[jldugger]

> It's disappointing to see such as simple-minded idea, which has been so profoundly debunked by huge amounts of research, on the front page of HN.

My read is that the author actually agrees with you. The author points out that all students have a starting non-empty state (long term memory), and the goal of learning is to build on top of that. It's just defining the space of "learnable" things as distance from long term memory. This doesn't seem that controversial?

They even call out all the things you call out as effective:

> Everything we know about learning efficiently is directly related to memory - "good" teachers, "good" explanations, images, diagrams, maths problems, essays, practical assignments all are good for learning because they help move things into your long-term memory.

I suspect the thing upsetting you is the call out to spaced repetition?