A PERSONAL STATEMENT: THE ONLY CANONICAL VERSION OF MY BOOKS ARE THE ...

For several months, I've been intending to make this statement, and now I have more reason to do so, with the following article which was shared by Mr. V.T.  It's one of those articles that we see from time to time, from the major media outlets - in this case the BBC - driving the meme that actual printed books are obsolete, they're too costly to print and ship, expensive to store and move, and that Ebooks are so much better. Granted, in this article there's the usual and typical bow to the various studies that are emerging regarding learning effects of reliance on ebooks. So far, the trend has been moderately against ebooks, though studies are inconclusive. Here's the article:

Are Paper Books Really Disappearing?

You'll note we have the usual push of the meme that paper books are destined to disappear:

Books themselves, however, likely won’t disappear entirely, at least not anytime soon. Like woodblock printing, hand-processed film and folk weaving, printed pages may assume an artisanal or aesthetic value. Books meant not to be read but to be looked at – art catalogues or coffee table collections – will likely remain in print form for longer as well. “Print will exist, but it will be in a different realm and will appeal to a very limited audience, like poetry does today,” Stein says. “However, the locus of intellectual discourse is going to move away from print.”

And we even have the idea of the "socially interactive" book:

Stein imagines, for example, that future forms of books might be developed not by conventional publishers but by the gaming industry. He also envisions that the distinction between writer and reader will be blurred by a social reading experience in which authors and consumers can digitally interact with each other to discuss any passage, sentence or line. Indeed, his latest project, Social Book, allows members to insert comments directly into digital book texts and is already used by teachers at several high schools and universities to stimulate discussions. “For my grandchildren, the idea that reading is something you do by yourself will seem arcane,” he says. “Why would you want to read by yourself if you can have access to the ideas of others you know and trust, or to the insights of people from all over the world?”

But you'll notice that, like other technologies advocate articles (we'll talk about another one tomorrow), there are certain options and issues that never seem to be mentioned in such articles; there are certain things that are never discussed.

And I've ranted about a few of them before on this website, and it's time to do so again: in their current state, ebooks do not preserve the intention of the author, nor are they citable by specific page number, as the ebook platforms allow the formatting to change. Need a specific page number citation? Not possible. Of course, it is conceivable that one can simply search for a text or phrase, and be led to the specific spot where a scholarly citation is needed. So far, so good.

Bu this formatting issue leads us to precisely what is the main problem(at least, for me): the issue of trust.

Recently, I was made aware of an ebook that was banned - unliterally - by the corporate decision of a large and well-known international internet bookseller. The author of said book - also a well-known author and commentator in the alternative research community - had been informed by said large corporate bookseller and pusher of ebooks, that his book did not meet certain criteria and hence, was banned from sales. The author was simply notified of an action taken, not of an action contemplated, nor was there any real ability to address or dispute the decision. For reasons like this, I have long ago quit using this large bookseller for any of my personal business. Although I had predicted such a move in previous blogs, I did not expect the line to be crosses so quickly, and egregiously. This large international bookseller crossed a line, and a very dangerous one. It is now but a short step to the problems I list below; the moral resistance to taking such a step is now all that much lower...

..., for behavior like this is but a short step to the actual covert modification of a text. Did an author say something "unacceptable" to the powers that be? Then simply omit, or modify, the offending text. Is the author or authoress well-known, and would his or her opinion or endorsement of a product or policy or person further a cause? Just go in an add the requisite text, even though said author or authoress did not in fact ever hold, nor would they ever, endorse such a position or policy. There is, in other words, no check on the text; there is ultimately no way to ensure that a text represents what a person actually wrote or intended. It's much more difficult, and expensive, to create a fake version of a book,, to alter a text. Imagine the boon this would be to those wanting to modify "offending passages" in a religious text; we could at last have a purely feminist Bible, a purely peaceful Mohammed, a purely casteless Hinduism. We could whisk away every troublesome idea, every offending phrase, at the push of a button. We could re-write history, and human memory, at will. Sounds absurd? Yes, but please note that the absurdity was voiced by this large corporation when it banned an ebook from sales on its site for the ideas it contained. The author was not advocating revolution, violence, or anything of the sort. He was questioning a story and its mainstream interpretation.

This is, in short, what never gets mentioned in articles such as the above: the issue of trust. Do you really trust a corporation to safeguard the canonical text of an author, the text that the author wrote and, in many cases, actually formatted so that it would look a certain way on a page, when absolutely no regard is paid to such considerations in the vaunted ebook technologies they're peddling? Do you trust these large corporations to allow you to choose what you want to read when they've already censored one well-known author and banned a title from their offerings?

The article has, indeed, hinted at what is to come, by hinting that printed books will be a specialty item for "a limited audience." In other words, the meme is already subtly being suggested that "real information comes from television and approved ebook sources, not from some printed samizdat circulated in a 'limited community.'"

Don't get me wrong... I'm not a luddite; I'm not totally against ebooks.  What I'm against is the assumption that never gets mentioned in these articles: that their corporate masters are to be trusted - at all - because if they're willing to ban a book because its conclusions do not suit their corporate "guidelines," then they're willing to modify a text, omit a text, or add a text,in an author's or authoress's works. That's the rub. Not for nothing is Amazon's toy called "kindle," because it's about burning books, and transfering the author's canonical text and intentions from the author, to the peddler. The intention - with all its dire ramifications - is indicated by the name of the product.

So, for me, the printed text will remain the only authentic version of a text. I will not use, cite, or refer, to any electronic text of any work in my research. And for the record, in case there is still any lingering doubt: the only canonical, authorized text of my works is the published, printed, physical copy of the book. The printed published text of my works is the only version proper for citation of any sort.  I don't mind people reading ebooks, pdfs, nooks or crannies, but these are not a canonical or authoritative text of my work, and never will be. Every publisher I have worked with, has always sent me complimentary copies of my works, so that I can look at them, and ensure that what is available is what I intended.

The bottom line, folks, is if you don't trust the governments, banks, or corporations with anything else, why would you trust them with your, or anyone else's ideas and words? In a lawless culture, when the corporate elites are effectively above the law, when their actions reveal their arrogance, would you trust them?

See you on the flip side...

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

74 Comments

  1. kitona on January 30, 2016 at 10:28 pm

    I don’t usually do this but I’m revisiting this post by Dr. Farrell tonight because there was something else about it that rather annoyed me and I wasn’t sure what it was until today. Namely, the snooty attitude of Dr. Farrell with regard to the idea that printed physical hard copy books are superior to the electronic versions; yet, I wonder, does Dr. Farrell write his books by old analogue means? By hand or perhaps a typewriter? Or does he use a modern computer in which his created original is, in fact, an electronic format?

    And then how does Dr. Farrell transmit his original creation to his editors and publishers? Is it in hard-copy form or perhaps an electronic PDF or word .doc (or whatever it is that writers use)? And then after review by his editors/publishers does Dr. Farrell head over to the publishing company where he oversees the typesetting by hand in person?

    Correct me if wrong, but in all likelihood the Dr.’s work takes on an electronic format long before it hits my mailbox (whether virtual or physical) and is thus vulnerable to manipulation throughout that process. Yet he has the audacity to accuse us as readers of failing to acquire the “canonical” versions of his work when we decide to read them via electronic format. I’m sorry, but that make him sound like an a**hole.

    ///////////////////////

    Coincidently, I recently heard an interview with the founder of a new publishing service called blurb.com. According to them, the problem with the current publishing paradigm is that you need somebody to take the risk on printing thousands of physical copies and thus it is hard to get published. Their offer is, however, a sort of print on demand option for buyers. You upload your book and then each time someone wants to buy it, blurb will print the copy and send it to them. And it is not just text files but actually inDesign layouts that you upload so that you can have total control over typefaces, colors, pictures, etc.

    I haven’t written any books otherwise I would love to try it. But maybe someone like Dr. Farrell would find this of some use. It would appear to cut out the middle men and offer a more direct path to reader/buyer which someone like Dr. Farrell (with his dedicated audience found here) could hopefully profit from.



    • Joseph P. Farrell on January 31, 2016 at 3:47 pm

      Your assumptions about what my practice is with my publishers is entirely incorrect, and I suspect that you have now revealed your true purpose here is to do nothing but insult me personally, and use any excuse or opportunity to do it. So for the record: when I transmit my manuscripts to my publishers (and you can contact Adam Parfrey at Feral House and David Childress at Adventures Unlimited) I do so in both a disk form AND IN A PRINTED OUT HARD COPY of the manuscript, and I have ALWAYS done this. The reason? I want them to SEE what my intentions are when the page is printed. And no I’m not a Luddite nor against technology.

      And finally and for the record, I am about done with your personal attacks and slurs on me and comments that border on the snotty, such as the comment on the tidbit and the obvious misprint. I am NOT being “snooty” for wanting to safeguard the formatting of my work, and the ability of others to reference it by specific page number. I am not being snooty when I insist, because of the formatting change that ebooks do with my work, that the only canonical version for citations is the written page, typos or NO typos. And I am NOT to be called, or even IMPLIED, that I am an A**hole for doing so. I am not being snooty or an A**hole for trying to alert people to the dangers of ebooks. And I am not some kind of dull Luddite who is opposed to technology either. I OBVIOUSLY use computers to produce and write my books, but as I’ve noted, I do so with a specific formatting and I produce a hard copy printed manuscript for both my publishers, and MAIL them this copy when I produce a book, and have done so CONSISTENTLY with each and every book from the beginning.



      • zendogbreath on January 31, 2016 at 11:17 pm

        take a breath doc. and by the way, well done.

        seriously kitona, you’re gonna write this hard and this long so often on so many of these articles? and then come off so harsh? what is the point? for most the definition of sanity involves something of “yeh that site sucks so i don’t waste my time with it anymore.”

        so yep, gotta wonder whether or not doc went too soft here by not using the word troll in his reply. wayyyy too much effort to sound nice while being decidely not nice.

        besides, did ya never read the print copy of yahweh? just the nature of the copy made clear the publishers had little to no control over the content.



  2. zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 11:47 pm

    wow. this is amazing doc. think you hit a nerve?

    i’ve been gone awhile and could not get to the comments, let alone write any. today i wasn’t even able to finish the comments.

    as usual, the initial article was excellent – and the comments added even more. so now i’m determined to get through these comments.

    it’s gonna take more nights. thank you all and gnight.



  3. Pellevoisin on January 28, 2016 at 9:20 pm

    One EMP and an entire e-book library is sent to oblivion. It is a brilliant way to erase a civilisation and to render its children ignorant of everything that had gone before.



    • marcos toledo on January 29, 2016 at 12:43 am

      That’s the idea Pellevoisin better than sending out a fireman to burn real books.



      • zendogbreath on January 31, 2016 at 11:10 pm

        like roger’s comment below. if the great reset is easier to execute does anyone think mr global is more likely to use it?



  4. Avenkat on January 27, 2016 at 11:44 am

    As a person who is both a writer and a reader (I read many hours every day), I can understand Dr. Farrell’s point of view on this. However, I love reading on my tablet as it is easier on my (getting older) eyes. Some authors have decided to first bring the book out in/on paper and then bring it out on the electronic medium. That way, the books is in print the way it is supposed to be, like an original produced in a lawsuit/court proceeding. I am sure some of the posters on this website know that there are calls out there for encryption for Americans and consumers on all that they do on the Internet. Maybe, we can have that encryption applied to E-books as well. Just sayin…



    • zendogbreath on January 31, 2016 at 11:08 pm

      avenkat, your eyes will get older faster reading on a tablet. it’s the difference between seeing light reflected off a page and having light (especially uv-blue) shined directly into your eye. so buy some books – and maybe some blue blocking glasses? seriously gamers use them alot and they help.



  5. goshawks on January 27, 2016 at 2:02 am

    I was forced to read “1984” while in school. I was aghast. However, the image of Winston Smith revising historical records and deleting references burned itself into my brain/emotions. That was when I started ‘hording’ books which were *ahem* controversial.

    Decades later, ebooks appeared. My first reaction was “OMG! Winston Smith’s dream!” In a ‘safe’ universe, ebooks would be okay. In ‘our’ universe, not so much…



  6. zendogbreath on January 26, 2016 at 11:55 pm

    Limited time tonight. Otherwise, I have a couple stories that pertain to this. Will read the comments asap. Meanwhile – thank you Doc. The logic behind this is what brought me here. Thank you and please continue. zdb



  7. Cate on January 26, 2016 at 11:10 pm

    That is so strange re. timing.

    Now and then I take a break from heavy stuff and start a gentle old classic. I picked up a fresh copy (republished 1997- originally published 1907) of E.M. Forster’s ‘The Longest Journey’ less than a fortnight ago, and slowly and enjoyably meander through the story when I have an hour. (Not often.)

    I was cruising through page 63 when with a shock in my very soul I thought- ‘Noooo, that can’t be right- that’s as English a name as ever there was. That feels absolutely foreign to this paragraph. The rhythm, the timbre is all wrong too.’

    I went to my partner, who is as suspicious of reality as anyone here and said, ‘Are “They” editing words IN to text now?’
    ‘They’ve been doing it for years! Anything published after 1945 is pretty much useless.’



  8. duncan mckean on January 26, 2016 at 10:14 pm

    i read a good portion of yahwey the two faced god while i was backpacking in the uinta mountains .ted kaczinski would definitely approve?



    • zendogbreath on January 31, 2016 at 11:05 pm

      duncan, if you had read a bit on mkultra and ted’s bio, you’d know he approves, not guess.



  9. Rickster on January 26, 2016 at 9:17 pm

    I guess it’s just my old school age, I prefer books over ebooks. The ebooks remind me of going to a cashless society. You leave your property in the hands of often times a minimum wage employee that could care less of your intellectual property or you bank balance. One key stoke by design or accident and the fight has begun to regain your property.



  10. Roger on January 26, 2016 at 8:15 pm

    My biggest fear about making most books and information digital only is that someday someone like the Vatican might take out all the satellites and servers. Then it will be back to the dark ages again in a couple generations. They did it once by book and library burning and history does seem to like to repeat itself.



    • zendogbreath on January 31, 2016 at 11:03 pm

      word roger. their great reset gets easier and easier to execute.



  11. kitona on January 26, 2016 at 7:43 pm

    This seems to be one of the Doctor’s poorer articles. Yes, large corporations are bad whether we are talking about books, seeds, t-shirts or whatever. The distrust/hate of electronic formats of books (and magazines & newspapers too for that matter) is misplaced. Ebook vs. physical book is not an either/or proposition, it is a both/and proposition. Just like the resurgence in vinyl records among young people, soon book will offer the same value proposition, i.e., buy the physical artifact and receive a code for a download or, alternatively, save a few pounds by settling for the electronic version only.

    I’m not a huge fan of electronic version, but if traveling it can save some weight by have several books downloaded onto ipad (rather than physical copies) and airlines are getting stingier regarding weight on an almost daily basis. Additionally, some of us (like me) live in remote locations that 1-lack bookstores and 2- feature prohibitive shipping costs. I can, for example, order a $15 physical book online only to be hit with a $50 shipping fee via Fedex or DHL international service to my island. It is my ideal situation but without electronic books I would not have been able to read any of Dr. Farrell’s work over the past eight years.

    As an additional criticism of Dr. Farrell’s post today, it would appear that he is confusing electronic files of books with what now seems to be the pervasive “cloud” that is trying to creep into all of our lives (yes, I’m looking at you Apple, Inc.) But perhaps that is a tangent…

    Back on track, I recently read the following info (via a hard-copy, printed book by the way):

    In the USA, percentage of people with e-readers:
    2009: 2%
    2014: 32%
    2015: 19%

    Polls in Germany, have you bought a book in the past 12 months?:
    2000: Yes=55% No=45%
    2015: Yes=59% No=41%

    I suspect that there are a couple of things going on with the declining interest in electronic offerings:

    Firstly, the younger kids are only now discovering some of these things. You have to remember that today’s 20 year college student was born in 1995 and has literally known nothing but a life full of internet & electronic wizardry. By comparison, “old-fashioned” relics like vinyl records or a set of encyclopedia are exotic & intriguing.

    Secondly, the older, middle-aged folks are getting hip to the game that all of these gadgets (iphones, tablets, pods, readers, etc.) are overpriced pieces of crap that only last two years at best. $600 for a new iphone every 18 months? Maybe. Plus another $800 for a new tablet/e-book reader (because nobody reads on an iphone)? That’s pushing it…in fact, F it, I don’t need no stinking tablet when I already have a smartphone and a desktop at work (where I’ll happily procrastinate by sneaking in my web-surfing on the company’s dime.)

    Alors, in sum, the new “normal” is likely going to be “both/and” instead of “either/or” and we should adjust our thinking now to match.



  12. Robert Barricklow on January 26, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    The internet is intimately connected to the political economic sphere of influence, and thus development. Fortunately, or unfortunately – we find ourselves in the midst of a triple paradigm shift: personal communication, mass media and market information have been subsumed w/in the new order so that distinctions are becoming passé. In other words, this is just another example of entering terra incognita: machines changing our basic understanding of what it means to be human.
    The clearest way to see culture is to attend to is tools for conversation. The media of communication available to a culture are a dominate influence on the formation of the culture’s intellectual and social perception.



    • Robert Barricklow on January 26, 2016 at 7:49 pm

      [doing this by section]
      In our world of today, price has cancelled out value. The only value is commercial value. The only existing value is what the market dictates. And the market really does dictate what gets printed[either real ink, or virtual ink]. The market is the excuse to strike out the work/its the market. Or, it’s the copyright issues. Or, it’s the possible libel suits. Or, it’s what ever excuse we want, but the real political/economic excuse of speaking truth to power. The market both King & Queen, and must not be question. When the market speaks; God speaks. And God is beyond question. Thus we are being deprived of information by blatant censorship no matter how dolled up or intellectualized the excuse may be.



      • Robert Barricklow on January 26, 2016 at 8:00 pm

        oops that section was modulated,
        as I tried to draw the threads together.
        Perhaps it was the word:
        capitalism?



        • Robert Barricklow on January 27, 2016 at 11:33 am

          or was it: Most people have no idea about the reality of existing capitalism and the under appreciation of how it dominates their social life?



      • Robert Barricklow on January 26, 2016 at 8:07 pm

        Or. The Bill of Rights?



        • Robert Barricklow on January 27, 2016 at 11:34 am

          or
          the filter bubble?



    • Robert Barricklow on January 26, 2016 at 7:58 pm

      This is what the Bill of Rights was all about: a prescription for prevent governments from restricting the flow of information and ideas! Publicness threatens institutions whose power is invested in the control of information and audience. Internet users are increasingly and mostly unknowingly being led into a personalized world that reinforces their known preferences/filter bubble. The art of remembering, is the art of thinking. Most have no idea about the reality of existing capitalism and the under appreciation of how capitalism dominates social life.



    • Robert Barricklow on January 26, 2016 at 8:04 pm

      Here’s the concluding section[minus the modulated]
      The extent of this capitalist colonization of the internet has not been as obtrusive as it might have been, because of the vast reaches of cyberspace have continued to permit non commercial utilization, although at the margins,
      And, as in this case, those margins are slowly being squeezed out.



      • Robert Barricklow on January 26, 2016 at 8:31 pm

        That’s why print is preferred.
        It’s not subject to the internet’s control.
        Still, one has to be able to get into print w/o being…
        modulated



        • Robert Barricklow on January 27, 2016 at 11:36 am

          Ironic,
          discussing censorship;
          while wondering what is being censored
          and why.



  13. Vader_Etro on January 26, 2016 at 6:39 pm

    Hopefully, other authors will weigh in on this; authors who work too hard to just pass their nuggets to some clean-nasal-vestibuled, large and well known international authority-respecting internet bookseller spending all hir money on employee health insurance and rockets prime.



  14. lazer-eye on January 26, 2016 at 6:28 pm

    Although there are far too many books written today by people who have absolutely nothing to say, I see this as the price we must pay for living in an economy controlled entirely by corporate capital. In that kind of economy the cream always rises to the top, and the cream is the capital. What they don’t tell us however, is that such an economy is structured vertically like a pyramid so that the higher the capital rises, the fewer the number of people who control it, and the greater the number of people who don’t. These facts must be obscured at any cost, or the system will collapse because people won’t stand for it, and that is the function and purpose of the e-book. Make publication of your thoughts so easy, so simple, and so cheap, that anyone can do it, whether their brain has been ossified by the Amairikuhn Edgykayshun/CC Cabal or not. Its an expression of our glorious Fascist “democracy”, so those who oppose the e-book are just anti-democratic and un-american to boot. The trouble with this strategy however, is that a book is not just a digitally-generated string of words. It is a piece of literature designed to come alive in the reader’s mind, when he gets its point. So presentation has an extremely important role in breaking down the reader’s resistances to whatever truths it offers. Its not everything, but it definitely has a role in that process. After all, the reader is faced with a new and often innovative thesis, and a sloppy, uncaring presentation of it just provides additional ammunition to shoot it down.

    The e-book version of my last book, for example was so mutilated by Amazon that I had to order them to remove it from Kindle. They ignored the formatting entirely, running whole paragraphs together will-nilly, so that a page would appear as nothing but a string of words from top to bottom. I presume they wanted to save space, but who knows? Even then they managed to turn one page of the paperback into one and a half and often even one and three quarters pages of the e-book! Its not that the software isn’t available to perfectly duplicate a paperback digitally. Its more like Amazon just does not care about the author’s intentions. They’re out to make money, period. The book is on radical spirituality. It is entitled ROASTING THE BUDDHA, so true to form they stuck it in a section of their library on roasting, alongside books on roasting potatoes, onions, and carrots, and how to purchase roasting equipment. When I complained, they told me that it hasn’t sold enough copies to go into the radical spirituality section. When I pointed out that it would never sell any copies in the section that it is, because people who are interested in roasting potatoes, onions, and carrots are not typically interested matters of radical spirituality, they suggested that I hire a PR agent! This is what passes for reasoning in Corporate America. Spend money or get out of the way!



    • Vader_Etro on January 27, 2016 at 7:06 pm

      Yeah, Lazer-eye, I found your book together with “Roasting Marshmallows”. (Double dumb-asses…)

      I put the title in my wish list and will order it next month with physical versions of JPF’s FINANCIAL VIPERS and THRICE GREATEST.



      • lazer-eye on January 28, 2016 at 5:25 pm

        Thanks, Vader_Etro! If you happen to live near San Francisco, you could pick up in person at the Open Secret Bookstore, 923 C street, San Rafael, 94901. Phone 415-457-4191…



        • Vader_Etro on January 29, 2016 at 12:28 am

          Thank you, Lazer-eye. But as a 37 year, 28 day fugitive of a northern California sufi concentration camp, I am mos’ unlikely to risk a return to the Goldundschtate.

          I will read your book, and I do thank you.



    • Robert Barricklow on January 28, 2016 at 5:41 pm

      Laser-eye your post reminds me of the book I just finished reading by Dermont Davis/Brain: The Man Who Wrote the Book That Changed the World. It’s about the classic dilemma of writing what’s in your heart or writing simply to sell. The author has two literary books in print but no one’s buying. He then writes a self-help book parody of a book that recently went skyrocketing to the top of the best seller lists; a humorous satire on such self-help books. Ironically, his book shattered previous records; but as being classified as a self-help book, rather than as the satire it was. People were buying/reading it as if it really was a self-help book.



      • lazer-eye on January 29, 2016 at 5:49 am

        Exactly. I suspect that its all these unexamined fixed ideas that people bring to the act of perception which prevent them from seeing what’s in front of them. Until that issue is addressed it doesn’t matter whether their eyes are opened or closed. They will only see their fixed ideas…



        • Robert Barricklow on January 29, 2016 at 11:36 am

          Lazer-eye
          the best book that speaks to this is:
          Flow My Tear The Policeman Said by Philip K Dick



        • Robert Barricklow on January 29, 2016 at 11:41 am

          Lazer-eye
          My reply was censored by the Commercial Comment Moderator[CCM].
          I said the best addressing perception is:
          Flow My Tears The Policeman Said



          • Robert Barricklow on January 29, 2016 at 11:42 am

            by PKD



          • zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 11:44 pm

            bodov yousguys,
            that feels kinda what kubrick’s whole life was about doesn’t it?



      • kitona on January 30, 2016 at 7:57 pm

        That Dermont Davis book: Brain, The Man Who Wrote the Book That Changed the World published in 2013 (which I’m just now hearing of) sounds like it was stolen straight from the 2010 Family Guy episode entitled ‘Brian Writes a Best Seller’ in which a dog writes a crappy self-help book in one night and it then becomes a bestseller thus turning the author into an arrogant prick.



    • zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 11:41 pm

      thank you lazer eye. you got another reader. perhaps an agent (not necessarily a student of ivy lee) might come in handy. just the fact that bezos and friends are so carefully jerking your chain ought to be enough to get you onto a radio podcast or three.

      also brings to mind an alternative to amazon. lulu? adventures unlmtd? can these evolve into giant maimers?

      also doc and you brought to mind the intent, intro and evolution of readers digest. as a kid i knew a few folk from out of country who clued me in on the fact that readers digest was commonly known to be a cia front company. others in and out of country with history in intel clued me in later of rochester’s connections to cia and other front companies. seems rochester was an early form of InQTel.

      to this day, the most easily duped readers i know read readers digest primarily back then. now they fall right in with agendas in jingo books like the kite-runner.



  15. bdw000 on January 26, 2016 at 6:02 pm

    George Orwell must have been psychic.

    FYI everyone: I know of an example from the 1990’s where a book that had been listed as fiction for years started to be listed as non-fiction.

    It was a novel about modern history, with a strong propagandistic bent that the elite wanted to push on the public, so they literally started calling a novel “non-fiction.”

    So, if they were doing that sort of thing with print books, there is simply no limit to what will be done with electronic books.

    JPF is rightly concerned about this issue. We have been living in the world of “1984” since the 1990’s imho.



    • zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 11:07 pm

      it goes to future programming bdw.

      check out some of the huxley families connections and agendas. tavistock has much in mind with their humanist sounding efforts. orwell was also a part of it wittingly or not. even steinbeck and salinger have been outted from the intelligence community financed and run author ranks.

      salinger was active and involved in bluebird, mkultra, mind kontrol,….
      so was timothy leary, the dead,…

      and these programs had societal (aka large group) versions of mind control that were initially studied and used on individuals in the haight ashbury district among others in the northeast.

      neil sanders does some great work on it.

      http://www.neilsandersmindcontrol.com/

      scary stuff though so as the man says, stay positive.



      • kitona on January 30, 2016 at 7:51 pm

        You might also like some of Jason Horsley’s work on Leonid Cohen. Look for his Liminalist podcasts and search his website which I believe is called auticulture.com or maybe .org.



  16. paraschtick on January 26, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    Physical copies of books are always preferable to ebook versions. However, ebook versions are sometimes the only way of getting something you are after without resorting to years of searching second hand bookshops or thrift shops.

    Anyway, that being said, I understand what Dr Farrell is saying.

    However, if a book is only canonical when it is the printed version, what about books that are printed but have been proofread by an illiterate gorilla?

    I refer to some of Dr Farrells books being published by Adventures Unlimited Press. I first read Dr. Farrell’s book, The Giza Death Star, several years ago, now, and was horrified by the excessively bad proofreading therein. I found typo after typo everywhere throughout the book. Even some of the numbers/figures in the book had been “misspelled” meaning that I had to go through a number of calculations to figure out what said numbers actually were.

    I don’t know if this is still the case, but even though I disagreed with a number of points in the book, it did the overall work a great disservice.

    So my point being, is a badly proofread book, still “canonical”?



    • MQ on January 27, 2016 at 9:20 am

      I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who found all the typos distracting. Geez, we have spell check software nowadays, this should be easy. The other publishers Joseph uses seem to be ok.



      • paraschtick on January 27, 2016 at 3:54 pm

        That’s great. I’m also glad that someone else out there has noticed, as well. It is really distracting, and a bit disheartening as subjects like those that Dr Farrell talks about really need to get out into the mainstream. Having badly proofread books really makes a mockery of the subject matter, in my opinion.

        I set up a proofreading business a few years ago, and have thought of approaching Adventures Unlimited to offer my services :D. I can spot a typo at a hundred yards, so I thought I would be doing them, and the wider “alternative research” field a service. You never know, I might still do it.

        But AU do seem to just throw books out without polish. It’s nice to see the kind of books they do publish out there, but without a good proofread, they start looking seriously amateur. Shame really.



        • RAJM on January 29, 2016 at 1:51 pm

          Good point. Trans humanism has quite a few.



        • zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 11:00 pm

          from the land of yeh but:

          agreed completely about the difficulty of typos. to be sure though, those typos might make it easier catching someone adulterating the original.



          • zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 11:01 pm

            and perhaps doc can do his next book here on line and get us all to kick in some proofreading?



    • kitona on January 30, 2016 at 7:47 pm

      Yes, thank you for pointing this out too. Dr. Farrell’s typos have been irritating both in his books and here in his blogs where I’ve recently become rather vocal about pointing them. The Dr. is a smart man but frequent misspellings make him look sloppy.

      Unless, of course, the typos are some kind of secret code like all those errors in the bearer bonds scandals that Dr. Farrell likes to cite.



      • Vader_Etro on January 31, 2016 at 1:49 am

        Not everybody here gets the rose colored glasses with the convex lenses, kitona.



  17. DownunderET on January 26, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    Bloody elites sticking their noses into our business AGAIN. Well I don’t think we have anything to worry about, because people like David Hatcher Childress and Adventures Unlimited Press will not stop printing books. Furthermore there must be other publishers who won’t bend to political pressure, so I put this story into the “WIND” category, in other words FUUUGEEDDAABBOUTIT.

    Oh, and here’s another thing and one of Joseph’ pet likes, FOOTNOTE, FOOTNOTE, FOOTNOTE, so let the elites go take a flying “f**k”.



    • zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 10:57 pm

      mr global will try to stop childress and adventures and their types though won’t they. seems like technology is steadily moving along to allow mr global to do so ever more completely. so how are we gonna keep books flowing to those less able to jump through the hoops that we’ve so far made it through. and how are we going to make it easier for us to get through the hoops that we’re going to need to make it through in the future?



  18. Robertus_Maximus on January 26, 2016 at 1:07 pm

    Hey Joseph, Money talks. Get some people you trust to write the said internet bookseller asking for the book by that author. Nothing wrong with stirring the pot is there?
    RWP



  19. moxie on January 26, 2016 at 12:02 pm

    As we are indeed “information consuming” beings, there is indeed something to this further reduction of essences through digitizing reading materials, music, and the arts.. I’ve long had this sense that it incapacitates people in a significant way, and it frustrates me (for example) to be listening to digital music that only affects me superficially. The imprints are rendered ineffective.



    • moxie on January 26, 2016 at 9:56 pm

      The presentation of any medium has an impact, whether we see it or not (or at least to certain people). Also crucial are the citations. I remember something being discussed about the importance of the order of a statement, and it does apply to any information (written or otherwise) i.e. its formatting etc. .



  20. marcos toledo on January 26, 2016 at 11:25 am

    First they deliberately shot up the prices of paperbacks then began shutting down brick and mortar bookstores. Switch comicbooks to digital form this is a plan to create a pseudo-literate population. With a hard copy of a book once you read it through you can jump around a read it out of order it you want or go back if you miss something the first time you read the book. If you know the language you can still read a clay tablet scroll or bamboo book. With a e-book what if the battery dies no you or the screen begins to go black or you drop it in water. There is a tradition of putting down people who read anyone familiar with the term bookworm. I have found ever since I use a computer I have difficulty reading magazines anymore I think that no coincidence this is Eric Blair aka George Orwell Ray Bradbury worse nightmare.



    • zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 10:50 pm

      hey marcos. you’re gonna love gary paulsen.

      http://www.amazon.com/Nightjohn-Gary-Paulsen/dp/0440219361/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454125783&sr=8-1&keywords=gary+paulsen+slave

      there’s a reason they want more illiterati



      • marcos toledo on January 30, 2016 at 1:01 am

        Yep the means change but the ends stays the same zendogbreath ignorance is strength belief over knowledge. But I hope I can find the book from a bookseller that excepts moneyorders not credit-debit cards.



        • zendogbreath on January 31, 2016 at 10:52 pm

          talk with doc about that marcos. i’m still trying to get him to accept a check instead of paypal.



  21. Robert Barricklow on January 26, 2016 at 11:09 am

    This is nothing short of a push for more profit and less labor.
    It’s Back – to feudalism with no toilet paper – to the future
    [have to go/more on this later]



  22. Aridzonan_13 on January 26, 2016 at 10:47 am

    The day hard copy books are replaced by eBooks . The pertinent facts of Jim Garrison, CAF, JPF, Richard Dolan, Jim Marrs, the list goes on, will disappear from history.

    IMHO, eBooks and BitCoin will finish the job the Break-Away Civ started. Welcome to the Reservation.



  23. chris on January 26, 2016 at 10:37 am

    I think the article is wrong in predicting a future sharp increase in the percentage of people who read e-books vs paper books.

    I am 32 years old, and most of my friends are in their mid twenties to mid thirties.

    Even around the office where a good half our work force is below the age of 30, most of them read real books.

    There will always be people like me and a lot of my friends who prefer printed books because they don’t erase themselves by accident, they are more durable, don’t need battery, and most important, we like the feel of them; we like that we retain the information better. Moving them around sucks (13+ huge plastic tubs of books I have to move all the time) but they are way better than e-books. I had a Sony first gen ereader my dad bought me back in around 2003 but after half a year of playing with it I realised I was not retaining the information, the formatting was horrible, and I definitely preferred real books.

    I believe (and hope) that e-reader sales will stay at a plateau if not decline, unless real books are somehow made ‘illegal.’



    • zendogbreath on January 29, 2016 at 10:47 pm

      the only good use for e readers is to read websites later off line in e-ink display (not back lit and not burning eyes with light shining at us).

      maybe mr global is testing and anticipating each generations resistance to what mr global is trying to make an irresistible shift to a much more easily censored medium. mr global’s been pretty clever so far. wonder what next gen junk he’ll come up with to induce the shift.



  24. zephyr on January 26, 2016 at 9:55 am

    I agree with all your points. I didn’t buy a Kindle when they were first hyped and I will never purchase one, I’m not an author but I immediately thought of the same concerns except the very interesting one about the name. I haven’t liked the name of the devise because picturing books and fire isn’t pleasant. You’re speculation seems so right. The elite seem so odd in many ways. I’ve never read a David Icke book, however listening to statements by governmental (leaders?)and candidates it’s easy to see them as shape shifting reptilians. I don’t think all elites are ignorant so how does one understand actions and ideas that are so anti humanity? As you have said some might believe they’re doing what is best but certainly some are pure evil when viewed from a human and I’ll add an ethical perspective. Medicine and aviation have essentially been at a standstill for 40 to 50 years, archaeological developments are suppressed and we are watched/tracked in all our activities probably by technologies unknown to us. The ability to edit all ideas. What power and control! This must be high on their agenda. The book that has pointed out many anomalies concerning Sandy hook was not just removed from Amazon but it appears to be unavailable from any online bookstore. I read it from a website and should print a copy.



  25. basta on January 26, 2016 at 9:39 am

    I think I know of the ebook you are referring to, on the very inconvenient topic of a recent domestic false flag op. Big players like amazon can simply censor books by refusing to distribute them for whatever reason they wish, with little to no recourse. But then the same was also done with print books, most infamously with Velikovsky back in circa 1960, who caused such conniptions among the scientifico establishment that they actually forced Macmillan to cancel printing and distribution of what had been an enormous #1 bestseller for over a year on the threat of a massive author boycott — “No more soup for you!!”

    That said, if you are worried about the integrity of your ebooks, you should arrange with your publisher to independently post a hashkey of the final text. This can easily be compared against the commercial version; if the two don’t match, the text has been corrupted. Any publisher worth his salt should agree to this; otherwise, run away as fast as you can.



  26. WalkingDead on January 26, 2016 at 8:42 am

    “Fahrenheit 451” comes to mind; a syfy book whose title indicates the temperature at which books burn and provides a fictional look at what might be coming.



  27. sjy1969 on January 26, 2016 at 7:12 am

    Good points. I’ve basically run out of space to store books but will always find space if it’s something I want to keep and refer to.

    My rule of thumb is to buy the paper copy of “serious” reference books but fiction etc I’ll get the ebook

    There is an option from a certain multinational book/ebook retailer to automatically “update” their ebooks that you have downloaded. This may kindle the fires of suspicion amongst some who may wish to deactivate that option.



    • Teddy Bass on January 26, 2016 at 11:13 pm

      Just love books, and Joseph writes some of the best ever written.



  28. DanaThomas on January 26, 2016 at 5:25 am

    Agreed one hundred percent for all the reasons you stated as well as the fact that if the paper is good quality, the book will be in circulation for many, many years to come. And according to the laws of intentionality, it is likely to come into the hands of a person interested in the topic.



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