Went looking for that old ‘kids today don’t memorize’ quote and found an old argument against writing:
[…] They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. […]
One thing we’re not doing as effectively today as we’ve done in the past is to learn lessons by heart. If you don’t know things with perfect recall, how can you expect to apply them?
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learning to handle expertise you didn't earn
We’ve always had to figure out who to trust for expertise, but until now, that access wasn’t universal. Used to be the bloke at the pub who ‘knew things,’ or that friend of a friend who could fix computers (me as a kid), or books if you had the patience. Rich people had their ‘real’ experts on call, though Bernie Madoff shows how well that could work out.
The internet changed things, sure. Suddenly you could reach out to actual experts, find communities, and learn from people across the world. But you still needed judgment, because you could also find a community that agreed the earth was flat, so, you know, mixed bag.
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