> Why do we, as a species, ignore hard-won experience and instead restart?

Humanity moves from individual to society, not the reverse.

Some knowledge moves from the plural to the singular, top to bottom, but the regular existential mode is bottom-up, which point The Famous Article (TFA) makes in the context of programming languages.

Children and ideas grow from babe to adult. They do not spring full grown from the brow of Zeus other than in myth.

Thanks, that’s helpful. My wife is a teacher and talks about knowledge being recreated, not relearned: IOW it’s new to the learner even if known by the teacher. Hadn’t put those things together before.