I can learn long-form division by writing with a pencil. Is the pencil a crutch? Do I have to make my own pencil? Should I learn to divide without needing a writing utensil?

Of course, we can't take ChatGPT for granted like a pencil, because it's controlled by a third party and requires resources out of reach (for now). But it might become trivially cheap one day.

Simply, yes, it is a crutch for your mental math skills.

Should you do any of those follow ups? Seems like a judgement call. In my experience strengthening those fundamentals is important, but there are many occaisons where the point of the exercise (such as learning to write legible long form algebra) overshadows other possible benefits - making a crutch such as a pencil and paper, or a computer typing system, the appropriate call to make.

Please, when you pose 'absurd' hypotheticals, follow them to likely or reasonable conclusions. If you shit your brain off when the conclusion seems obvious but before evaluating you will frequently end up just asking reasonable (if somewhat obvious) questions.

The point I was aiming for was that learning with a crutch is still learning. I interpreted Avicebron's comment as "real programmers code in binary" and you are "unworthy" if you can build a CMake system without having written a Makefile manually in your life.

But after your comment, a lot of what I see around me are crutches. The keyboard I type on, the heated building I'm in. They really help me perform "normal" functions, and living without them would be a handicap, so they are crutches.

But I see no point in purposely living without them. Live your life, and don't force yourself to do something you don't like unnecessarily.

Yes, they are! Nothing wrong with that. A crutch is a tool, and like other tools we will have varying levels of dependence on it/them.

Where the line is for necessary/unnecessary dependence lies is a judgement call.

There's clearly some limit to this line of thought though. Maybe it's valuable to know how to write your own make file. But have you built your own microprocessor by soldering together transistors? You have?! That's awesome! Have you built your own soldering iron?

Indeed! If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Yes, thank you! That is what the latter half of the first paragraph is about - we make judgement calls about the tradeoffs involved with a crutch all the time.

The point isnt to accept a heuristic that points one way or another, but to be conscious about it being a choice that we can make that can have various trade offs along a spectrum. As usual figuring out what trade offs to make is highly dependent on what your goals are.

Plato famously thought writing was a crutch, because people no longer had to memorize everything they learn.

Why bother with the effort of learning anything if you can just be lazy and look it up in a book!

> can learn long-form division by writing with a pencil. Is the pencil a crutch?

Yes. When was the last time you used that algorithm versus breaking down the problem in your head?

I'm getting pretty burned out on hearing this analogy. It seems to stem from a basic confusion between tools and toys. Tools don't constrain your use by dictating output; they help you speed up solving new problems. Toys create environments that shoehorn you into their prefabricated set of solutions. The feeling of gratification from making something nice with a toy is a placebo for the gratification of solving a real problem, and a big part of the drag we're experiencing on creative problem solving these days is the replacement of free-form solving with puzzle-solving. Puzzles, like AI prompts, have solutions that exist in advance in a latent space, and their discovery promotes a form of gamification but doesn't ever till any fresh soil. Being great at playing a game can never approximate being halfway good at writing a game. Discovering Will Wright's philosophy embedded in the best way to play SimCity should only be a step on the road to writing your own SimCity, not an end in itself. SimCity is a toy, not a tool, despite its being a fun stepping stone for future urban planners. One would never want urban planners to rely on it to make their decisions, because deep assumptions are baked into it. Same with ChatGPT. Many, many assumptions based on a snapshot of the world are baked into its output.

Whereas a pencil has no assumptions whatsoever, and no bias towards what you'll do with it, and offers no suggestions that might funnel you in some direction. That is what good tools are like.

But most people today aren’t learning the times tables, and long division. They just use a calculator.

Most young people don’t know how to write by hand anymore, cursive or whatever. They rely on spellcheck and grammar checks. I’m talking native US citizens

So why would they know how to compose an essay? They just text short form things. Even “important” business people fire off misspelled emails with bad grammar as a status symbol, so now ChatGPT will be the status symbol. Putting effort into making a properly worded email actually shows lower status in business negotiations — because if you can’t be bothered to spend time, you are a bigshot with many deals and can walk away at any moment.

"But most people today aren’t learning the times tables, and long division. They just use a calculator."

Let me fix that for you:

Most people learn the times table, and long division. Then they just use a calculator.

The American 5 paragraph essay is an extraordinary artificial academic construct, completely divorced from the real world. It aims to be systematically taught and systematically graded, during the developing stages of education where it is often difficult to get students to express any written thoughts at all.

Using it outside of that context is a mistake. Composing a real-world essay is an exercise in considering an audience, preparing suitable arguments, making points more or less firmly, and hopefully providing some value.