The edit ♻️ function doesn’t just let us tweak words. It redefines the relationship between what we once thought we were and what we insist we are now. But it also quietly dissolves our ability to stand by a moment as it once actually was.
At the end, the true shift isn’t about digital text. It is about how we now negotiate our own past actions with everyone else watching.👀
Good post. Thanks. At first, I liked the flexibility of editing to update and have a "revised" version in the old, book sense, but unlike the texts of old which can linger as a record, online material disappears as it morphs. Something about that disturbs me. It's more than "be here now." A liitle too close to Maya, maybe: reality as a dream state, nothing substantial reamains. The ground shifting. But again, as Mr. Natural said, "Twas ever thus."
I use edit mainly for typos and kinda sorta wish there was a spell check in Substack. I remember ink on my hands from the Michigan Daily's linotype! (:]
Thought-provoking observations, Sam! Another way to view the edit button is as a built-in form of epistemic humility, a technological implementation of the human capacity for self-correction. The question arises as to whether the corrected version should remain accessible or, at least, be marked, particularly in the case of posts by public figures. What should prevail: an author's right to revise, or the public's right to preserve documentation?
Reading your instructive article about the Edit Function, I realized how I am even more ignorant of the mechanics of the internet. I don't even have the app. Now, I understand that I need WhatsApp, especially when I fight with English, especially with the rigid order of words, when I am so accustomed to the Russian absolutely free order of words in a sentence. Thanks for my education.
Does this mean that we can suggest edits to your pieces now Sam? Because the sentence near the end [“I actually kind of really like the edit function”] could really use some tightening … 😀
The edit ♻️ function doesn’t just let us tweak words. It redefines the relationship between what we once thought we were and what we insist we are now. But it also quietly dissolves our ability to stand by a moment as it once actually was.
At the end, the true shift isn’t about digital text. It is about how we now negotiate our own past actions with everyone else watching.👀
- Double🆔️
typo on “print shop”
Thanks. And now it's edited away!
Good post. Thanks. At first, I liked the flexibility of editing to update and have a "revised" version in the old, book sense, but unlike the texts of old which can linger as a record, online material disappears as it morphs. Something about that disturbs me. It's more than "be here now." A liitle too close to Maya, maybe: reality as a dream state, nothing substantial reamains. The ground shifting. But again, as Mr. Natural said, "Twas ever thus."
I use edit mainly for typos and kinda sorta wish there was a spell check in Substack. I remember ink on my hands from the Michigan Daily's linotype! (:]
Thought-provoking observations, Sam! Another way to view the edit button is as a built-in form of epistemic humility, a technological implementation of the human capacity for self-correction. The question arises as to whether the corrected version should remain accessible or, at least, be marked, particularly in the case of posts by public figures. What should prevail: an author's right to revise, or the public's right to preserve documentation?
Reading your instructive article about the Edit Function, I realized how I am even more ignorant of the mechanics of the internet. I don't even have the app. Now, I understand that I need WhatsApp, especially when I fight with English, especially with the rigid order of words, when I am so accustomed to the Russian absolutely free order of words in a sentence. Thanks for my education.
Does this mean that we can suggest edits to your pieces now Sam? Because the sentence near the end [“I actually kind of really like the edit function”] could really use some tightening … 😀
There is something embarrassing, however, when one’s text or comment is stamped with an “edited” indicator. A signal that perhaps one cared too much!