NOT MINE
This is just a reference/bookmarked article from the internet i found interesting!
Personal Knowledge Management Is Bullshit by Justin Murphy
Personal Knowledge Management (“PKM”) is a trendy new term for techniques and applications designed to manage information.
Everyone is overloaded with information thanks to the digital revolution, so … we need new software and systems to survive and thrive. So far, so good. I agree with this intuition
The problem is that market demand for solutions is tremendous, while the underlying problem is stubbornly intractable. (View Highlight)
Note: He seems to be taking the view that people believe the solution to information overload is a specific tool or technology. while that might be the view of some (including many of the people selling the tools), it Isn’t actually what’s being proposed by the best thinkers in the space.
The Bull in the China Shop
First, a great proportion of the variance in “knowledge management” effectiveness across individuals is genetic. View Highlight)
Note: He seems to take a deterministic and somewhat fatalistic view that it’s only people with high natural levels of orderliness and industriousness (personality traits under the Big 5) that will be willing and able to create an effective PKM system. I don’t necessarily agree. In fact I’ve seen a number of examples of people who have created their systems for the exact opposite reason — that they struggle with being orderly, organised and systematic. If you already feel your way(s) of structuring and organising your thinking and your work are effective, what would be the need for a system?
Next, these naturally organized people realize they’re sitting on a valuable commodity, which they can sell to less industrious and orderly people. (View Highlight)
Note: Essentially he seems angry that his personality isn’t the one above and he’s therefore upset that others are able to build a system and then potentially sell it to others. In short he seems to be arguing against how business (and even capitalism) works. People with a problem they want to solve pay other people who’ve developed a solution to that problem to help them solve it for themselves. The person providing the solution is compensated for the value they provide. Seems like a reasonable exchange.
I’m not coming after the basic idea of organized people helping less organized people for a fee. I’m just pointing at the bull in the china shop, namely that most of the variance between individuals is genetic and relatively invulnerable to intervention. It is probably marginally amenable to intervention, but “probably marginally amenable to intervention” does not make for great marketing copy, so the reality projected by PKM influencers is substantially distorted. (View Highlight)
Note: No proof or evidence provided to back the claims around personality traits being what determines someone’s ability to manage information overload or build effective systems to bridge the gap. In this sense his argument is flimsy. How is this not just his own (angry) or just oversimplified due to sample size perspective?
Get Your Knowledge Graph Away From Me
Other forms of ludicrous reality distortion abound in this new “discipline.” Another great example is the concept of the Knowledge Graph.
Popularised especially by Roam Research, a Knowledge Graph refers to the whole web of connections between ideas or notes. Knowledge Graphs are built with “bi-directional links” or backlinks between notes (an equally trendy software motif in the PKM world), where any given word in one document can link to another document (and also become visible in that other document.)
The sex appeal of the Knowledge Graph derives from the fantasy of not having to decide what’s most important. (View Highlight)
Note: He hits on something of some relevance here despite coming at it from what I see as the wrong angle. The knowledge graph does reveal connections and what you spend most time on. That doesn’t mean it reveals anything other than potentially unexpected reminders.
The Knowledge Graph says you don’t have to use your conviction and will to execute risky and time-consuming, linear projects (View Highlight)
Note: No, it doesn’t say this nor does it claim that it does. Instead it offers to show the connections between the things you write or take notes about. if the objection is against the iterative nature of the zettelkasten method, it’s even less valid.
The problem with the Knowledge Graph ideology is that everything in your mind is already situated in a graph structure. (View Highlight)
Note: The argument seems to be that because you already have knowledge in your mind connected to other knowledge in a web-like structure, there’s no value or merit in taking new notes that mimic/emulate that web-like structure. That seems to be a fairly nonsensical argument. How is it not a good thing to be using a structure that already works and which mimics the way your brain works? Is the argument that you should instead intentionally use a structure that is dissimilar to how your brain works?
I submit that you are unlikely to author anything very profound or forceful, so long as you are possessed by the Knowledge Graph ideology. (View Highlight)
Note: I don’t know how true this is but in so far as it is true, it’s not for the reasons he gives.
Cut a Line Through Your Graph
The point of writing—and what the greatest authors have always done—is to cut through the knowledge graph with a bold and forceful line. (View Highlight)
Note: This is a fair point. The act of writing or creating anything is an act of discernment, judgement and selection that, by definition, requires the cutting and exclusion of parts in order to highlight other parts.
Almost anyone you know and respect as a writer is known and respected because they’re able to muster brute, linear wilfulness. (View Highlight)
if they’re actually publishing a real body of work, then it’s their brute linear wilfulness despite the handicapping of knowledge graph overwhelm. (View Highlight)
Note: This is valid. It’s not an argument against a specific approach or software though.
Every person into PKM will say: But what about Luhmann and his Zettelkasten note-taking system? Many writers have devised lots of little systems, and the fact that everyone into PKM mentions this one guy supports my argument. (View Highlight)
Note: This is a more valid argument. The fact that one person out of many thousands was prolific using a specific method may be more an indication of something about that person than it is about their system.
What percentage of history’s greatest and most prolific writers did not use a Zettelkasten? More than 99%, probably. (View Highlight)
Note: But they did have their own systems so again, this isn’t actually the slam dunk he thinks it is against this particular system.
The concept of the Knowledge Graph deserves the classification of bullshit because its allure derives primarily from the false impression that it can mechanistically deliver—or substitute for—the brute, linear wilfulness that defines all non-trivial writing. (View Highlight)
Note: His critique ultimately seems to boil down to: “anyone who says their approach will make writing easier is trying to sell you something.”
A Signalling Theory of PKM
By publicising one’s overwrought Knowledge Management System, people think they are showing off their big brains. (View Highlight)
Apps and courses that help you make these pretty pictures are not helping you to advance your knowledge or to write increasingly insightful works. (View Highlight)
Note: At the end of what can only be called a rant, he makes the only thing close to a useful point: that the core value of reading and note-taking is the advancement of knowledge and creation of new works. Noteworthy that I’m currently only truly doing one of those two things.
Motivate some individuals to write more than they would otherwise and review their notes more often than they would otherwise. This is possibly a non-trivial contribution to human welfare. (View Highlight)
Digital Obesity and the Oppression of Memory
I would grant that perhaps the placebo belief in a novel and revolutionary system may, at the margin, motivate some individuals to write more than they would otherwise and review their notes more often than they would otherwise. This is possibly a non-trivial contribution to human welfare.
The most important thing about writing is discovering novel and non-trivial truths, and determining which of your truths is most important—then imposing order, hierarchy, and linearity—through judgment, decisiveness, and will. (View Highlight)
To produce meaningful work, and then forget about it, so you can move on to another and hopefully greater act of linear will. (View Highlight)
In the words of Deleuze:
I have no “reserve knowledge” (aucun savoir de réserve)… Everything that I learn, I learn for a particular task, and once it’s done, I immediately forget it, so that if ten years later, I have to—and this gives me great joy—if I have to get involved with something close to or directly within the same subject, I would have to start again from zero, except in certain very rare cases… (The ABC Primer) (View Highlight)
Note: Reflecting on this I can only conclude that Deleuze was shortsighted (to be kind…) 👓. Not taking advantage of the compounding potential of work already done is foolish. Ultimately it comes down to what you’re trying to do and why.
A perpetually expanding web of hyperlinked notes is not impressive but oppressive. It’s not useful, and it’s not illuminating. (View Highlight)
Note: If that is the case, why is it the case? Is there any reason why having a large web of interlinked notes is somehow oppressive or is it merely that the structure of Roam and knowledge graphs in other, similar tools has no real utility and his critique is heavily biased towards picking up on the shortcomings of that particular aspect of the “discipline” of personal knowledge management?
There exists a minimal collection of software and web services which is certainly a boon for the vita contemplativa, but fancy and trademarked systems often do more harm than good*.* (View Highlight)
Note: Example? You could make a compelling argument that this applies to the kinds of overly-complex technologies and tools that enterprises buy and never make full use of but there’s no evidence provided in the text of where what he’s saying is true and in what way.
Despite being written by someone with an academic background who provides sourced quotes at various points, big claims are made that the reader is expected to accept without any proof being offered. I agree with this to a degree. However it’s not the software or tool that typically makes things complex. It’s what people build in them. The same happens on paper.
In fact, concern with software solutions and the disposition to manage arcane technical systems are both inversely correlated with the kind of spirit that tends to produce significant creative and intellectual work. (View Highlight)
Note: I agree with the spirit of this. I’ve observed this tendency in myself when I’ve gotten too tangled up in the “right” tool and the “right” system and that’s taken precedence over actually producing something of value and which would move both my thinking and the thinking of anyone who read what I wrote forward in one way or another.
Obsession with retaining every little idea you’ve ever had is a kind of digital hoarding. Just as physical hoarders are often physically obese, digital hoarders are often digitally obese. (View Highlight)
Note: Except there’s no one suggesting that you hang on to “every little idea you’ve ever had”. Nor is there anyone (reputable) in the PKM/zettelkasten space who suggests anything other than that you should be selective and discerning about what makes it into your permanent notes. Again this seems to be a critique based on a misunderstanding of what’s being critiqued. If he’s taking a swing at Roam/Obsidian etc and the value of the knowledge graph then the point is valid. It’s again a matter of degree and purpose. Gaining progressively greater amounts of condensed value is one thing. Just saving things in the hope they’ll become useful in the future or because you’re scared you’ll lose them Isn’t valuable.
Some people are physically skinny but digitally fat. They byte too many pixels and their soul becomes heavy with memory. (source) (View Highlight)
In intellectual history, the coin of the realm is the singular written work. The singular written work is a brute force attack, not a bureaucratic spider web. (View Highlight)
Note: Isn’t the “singular written work” (a linear product) just the end product of a process? Who’s to say what the process was that led to those ideas being trapped in amber in the form they’re currently in? Again, Ryan Holiday, Robert Greene and Luhmann come to mind as examples of prolific authors/writers who use a non-linear approach to writing. It is a fair observation though that there are relatively-few writers I know of who credit their productivity and output to a system like the zettelkasten but that isn’t evidence that they don’t use a system that resembles the zettelkasten either. The commonplace book is one of the predecessors of the zettelkasten and it was known to be commonly used by intellectuals and writers in the past.
The ability to create singular written works is mostly impervious to education and technical supplementation; it is overwhelmingly what we used to call gifted or God-given and today call either genetic or inspired. (View Highlight)
Note: Perhaps this is true. Equally, perhaps it’s the very fact that not enough people have access to and understanding of a system like the zettelkasten that results in so few works of significance being created. With the rise of AI and technologies like ChatGPT will we suddenly see a massive increase in the number of published authors? I suspect not. And to me that would constitute a data point indicating that something other than the difficulty of writing (or having genetic brilliance) is playing a major role in who produces written works. It could perhaps more easily be explained by factors such as a huge % of the world’s population not being educated to a high-enough degree or to social structures that lead to writing not being seen as an option by many. Equally factors like poverty may play a role. It’s an oversimplification on the author’s part to say that there are only a limited number of authors because writing is an act of brute force and willpower.
Software tools and courses can aid intellectual advancement and productivity at certain margins, for some people, but we should be more explicit about what exactly they can help, how they can help, and whom they can help. (View Highlight)
Note: True and I would agree that marketing claims can be misleading. At the same time, effective marketing makes a very specific claim to a very specific audience and in most cases, if the product/software/course doesn’t deliver on its promise, you’re able to get your money back, in which case railing against “greedy people charging for knowledge” doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny. Especially not when you’re someone who’s likely paid tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on tertiary education, which is the original “knowledge behind a paywall” business model and it would be a fool’s errand to argue that university course descriptions are exercises in clarity in terms of detailing the product being sold, who it’ll help and how it’ll do so.
For the right person, at the right time, a modest software improvement or a modest educational intervention that increases productivity or quality by 10% might very well be worth thousands of dollars. But the current discourse has gotten out of hand. (View Highlight)
Note: Again, I actually agree with the point that the current discourse has gotten out of hand (relating to the online education/online course sales market) but the rest of the argument doesn’t really hold up.
The current state of “Personal Knowledge Management” is mostly bullshit, made possible in the short term by the magnitude of the problem and the widespread, felt need for a solution. (View Highlight)
The deep and urgent sense that we’re all drowning in information and distraction has created a massive market for anything that claims to solve this problem. (View Highlight)
Note: This is an argument that the problem is real and accelerating and that a solution (a principle-based one) is desperately needed.
In this context, it is natural for wildly overstated claims and trendy fashions to proliferate, however divorced from reality they might be. (View Highlight)
Note: Again, some valid points but it doesn’t constitute an argument for why “personal knowledge management is bullshit”. Wildly overstated marketing claims and trendy fashions will always proliferate — the hint’s in the name — but being a trend doesn’t make something “bullshit” (unless it does).