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Writing made us bad at remembering. Socrates was famously a critic of writing for this reason[1]. If we can say anything about the effectiveness of the argument

Writing made us bad at remembering. Socrates was famously a critic of writing for this reason[1]. If we can say anything about the effectiveness of the argument, it's that it's completely impotent against new technology and tools. 1. https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/ https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/

coldtea 2y ago
Well, Socrates was right. Writing did make us bad at remembering.
- pdabbadabba 2y ago
  Perhaps worse at remembering, but many orders of magnitude better at preserving, accessing, and learning from information about the past.
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    > and learning from information about the past. You'd assume so based on the prevalence of information, but I'm not sure there's any evidence of this. Hell from my own interactions about the past with others, you might as well have completely wiped everything before WWII from cultural consciousness and pretended like the last 80 years are the only ones that matter. Some days it's feeling more like the last 40 years represent the only world people can even imagine, let alone have an opinion on.
    - pdabbadabba 2y ago
      It's a mixed bag, of course. But it really makes me wonder: before the advent of writing, what would it have been like to think about an event that happened 80 years ago--outside just about everyone's living memory? It seems like those events would already have begun to recede into the age of myth! You might not even have a great sense of exactly how long ago it was. On the other hand, thanks to the invention of writing, we have a chance at having at least some reliable knowledge about how people lived thousands of years ago, across the world. (I assume your comment is at least partially tongue in cheek. But I take your point that, just because writing gives us incredible ability to make records and to learn about the past does not mean people will use it.)
  - coldtea 2y ago
    In stored form, sure. Otherwise the information the average person knows about the past is probably even worse, pop memes aside ("Cleopatra's nose", "Egyptians worshipped cats"). Even the immediate past - like 10-20 years before people were born, would be a foreign concept, if it weren't for the ocassional period movie and tv series reference.
darby_nine 2y ago
> If we can say anything about the effectiveness of the argument, it's that it's completely impotent against new technology and tools. Not if you care about these skills! It's not like Socrates was wrong, it's just that the world moved on without him. Having a good memory has nearly zero value these days.

coldtea 2y ago

Well, Socrates was right. Writing did make us bad at remembering.

pdabbadabba 2y ago
Perhaps worse at remembering, but many orders of magnitude better at preserving, accessing, and learning from information about the past.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > and learning from information about the past. You'd assume so based on the prevalence of information, but I'm not sure there's any evidence of this. Hell from my own interactions about the past with others, you might as well have completely wiped everything before WWII from cultural consciousness and pretended like the last 80 years are the only ones that matter. Some days it's feeling more like the last 40 years represent the only world people can even imagine, let alone have an opinion on.
  - pdabbadabba 2y ago
    It's a mixed bag, of course. But it really makes me wonder: before the advent of writing, what would it have been like to think about an event that happened 80 years ago--outside just about everyone's living memory? It seems like those events would already have begun to recede into the age of myth! You might not even have a great sense of exactly how long ago it was. On the other hand, thanks to the invention of writing, we have a chance at having at least some reliable knowledge about how people lived thousands of years ago, across the world. (I assume your comment is at least partially tongue in cheek. But I take your point that, just because writing gives us incredible ability to make records and to learn about the past does not mean people will use it.)
- coldtea 2y ago
  In stored form, sure. Otherwise the information the average person knows about the past is probably even worse, pop memes aside ("Cleopatra's nose", "Egyptians worshipped cats"). Even the immediate past - like 10-20 years before people were born, would be a foreign concept, if it weren't for the ocassional period movie and tv series reference.

darby_nine 2y ago

> If we can say anything about the effectiveness of the argument, it's that it's completely impotent against new technology and tools. Not if you care about these skills! It's not like Socrates was wrong, it's just that the world moved on without him. Having a good memory has nearly zero value these days.