There’s a section in Plato’s Dialogues where Socrates is talking to Phaedrus about writing. He tells the story of the Egyptian god Theuth who, when he discovered writing, came to King Thamus and told him all about the wonders of this new art. Theuth told him it would become the remedy for memory. King Thamus, however, disagreed. In his eyes, while it was cool that the margin of error for remembering things would be drastically reduced by writing them down, the disadvantage was that ultimately, people would get lazy, so that it’s not so much a remedy for memory, but a system of reminding. On top of that, young and naïve students would get cocky, and think they’ve learned everything on a topic just because they read a book about it. And that’s more what I’d like to focus on, here.