Specialization

I had this exact experience reading Al-Muqaddimah. Chapter 1: The Israelites couldnt have possibly had a standing army of 1 million, because if we divide the arable land area by number of possible garrisons accessible to a tribal confederacy, the territory could not have supported more than 80,000 irregular militiamen. Chapter 3: Suffocation happens because the soul gets too hot. Fish have cold souls and therefore live in water. If theyre taken out of water, their souls overheat. The Northern Europeans and Subsaharan Africans are savages because their souls are the wrong temperature. Mediterraneans are the most civilised thanks to the temperate climate.

To be fair, back in the day you could learn all of math in like a year or two and then what? Invent some more? Some people did. But others then went on to study, like, astronomy or something and learned about epicycles until they learned the entirety of astronomy Nowadays you try and study the entirety of astronomy and 60 years later you’ve mastered 40 separate astronomical subfields but yet to master all of astronomy or something

Every expert then: has what is today considered a middle-school level of knowledge in most of those things. Makes up the rest with unverifiable claims and vibes Experts today: also has that base knowledge, but also has rigorous, replicable and verifiable knowledge in a subfield

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