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On 27 Sep 2002 at 19:53, Harmon Seaver wrote:
> Forget the pencils and pens, just ban paper.
The Chinese empire did in fact take that measure, making paper
a government monopoly, prohibiting private production and use
of paper, private knowledge of how to produce paper, and
castrating all paper makers to reduce the risk of the
technology of paper making being passed from father to son, or
through pillow talk.
Some barbarian pirates eventually stole one of the government's
paper making eunuchs, and the technology got loose again in
lands beyond the empire's control, particularly the west.
A later chinese emperor issued "the encyclopedia of all
knowledge", which was intended to stimulate the growth of
knowledge, but an elephant cannot help but trample the grass.
The actual effect of the encyclopedia was to prohibit all
knowledge that was not in the encyclopedia.
--digsig
James A. Donald
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