The purpose of publication of these "books" is not the dissemination of ideas, but the consumption of a renewable carbon based resource. What is not generally known is that Guttenberg was not only the inventor of the printing press, he was an environmentalist who foresaw global warming and knew that carbon could be sequestered from the atmosphere by growing trees, turning that wood into paper, put some stupid words on that paper, then package the wood-paper-word product in a way that was easily handled, then convince the populace that they actually needed this heavy product; and, that once they had a book, they should never, ever, get rid of it. Over the centuries, the long-term marketing project evolved and became wildly successful. People became convinced that having a whopping stack of the things made them better than those who just had a couple. There were Must Have Books, typically containing religious ideas. Organizations even made sure that these books were in every room of every roadside inn. And there were "Reference Books" that were used to understand the other books. Eventually, whole buildings were created to warehouse these packages of encapsulated carbon. Every town and city had one, or more.

Whole economies, trillions of dollars, the rise and collapse of civilizations, acre after hectare of forests felled, ecosystems ruined, even the very perceptions of ordinary people have been tangled up in this sinister conspiracy to alter the climate.

But it is worse even than all that. Isn't it possible that there is a conspiracy within the conspiracy, an even more sinister plot, spanning centuries, beyond our simple understanding, but there, staring us in the face the whole time?

The Journal of Improbable Research published a study many years ago (citation needed) that the accumulation of just one type of Must Have Books, within a geographically localized area, over a period of decades, would in fact change the earths gravitational geoid, resulting in an alteration of the length of the Day! (The study focused on a type of book, The National Geographic Magazine, that was delivered to millions of homes in the United States on a monthly basis, and were considered too valuable to throw away.)

Look, do your own research. You too will start to connect the dots that there is a long lived conspiracy to alter the length of our day. And I must conclude that this is just the beginning of a much longer thread, part of a tapestry so vast, maybe it's better not to pull too hard, lest the whole damn thing unravel.

I've been writing a book about all this, got a whole stack of reference books in the basement, and the garage, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom... Not only that, I've reams and reams of notes, all carefully arranged in cardboard boxes, stacked against walls, or piles nearly at their angle of repose.

Hmm

Wait a minute, something just occurred to me.