causal

Textual cultures enable a different kind of collaboration

Writing-oriented ('textual') organizational cultures are fundamentally different from oral ones — benefiting both readers (efficient, intertemporal access to the through-line of reasoning) and writers (organizing one's own thoughts) — analogous to how Latour argued the printing revolution helped cause the scientific revolution by making knowledge rigid enough that discrepancies between theory and reality became visible.

causalpending

Speaker

Patrick Collison

Evidence Quote

Bruno Latourspoke about how he thinks the printing revolution, like Gutenberg's, partially caused the scientific revolution by making knowledge more rigid... by making things more rigid, it's easier to break them.

Source

Patrick Collison — Why Silicon Valley's most talented should leaveDwarkesh Patel Podcast
Created: 6/13/2026, 3:26:23 AM

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