[fishfather]

Around 700 B.C. a new technology was emerging and the older generation did not like it at all:

"It will ruin the brain, " they said.

"Memory will go to rot," they said.

A blind bard with neither the ability to read or write had composed in his head two novel length works of amazing complexity of form and content. So great was the acheivement that later poets turned to other genres: they did not think they could compete with his epics. Folks listened to the work and memorized it, word for word.

These same folks screamed foul when this new technology emerged: "it will ruin the brain;" "memory will go to rot;" "no one will hear the beauty of the words," they cried.