Some thoughts

In a recent conversation with an older member of society I was informed of the sad death of map navigation in the wake of widespread GPS usage. At the time I agreed that losing the ability to read maps and navigate with them was a bad precedent, but I have now convinced myself otherwise. Learning to use a more sophisticated (yet easier to operate) technology to accomplish the same tasks we've always performed with an adequate technology is great. Even forgetting the old methods of navigation isn't necessarily bad. After all, who but the odd enthusiast enjoys navigating using sextants and compasses? These are obsolete not because they don't work, but because it takes more effort and thought to use them. They were never used by anywhere near the percentage of the US population that now uses GPS. And, instead of clogging our time with the discrete minutia of celestial or street-map utilization we can use it to actually go where we are going. GPS frees up our time by taking little of it, frees up our mind by demanding near none of it, and empowers more of us to travel wherever we wish by enabling our safe navigation of unfamiliar territory.

The old ways are not the best ways, if they were they'd be the current ways. The most effective and efficient are, without doubt, the most popular. Nostalgia, whether for the topographic maps of yesteryear or for the flint tools of the stone age is misguided and not thought out. Let knowledge die! The knowledge that it truly useful is always used and will only be forgotten when obsolete.