Plato was largely right though, when looking at the individual alone. It is still a problem, thinking you understand something because you could look it up. It permits hypothetical access to facts but not the synthesis of knowledge from those facts. Anyone reading this could look up the latin terms "manus" and "facere", but unless they do, they probably won't spontaneously understand the etymology of "manufacture" as I mention it.

What he didn't factor in was the effect on information logistics. This turned out to outweigh the drawbacks of more false wisdom.