The phrase "bicycle for the mind"

[Gaugamela]

3. It always seemed to me that you would have to factor in the energy needed to

construct the bicycle, and the energy needed to resource and lay the pavement that the cyclist is traveling on. And anyway, if you’re not going to factor that in, what about a person floating downriver in a canoe?

Most of our greatest writers and thinkers produced their work without computers. The idea of Plato or Shakespeare writing their works with a quill on parchment is almost unimaginable to us today. The argument could be made that the limitations of their technology caused them to increase their cognitive capacity and construct their works whole in their heads before writing them down. Homer composed within an oral tradition and recited his work. He was likely illiterate; his works were written down a couple hundred years later.

It seems to me that the bicycle for the mind mostly allows for average people to push more paper around — digitally of course — and to produce sloppier work and get by with it.