Post #2477826
2026-04-08 13:09 UTC
Then Wellerstein continues, "As a whole, 'nuclear weapons' aren’t even just the weapons themselves, but the entire large technical system that is required for them to exist and be sustained. Obviously many of the technical details of these systems can be, and are, written down. But MacKenzie and Spinardi argue that much of their production must also be in the form of tacit knowledge, locked up in the heads and hands of the people who build and maintain them."
And the final bit of the thread is in Joel Baden's Book 'The Composition of the Pentateuch', which discusses how several conflicting oral versions of the torah were compiled into the first five books of the bible. In that compilation, it was the goal that _nothing_ be forgotten, so the stories loop back on themselves and form contradictions, as every element is included chronologically, even if relates a specific event differently than what it said only a sentence or two earlier.
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@celesteh@post.lurk.org 2026-04-08 13:17
Joseph is sold by his brothers to the Ishmaelites, then pulled from the pit by the Midianites, who sell him to the Ishmaelites, who taken him to Egypt. And meanwhile the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar. This conflicting narrative is an extreme act of memory, but it also confuses and obscures the details of the story. We know Joseph was taken to Egypt as property, but by who? How did they acquire him? The redactor's refusal to pick a version makes a clear narrative arc untellable without using some omissions they refused to make. If forgetting creates a fog of confusion where once there was clear knowledge, then so does too much memory.