A history of towers of knowledge
In Post 1, I asked whether we are living in a modern Babel. Whether the unification of all human knowledge into one system — one language, one intelligence — mirrors something ancient and consequential. Before we talk about where this tower is going, I want to take you somewhere. I want to show you the towers that came before. Because here is the thing nobody tells you about the Tower of Babel story. It wasn't the first time. And every time we have built one of these towers — every time human beings have gathered the sum of their knowledge into one magnificent, ambitious, unified system — two things have happened without exception. It has changed the world beyond recognition. And then something has stopped it. Until now. Tower of Knowledge · I The Library of Alexandria Alexandria, Egypt · 300 BC – 48 BC Ptolemy I, the Greek general who inherited Egypt after Alexander the Great's death, had an idea so audacious it sounds like madness. He would gather every book in the world i...
