A Good Old Fashoned Bookburning

[Flint]

The one requirement was that each bookburning needed to be justified in some extremely meaningful (and/or possibly personal) way.

And they have to write an essay describing their justification.

These essays are published, and in turn published as a book of their own.

The community is shocked when a rogue 16 year-old honor student submits the book-of-essays-about-which-books-should-be-burned as a book that itself should be burned. The essay is so compelling, that everyone agrees.

But that was just the beginning. Every member whose essay was burned on the basis of the new essay has to write an essay explaining why they felt the burning was justified. These essays are then collected and published, and within months are submitted and approved for burning--sparking another round of essays...and another round of burnings.

The recursive series of events that follows over the next several years lead to the total devastation of the publishing industry as we know it, as all books published by the year 2012 are exponentially self-referential to the point that people must pursue college degrees in the history-of-books-of-essays-about-book-burnings-being-burned before they can even understand what the books are even talking about.

The human desire to read is so overwhelming that millions of people abandon all other activities in favor of trying to follow the logical feedback loop, back far enough to be able to read anything anymore. Civilization collapses, about which essays are written and the whole process begins anew.

So, no, I think book-burning is a bad idea.