I totally agree!

one of my favourite quotes, from emerson: “I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

I think it is the emotional messages and lessons of the writing that reigns paramount, however I do not think that dissuades the importance of the intricacies of said writing. The fine details matter just as much as the big picture, as there is no big picture without fine details. Over time, the details fade until only the impression remains, so, too, does the impression fade and distort. I would consider it -

worthwhile to preserve the details for as long as is reasonable and to reaffirm them when suffiecent degradation has taken place.

@ashavedbear, you make a good point & and beautiful image. I think I focused so much on impression because it can outlive the details many times over. But you're right, that details precede the impression.

loved the article. i used to have that odd expectation too, to think that the books i read for pleasure i should expect myself to have an encyclopedic recall of. but it's not a competition. finding a passage that strikes you, that upon recall enables you to more succinctly communicate a life experience or sudden expansion of worldview, is what makes reading so worthwhile. your last line wraps it up well, as does the

(cont.) emerson quote above.

Don’t get me wrong though, I will still laugh at every version of the “We can’t, we don’t know how to build that anymore” meme

"like fly the airplane?" gave me a good chuckle lol. the proliferation of "glorified chatbots" is so bleak, ive been told in a college coding class it's "such a flex" that i never use AI

Beautifully written and very insightful. The first thing that came to mind: https://youtu.be/LXzJR7K0wK0 Are people being empowered or neutered by their own behavior/creations? There is a world of difference betweeen making things accessible and "dumbing them down." Under the guise of "convenience," a thing can be turned into a "black box," where the underlying function is made opaque or misleading.

Ironically, even if the intention was genuinely to help simplify, the system has actually been made more complex by adding layers of abstraction on top. Would the associated skills be lost if we took the time to explain the details of how and why it was designed to work more clearly instead? But it is more than design; these are also issues of how knowledge itself is retained and shared, and for what purposes.

Some might lean on automation in an attempt to make safety "foolproof," to minimize human error in systems critical to life. But I feel that the inverse is actually true in most instances (i.e.: where human qualities and experiences are necessary for a system to function properly). This especially true with education. To paraphrase a somewhat well-known saying, "...when an elder dies, it's a library burning."

I support the use of automation to decrease both toil and danger, but only if it is carefully and skillfully applied towards ends that are constructive for all. If people disconnect from the consequences of their own decisions while spreading out their impact upon others by attempting to integrate them throughout every aspect of society with technology, then the resulting confusion and chaos is unsurprising.

This is why I think that it is so important to carefully retain "hard-won" knowledge on practical life skills with enough depth that they can be repeated, and sharing it freely simply for the sake of enriching other's lives. It has to increase understanding. The world can be a scary place when we are alienated from the people around us and the systems that we rely on for our basic needs start collapsing.

Every industrial process that is useful in supporting life needs to be made transparent, sustainable, and wherever possible, scaled down to be within the grasp of an individual. And moreover, this must be communicated in ways that shows everyone dignity, is ethical, and mutually beneficial towards all simultaneously. Anything less than that is death; if not now, then later.

@LLT, your comments are always valuable and I enjoyed reading them. Your last comment gets at all the things we stand to lose: it's exactly "death, if not now then later". I'd wanted to write more broadly on the erosion of knowledge as a direct consequence of technological advancement; Low-Tech Magazine recently had an article on historical methods of insulating homes against extreme weather versus the way we deal

with it today (mainly air-conditioning and heating by way of fossil fuels). And it really struck me how something as basic as curtains or house orientation (favoring usual winds, to allow for ventilation) seems to be completely forgotten, while blind faith in the next new technology to miraculously relieve ourselves of our fossil fuel dependence seems to be a given.

@hui yeah, Langewiesche has these deadpan moments that always make me laugh. Not all automation is bad, but I don't know if middle management chooses to lean on automation knowing full well that they're poisoning their own well (destroying a new cohort of professionals who might have gone on to become experienced, competent workers at their company). But, myopia seems to be the prevailing theme here.

from the band that wrote "no we don't have any t-shirts" it's especially amusing :'D

Superficial changes to journal and nest. Reuploaded an old post from two years ago & a math resource I find interesting.