertainment, but books are an incredibly inefficient method of pursuing knowledge and culture, and for that purpose I wouldn't recommend them to anybody.
So to answer the question posed by the title of this article: We can, we just shouldn't, which is convenient because we don't want to.