- movable type printing system invented by Johannes Gutenberg ~1440 in Mainz
- mechanical reproduction of text: metal type, oil-based ink, screw press
- Gutenberg Bible (1455): first mass-produced book in Europe
- reduced cost of books by orders of magnitude, enabling mass literacy
- catalyzed the Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution
- democratized knowledge: ideas spread faster than authorities could suppress them
- predecessor chain: writing (invention) → manuscript copying → printing press → digital text
- direct ancestor of the Information Age: the web is a printing press with zero marginal cost
- cyber extends this lineage: decentralized, consensus-ranked knowledge for all agents