Supposed menaces multiply rapidly as technologies — smartphones, artificial intelligence — mutate. But the most menacing development involves no exotic technology, so it is disregarded.
But not by James Marriott. This British thinker warns us: An artifact that enabled modernity — skepticism, rationality, science, democracy — is now of rapidly dwindling importance. This artifact, which onlookers said “addicted” its early adopters, was: the book.