>>22661210fair point. we could argue semantics though, when you say access that also came about a bit later because of the cheaper paper, ink and wider literacy, pic rel is a map of the so called Republic of Letters that contributed greatly to the Enlightenment and you had the same thing in the Middle Ages too. though it was restricted to higher classes because of cost and literacy.
The reason I say speed is because that is one of the main things I take for granted today hence my earlier post. but I realize there were a lot of things implicit to when I say speed of information. if you could receive letters instantly to Switzerland from Turkey that would still net you a library in the end, we can also store and search our information much more effectively. and to my mind it's culture, the totality of our norms, traditions, rituals and collective knowledge that makes humans successful. linking our minds together by proxy. so you're right, speed alone wouldn't do it, the capability to share, store, index and recall information on a bigger scale would. the question is really whether the church and nobility would allow for any such thing, the Gutenberg press led to a century of war after all.
