“In the Phaedrus, writing is the pharmakon that the trickster god Theuth offers, the toxin and remedy in one. With writing, man will no longer forget; but he will also no longer think.”
When I have to navigate to somewhere I haven’t been before, I generally do not read a map, but follow instructions from some navigation software. As a consequence, I often don’t really know where places are, just the route I take to get to a destination. With GPS navigation, I do not get lost, but neither do I have much awareness of how locations are spatially arranged.
Such technologies seem to always be like this.
A potion which removes a difficult task, but also dulls the ability to do such tasks oneself.
It is like that one SMBC comic https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/identity
“ Humans offloaded memory to books, then thought to computers. Now, we're offloading our desires to the network.
All that remains are basic bodily functions, which well offload in another generation or two. At that point, well just merge into one united entity so, it all works out.”
When I have to navigate to somewhere I haven’t been before, I generally do not read a map, but follow instructions from some navigation software. As a consequence, I often don’t really know where places are, just the route I take to get to a destination. With GPS navigation, I do not get lost, but neither do I have much awareness of how locations are spatially arranged.
Such technologies seem to always be like this.
A potion which removes a difficult task, but also dulls the ability to do such tasks oneself.
It is like that one SMBC comic https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/identity “ Humans offloaded memory to books, then thought to computers. Now, we're offloading our desires to the network. All that remains are basic bodily functions, which well offload in another generation or two. At that point, well just merge into one united entity so, it all works out.”