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That's a pessimistic interpretation. By contrast, the amazing is now mundane because there other things that are now more amazing and more novel. I have degree

That's a pessimistic interpretation. By contrast, the amazing is now mundane because there other things that are now more amazing and more novel. I have degrees in math and computer science from good schools, but I would struggle to reinvent basic trigonometry. I don't think we've "lost knowledge" so much as shifted our emphasis to the novel. I teach Python to 6th graders. These 12-year-olds consider basic coding knowledge akin to algebra. One of the "popular kids" (himself above the 'nerd stuff') is making a little Android app using a public-school-provided chromebook. The lever of utility (and thus focus) has shifted. It doesn't mean a net loss of knowledge or ability.

noduerme 5y ago
That's fair, and overall it's a good thing. I'm not saying I can forge a sword or build a CPU or write an operating system in Assembly. The first language I learned was BASIC, when I was about 7, and after that they showed me Logo in school, moving the turtle around. So since I had a sense of how to turn pixels on and off with arrays and make fireworks, that seemed pretty ridiculous and easy. But even then, Hypercard blew my mind. And I was able to build things on it that I would never understand the low-level nature of. I'm not saying everyone needs to build every tool they use by starting with a piece of rock. But knowing how things are made and how they work is really important. If python is the new algebra, great! The thing is, someone needs to be able to fix the instrument if it's broken. Like, this is extreme, but I drive a car that's a simple machine. I can open the hood and know what I'm looking at, and if something is wrong I have a good idea what it is. But I can't make a piston or a fuel injector. I have to rely on people with plant investment, tooling, machines, to keep molding parts. They rely on people who have to forge the steel or iron. The forges rely on people who mine the raw material. The end consumer knowing roughly how that works is what separates us as a society from a cargo cult. I don't think we can ever successfully separate ourselves from the roots of our technology or the lower layers of it. Anyway, if you're a curious 12-year-old coding in python you should wonder - how does this magic work! I was about that age when someone explained Assembly to me, and though I would never try to write something that way, just seeing it and understanding how it was moving bits around in memory to handle the higher level languages I was writing, blew my mind. I suddenly understood a lot more about what I was doing when I said "print $f"

noduerme 5y ago

That's fair, and overall it's a good thing. I'm not saying I can forge a sword or build a CPU or write an operating system in Assembly. The first language I learned was BASIC, when I was about 7, and after that they showed me Logo in school, moving the turtle around. So since I had a sense of how to turn pixels on and off with arrays and make fireworks, that seemed pretty ridiculous and easy. But even then, Hypercard blew my mind. And I was able to build things on it that I would never understand the low-level nature of. I'm not saying everyone needs to build every tool they use by starting with a piece of rock. But knowing how things are made and how they work is really important. If python is the new algebra, great! The thing is, someone needs to be able to fix the instrument if it's broken. Like, this is extreme, but I drive a car that's a simple machine. I can open the hood and know what I'm looking at, and if something is wrong I have a good idea what it is. But I can't make a piston or a fuel injector. I have to rely on people with plant investment, tooling, machines, to keep molding parts. They rely on people who have to forge the steel or iron. The forges rely on people who mine the raw material. The end consumer knowing roughly how that works is what separates us as a society from a cargo cult. I don't think we can ever successfully separate ourselves from the roots of our technology or the lower layers of it. Anyway, if you're a curious 12-year-old coding in python you should wonder - how does this magic work! I was about that age when someone explained Assembly to me, and though I would never try to write something that way, just seeing it and understanding how it was moving bits around in memory to handle the higher level languages I was writing, blew my mind. I suddenly understood a lot more about what I was doing when I said "print $f"