[hikerrrr]

We forget that just 30 years ago the modern day equivalent of word processors edit features would make any typewriter or scratch pad jealous. Re-writing at breakneck speeds has saved countless trees and forests, as was the old environmental concerns with writing too much.

Want to edit a long form part of any paper written in 1985? Toss the paper in the wastebasket and start over. Most decent ideas can be fleshed out with enough editing and re-writing.

Paper had the advantage of being toss-able.. On a computer, what we write seems to be so unique and special... Books are common to have been written a couple times before they are in their 'final forms'.

Public internet knowledge before the social media moat was forums, wikis, various video sites, comment boards, Stackoverflow etc...

Embracing the mess of private knowledge in automotive repair space means recording any and all private repairs and posting them publicly whether someone gets value of it or not.

Embracing the mess of private knowledge in almost any other industry gives anyone the chance to see how messy most industries are with their knowledge moats.

[cborenstein]

Very interesting - the idea that with paper you accept that much of what you write is tossable and that for the select things you want to keep around, you're willing to re-transcribe. Your writing is understood to be a snapshot in time, not something that's supposed to stay up-to-date over time. There's something liberating about that.