(I keep delivering this as a quip, here's a bit more) First order of business - is 'tool' going to have an interesting, distinguishing and thus illuminative meaning or be a mere platitudinous stand-in for "anything useful"? We'll save tool as "anyone/thing that can be exploited" for the AI titans, f
I think I’ll eschew any essay that attempts to define such a vague and old word as “tool” to make a point, as it seems likely it will all be pointless semantic bollocks rather than anything useful. I think I got over this kind of essay in first year of university.
The fact that business people use language and words to diffuse bullshit does not mean that words have not a meaning. In contrary, language is important, and we should wrestle to express thoughts clearly. Rich Hickey is much better at that than the average person, e.g. see his youtube talk “Spec-ulation” on versioning and compatibility, or his thoughts on identity and state in programming.
I think I’ll eschew any essay that attempts to define such a vague and old word as “tool” to make a point, as it seems likely it will all be pointless semantic bollocks rather than anything useful. I think I got over this kind of essay in first year of university.
The fact that business people use language and words to diffuse bullshit does not mean that words have not a meaning. In contrary, language is important, and we should wrestle to express thoughts clearly. Rich Hickey is much better at that than the average person, e.g. see his youtube talk “Spec-ulation” on versioning and compatibility, or his thoughts on identity and state in programming.
Language is important, but “if we define a commonly used word in this extremely narrow way, then…” is a losing proposition for that reason
That’s kinda Rich’s schtick