Let Us Now Praise Famous Shape Rotators - by Hollis Robbins
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Let Us Now Praise Famous Shape Rotators<br>Aristotle was wrong
Hollis Robbins<br>Jul 10, 2026
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Should the U.S. graduate more engineers, or at least more people who work with their hands, now that LLMs are here to do people’s talking and writing for them? I’ve been thinking about this question a lot this past year, since Dan Wang’s excellent Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future came out last August. Dan’s book has provoked ongoing conversation about whether the U.S. is falling behind China and discussions of why there aren’t as many engineers in the highest ranks of politics and government (Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover have been our only engineer presidents).<br>What is higher education’s role in this debate? I’ve got a book coming out next year arguing that young people considering college might do well to consider an apprenticeship instead, in the short term, and read books in the evening. This is a good era to learn how to do something mechanical, to do something with your hands, while the world and higher education reorganize themselves for the AI era.<br>Some people are horrified by the suggestion, assuming that doing something “mechanical” means a drop in class status. It shouldn’t and it doesn’t. But fighting the belief means getting to the root source, which means Aristotle. It goes back to Edmund Burke too, in the modern era, but much much further back. But first, I want to define terms for those who are not familiar.<br>Wordcels and Shape Rotators<br>When roon (@tszzl) posted this on X in 2021 many did not know how right he was.
roon@tszzl
historical materialism except all of history is a war between shape rotators and symbol manipulators<br>10:29 PM · Aug 17, 2021
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At some point the term “wordcel” came to substitute for symbol manipulators (as roon explains at length here), but the wordcel v. shape rotator binary came to be the preferred labels differentiating those with verbal ability who talk about things and those with visuospatial abilities who make things and practice their craft. “The demarcation isn’t just between STEM and humanities,” roon explains. Obviously there are people (like Benjamin Franklin) who are both. “[R]ather, it’s about modes of thinking. It’s about realism, thing-orientation over people-orientation, and investigative grounding in the tangible world.”<br>But shape rotators, roon laments<br>have been a minor force until very recent history. Though they’ve produced a significant portion of human progress through feats of engineering excellence, they were rarely celebrated until the dawn of the Enlightenment, perhaps 500 years ago. While the long-lasting glory of the Roman aqueducts is renowned to this day, nobody knows the chief engineer behind the project (probably Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, but who’s counting).
The chief engineer may have been celebrated, yes, but status or recognition for all the skilled builders and craftsmen involved? Not so much. Today rotator stock is rising, Roon says, but they “are fundamentally unable to tell their own story and struggle with historical context.” It’s a particularly sharp observation when you look at the long historical context for the wordcel/shape-rotator divide.<br>Blame Aristotle<br>It really does go back to Aristotle, who made some unkind statements about “vulgar craftsmen” back in 350 BCE, in his Politics, that still hover over questions of who has status in the country and who is even a citizen.<br>There still remains one more question about the citizen: Is he only a true citizen who has a share of office, or is the mechanic to be included? … The best form of state will not admit them to citizenship; but if they are admitted, then our definition of the virtue of a citizen will not apply to every citizen nor to every free man as such, but only to those who are freed from necessary services. … for no man can practice virtue who is living the life of a mechanic or laborer. Book III, Part V (Jowett translation)
The city cannot exist or survive without its craftsmen and mechanics, Aristotle admits, yet makers should not have a voice in rule.<br>A century and change later, the Jewish sage Ben Sira said much the same, in Bible passages known variously as the Wisdom of Ben Sira or the Book of Ecclesiasticus.1 This long passage is worth the read. Scribes have wisdom, but not those who work with their hands:<br>Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published How can anyone become wise who handles a plow<br>and who takes great pride in wielding the goad,<br>who drives oxen, engrossed in that task,<br>and whose main topic of conversation centers around cattle?<br>His major concern is for plowing furrows,<br>and he loses sleep in order to give the heifers their fodder.<br>The same is true for every artisan and craftsman<br>who labors both night and day,<br>intent on engraving seals<br>and diligently fashioning a variety of...