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Majrelende wrote (edited )

There are a few advantages of even moderate literacy which should not be overlooked— orally, information can become corrupted or forgotten or manipulated, while writing is more long-lived. Memory is rather neglected in literate cultures, but never is it infallible— for example, a spreadsheet full of data may in some instances be important to record but impossible to memorise.

The whole art of writing might be lost— millions upon millions of works of art that would be lost when no one can read them. Maybe at least keep a few libraries around.

A modified printing-press could be made from relatively simple materials— why do the letters have to be cast out of lead and antimony if we have aspen-wood all around us— a soft, carveable material that will not shrink? Or even clay?

There are some ways as well in which literacy could be made to require less effort— an obvious example is to abolish the archaic spelling systems favoured by such languages as English, Tibetan, and Dzongkha— where extensive practice must be taken to memorise all of the rules and exceptions and senseless archaisms that pervade the language.

I wonder if logographic scripts would be sufficient to remove some of the impracticality of using various scripts and spelling systems for different languages. They would probably be rather difficult to learn, but there is the added improvement (or difficulty, depending on how you view it) of having to store a printing-press block for every book-page.

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heckthepolice2 wrote

I generally agree that we don't need to like, abolish writing necessarily, but

orally, information can become corrupted or forgotten or manipulated, while writing is more long-lived

I think it's worth noting that some cultures have developed really reliable records of history that don't rely on writing. For example. I know that some aboriginal Australian cultures ahve systems of storytelling where iirc the veracity of a story is verified by three generations of storytellers, meaning they have reliable records stretching as far back as the end of the last ice age (far, far longer than any written records we know of). So I don't think we should discount the value of oral traditions in preserving knowledge. But yeah, there are certain types of information for which that would be a lot harder.

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