Did you know God hates artists?
Several hundred years ago, when books were rare and information even more precious, freedom and justice were just good jokes.
But soon after the printing press was used to spread Bibles, an enterprising Italian family decided to print their own tomes: little-known texts from early modern Humanist philosophers and their ancient counterparts.
These contained some deeply concerning ideas for the Church because they put agency into human hands instead of God’s. It was an indirect attack on the Church’s absolutism.
Until then, monks wrote all the books. Attempts to spread new ideas were labelled blasphemous and met with a pretty rapid and terminal punishment.
The Medici family changed this with the most successful content marketing campaign in history.
Wealthy nobles were soon throwing gold at artisans and entrepreneurs instead of priests, eager to demonstrate their status and cultural preeminence to posterity with new ideas and technology.
God had to make room on their throne for some new deities: Freedom; Ethics; Science; Justice.
Controlling the flow of ideas is how you control the world. The internet made information free.
And that’s why Facebook is building the Metaverse: It’s a printing press for Gen-Z.