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lebuffon

Interesting. Is this a trend away from holding knowledge in the local wetware?

Things that are much less common over my (long) lifetime:

-memorization of classic poetry and lines from literature

-memorization of tables for simple math operations (+ - * / )

-memorization of telephone numbers

-memorization of how to travel to different locations, even in a city

Is memorization of the alphabet next?

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We're back to Plato and his dislike of writing. "If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written"

It's a difference of degree.

> Is memorization of the alphabet next?

There was this thing I read years ago about how teenagers in Japan don't know how to write a lot of kanji by hand, but they'll recognize and be able to use it when typing it in their phone (since the input is phonetic and it autocompletes to possible kanji).

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