The Great Schism — Paper, Bits, or Engrams

We are most conscious of supporting sustainability in all its forms and in light of The New York State Legislature’s bold moves to outlaw plastic bags and tax paper bags after the next election cycle, it behoves us to think about life on a paperless campus!

We were all set to get ahead of the curve and ban paper, pencils, pens, and ablative graphite removal technologies (i.e. erasers) along with calling for the installation of Three Seashells in all bathroom units.

But then we considered the electric power draw from accessing digital storage media and the electricity consumed while making hourly and daily backups — electricity which is often produced by dirty carbon spewing power plants. Clearly, computers are bad for the environment and in time politicians will get around to banning them too.

This leaves only Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 solution of memorizing our books.

All that matters must be committed to human memory.

Unfortunately this won’t leave us much time for creating new Knowledge, but Mother Nature will thank us — or not.