(2022-04-27) Murphy Personal Knowledge Management Is Bullshit

Justin Murphy says Personal Knowledge Management is Bullshit. The problem is that market demand for solutions is tremendous, while the underlying problem is stubbornly intractable.

First, a great proportion of the variance in “knowledge management” effectiveness across individuals is genetic.

naturally organized people realize they’re sitting on a valuable commodity, which they can sell to less industrious and orderly people. Some random nerd who just loves organizing all his little files decides to christen his idiosyncratic personal routine with a catchy name, package it as the best method for helping anyone get organized, and then thousands of less organized people pay him to learn it.

Get Your Knowledge Graph Away From Me

The sex appeal of the Knowledge Graph derives from the fantasy of not having to decide what’s most important.

Not only will the graph tell you what’s most important (the more incoming backlinks, the more central the idea), the graph even seems to provide its own composition

It’s big and complicated, with way too many connections everywhere

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.

The reason Knowledge Graphs and other PKM memes are so trendy is that, by publicizing one’s overwrought Knowledge Management System, people think they are showing off their big brains. (signalling)

I tried using Roam for about two weeks once. I used Roam and only Roam, diligently. After only two weeks, my knowledge graph was utterly unintelligible and distressing. It's called combinatorial explosion.

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

To produce meaningful work, and then forget about it, so you can move on to another and hopefully greater act of linear will.

A perpetually expanding web of hyperlinked notes is not impressive but oppressive

Obsession with retaining every little idea you've ever had is a kind of digital hoarding

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

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.

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.