Read the full article on Diginomics.Ledgers of information shower us with examples from the past. The bitcoin blockchain is no different. Indeed, it shares many parallels with both the printing press and Babylonian cuneiform. When we study these artifacts, we can get a glimpse of what bitcoin as an information technology will bring.
Invented in the 15th century, the printing press was an instrument which destroyed a long-held tradition of religious institutions housing so-called ‘knowledge’ of how one was to live. When the ledger technology of the printing press brought decentralization to the manufacturing of books, it raised literacy rates considerably within the proximate. It is estimated that by 1500 there were “fifteen to twenty million copies of 30,000 to 35,000 separate publications.” (McLuhan, 1962)
Babylonian cuneiform was used as a method by which to record information into clay tablets. These early writing styles first emerged around late 4th millennium B.C.E. during the Uruk IV period.
Both the printing press and Babylonian cuneiform are histories shining examples, and both had revolutionary roots in the way they made information accessible and record-able.
