YouTube shorts are my guilty pleasure for when I am feeling too lazy to focus on anything for more than two minutes. I ran across the one at the bottom of this post the other day, which I found really inspirational given that I treat a lot of information the same way. Specifically, I don’t spend time committing information to long-term memory that is easily looked up.

I have, at times, committed information temporarily to long-term memory for the purpose of receiving certifications that are helpful in credentialing myself in the eyes of others, I seldom maintain full recall for more than a couple of months past the exam (unless I am currently using it on a regular basis). There are some scripting languages that I have learned multiple times because they fall into disuse between very long term projects.

Before the Einstein quote, I had heard about Henry Ford suing for slander after being called ‘ignorant’. His court testimony was along the lines of “…tell me why I should clutter up my mind with general knowledge, for the purpose of being able to answer questions, when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I require?” (see Ignorance Is Not Knowing Everything: Henry Ford Model for a good read about this…though I heard about it back when Internet was still capitalized and one had to hear tortured US Robotics™ scream before it could be accessed by most).

In researching the Einstein quote, I ran across a few others on a site I won’t link to because of the nature of the ads they show. Suffice to say, it is a commonly-held sentiment among those considered to be educated, intelligent, and/or innovative.

The point I wish to make, in my frequently-meandering way, is that these quotes and attitudes are all pre-www and even more relevant in light of both the internet as readily available source and the accelerated speed of change it fosters. Memorizing information pertinent to solving technology issues is detrimental to being highly productive both because it requires a narrower range of knowledge, and it often results in relying on outdated information rather than refreshing one’s understanding (which has most likely evolved for the topic since memorized).

Dennis Miller used to close his monologues (which he called rants) with  “But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.”, and I used to quote that in my email signature (back when quotes in email signatures was a thing). In this case, I believe if I look it up now, I won’t be (wrong, that is, which I add because even I found that sentence confusing…but still like the Miller-esque structure of it).