What, you mean the first printing? Or a later copy (printed on future-current stock?), since that’s arguably the whole point of print? Let’s borrow Rod Taylor’s time machine and see for ourselves!
In 4,000 years, it might look pretty crumbly, but then, not too many people are making stone tablets for single-use consumption these days anyway. But why stop here? We still have the keys, let’s time machine forward!
In 40,000 years, we’re starting to get into the ticks of the clock of the Long Now, and I anticipate the first printing really won’t last. But, of course, that’s not really the point of print, and if civilization lasts, a few copies may even be in circulation. Nobody reads them much, of course, since the tongue is archaic and unwieldy. The Eloi just let everything go to pot. (White people. SMH. Hopefully the Morlocks get over their jerky cannibalism ways and invent sunglasses.)
In 400,000 years, deep time is kicking in, and I doubt too many of the modern takes on old classics will be around much, including all Apple Kindle Pads. As detritus. Maybe.
In four million years, everything and everyone we’ve ever known, done, seen, or heard of is represented by a thin layer in the geologic column marking the Anthropogenic Extinction Event. Some of the sturdier foundations may still exist, provided they were buried relatively quickly near geologically inactive regions. The only exception is the human-made structures on the moon, which once housed billions during the Lunar Real Estate Bubble, now home to vacuum-hardy fungi.
Everything’s weirder here. But yeah, print probably won’t last like the stone tablets did before they returned to dust. Dinosaurs, having faked their extinction as birds, once again rule the Earth. They build cities, write novels, and watch the skies very closely.
Wait. Did I forget the question?
