{"id":3776,"date":"2026-07-28T23:10:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=3776"},"modified":"2026-07-28T23:10:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:10:46","slug":"ai-companies-are-buying-up-rare-and-out-of-print-books-and-shredding-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=3776","title":{"rendered":"AI companies are buying up rare and out-of-print books and shredding them"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

We (should) all know about the destruction of the library of Alexandria, a series of events that robbed mankind of priceless ancient texts, containing wisdoms, tales, and untold amounts of information about antiquity. Bits of knowledge that truly (and literally) were lost forever to the ashheap of history.<\/p>

Read more The middle class isn\u2019t really a class at all<\/a><\/p>\n

And, we\u2019re witnessing a 2026 version of the tragedy: AI companies are buying up rare and out-of-print books\u2014many with no other surviving copies\u2014reportedly as part of an effort to train their AI models. These corporations are then shredding the original copies, because it\u2019s *slightly* cheaper than storing the books.<\/p>\n

\n

\ud83e\udd94AI companies are bulk-buying rare books, scanning them through high-speed machines that cut the spines off, and shredding the originals. A service called ISBNdb facilitates orders of up to a million books and keeps buyers anonymous. Pre-2022 books are premium because they’re\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/0YPd8N2oi5<\/p>\r\n\u2014 Hedgie (@HedgieMarkets) July 27, 2026<\/blockquote>\n

Prominent journalist Sydney J. Harris once noted that \u201cHistory repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.\u201d For years, I held that sentiment to be true, but upon further ponderance, I realized he could have only been speaking to the uneducated and uninformed leftist masses, because in no way did that observation apply to the average person with any grasp of history (as elementary as it may be), who, by virtue of being at least somewhat enlightened, is not<\/em> politically left.<\/p>\n

When we see a government accomplish gun control and consequently ramp up the oppression, it\u2019s not some \u201ccunning\u201d or \u201cdisguised\u201d bait-and-switch. The tyranny that comes after rendering the citizenry defenseless is entirely predictable.<\/p>\n

When a society rejects the morality of the Christian faith\u2014in our case a worldview that became the pillars of the Western nations\u2014the invasion of immorality in the public sphere is not a \u201ccunning\u201d or \u201cdisguised\u201d leftist scheme. Rome did exactly that, a mistake we seem determined to replicate.<\/p>\n

When barbarians from the darkest corners of the world flood into a civilized\u00a0 Western (Christian) culture, whether they\u2019re the Islamic hordes of Mehmed II or the sub-Saharan migrants of today, the chaos and dysfunction ushered in are not results of some \u201ccunning\u201d or \u201cdisguised\u201d political campaign.<\/p>\n

This is all a + b = c<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And, the disappearance of books time and again, whether it\u2019s a byproduct of war and political turmoil (as in the case of Alexandria), a byproduct of corporate profit\u2014the benefit-of-the-doubt plausible-deniability excuse I\u2019ll give the AI companies, though I also suspect it\u2019s intentional censorship\u2014or outright censorship, is also not some \u201ccunning\u201d or \u201cdisguised\u201d repetition history. It\u2019s a key part of erasing a people and eradicating a culture.<\/p>\n

Joseph Stalin\u2019s regime destroyed millions of books. Government agencies like Glavlit, along with secret police and library commissions, routinely purged public and private libraries, wiping out works considered counter-revolutionary, religious, or bourgeois; Stalin\u2019s cronies also slaughtered countless intellectuals during his reign of Great Terror.<\/p>

Read more Taxed out of house and home<\/a><\/p>\n

Pol Pot seemingly took it a step further, overseeing the destruction of nearly \u201call written works, libraries, and formal education.\u201d Intellectualism became a capital offense, and the radical push to reset Cambodia to \u201cYear Zero\u201d saw roughly 80% of Khmer literature erased.<\/p>\n

Mao wasn\u2019t much different.<\/p>\n

Ironically, we see the theme of destroying\/preserving books\/knowledge commonly in fiction too, even appearing in some of literature\u2019s greatest works.<\/p>\n

In 1984<\/em>, main character Winston plays a huge role in erasing history, tossing things down the Memory Hole; he then reads a \u201cforbidden\u201d text from the alleged resistance leader, Emmanuel Goldstein.<\/p>\n

In Fahrenheit 451<\/em>, Guy Montag does an about-face, and instead of burning books, he risks his life to preserve the knowledge they contain.<\/p>\n

In The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em>, the new government, the Republic of Gilead, purges the libraries and bans the people from reading.<\/p>\n

In fact, the fantasy series I\u2019m currently reading happens to include the theme, with the \u201cGreat Library of Parthos\u201d being moved and hidden once its location becomes known to the world\u2019s tyrannical overlords.<\/p>\n

You see, destroying books to erase history\u2014a history that keeps on repeating\u2014to subject a people is nothing new. Though, in contradiction to Harris\u2019s opinion, the manner in which it\u2019s being repeated now is not cunning or disguised.\u00a0 Yes, I believe the AI companies ripping our books to shreds are mostly motivated by profit, but they\u2019re also not friends of humanity, or in the business of promoting informed people, so I can\u2019t help but deduce it\u2019s a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone effort.<\/p>

Read more Poland is the ally the G-20 needs<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"ChatGPT\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Image generated by ChatGPT.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We (should) all know about the destruction of the library of Alexandria, a series of events that robbed mankind of priceless ancient texts, containing wisdoms, tales, and untold amounts of information about antiquity. Bits of knowledge that truly (and literally) were lost forever to the ashheap of history. 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