Weekly Technetic #4: The Fourth Key
Knowledge should only increase.
With the Fourth Key, we again turn to knowledge. While the Second Key is all about learning, this tenet of technetism instead focuses on what is gained from that process. We learn to increase our knowledge, so that we are better armed for the challenges we face.
Knowledge, of course, is not something physical. Though it may be obtained by physical means, it is purely mental, lacking material substance. Despite that, it affects all of us in a very real way. Learning makes us better; possessing more knowledge allows us to understand a wider portion of the world.
For the technetic, then, knowledge is valuable. It isn't merely power, as the adage claims, but something greater. It is also influence, recognition, revelation, and reason. We seek it out wherever possible, and we seek ways to apply it, to share it, as we will see in the future.
A common theme among humanists of various stripes is that everything is knowable. Nothing is truly beyond the limits of human knowledge. To an extent, we hold this to be true. Remember, however, that some knowledge can only be gained through personal experience. Much regarding one's emotional or spiritual state is beyond rational and scientific methodologies, for example, and we accept this with the caveat that a person is still able to learn such things for himself, even if he can't directly share the knowledge gained.
As the Second Key encourages, you must reject dogma of any kind, whether religious, pseudoscientific, political, or any other sort. Focus on finding the things you don't know and learning about them. Instead of seeing ignorance as a barrier---or, worse, bliss---look at it as a hole you need to fill. Then, look for ways to fill it.
Once you have obtained this knowledge, a curious thing happens: the sum total of human knowledge increases. The entirety of our species now knows more because of you. You have added to an ever-growing library, but only so long as you allow others to learn from you.
Withholding knowledge is one of the few acts a technetic should consider truly sinful. Secrets are perfectly acceptable, and there is nothing wrong with keeping your more private thoughts, actions, and beliefs out of public view. True knowledge, on the other hand, should never be held back in such a manner. The result of an experiment, for instance, or a scientific fact, these are the rightful property of humanity, not one single person. Thus, for one person to claim ownership, barring all others from learning, is nothing less than stealing from every human alive now and in the future.
Even worse than hoarding knowledge is destroying it. Burning books, censoring articles, and banning speakers of truth from public spaces are all ways that generations past and present have sought to subtract from that total of human knowledge. Each such act harms every one of us, and indeed our race as a whole. Destruction diminishes us. It robs us of our rightful inheritance. Whenever a person is silenced, an idea censored, a name redacted, or a book burned, we have become less than we were.
Never be a hoarder or destroyer of knowledge. As a technetic, you should always seek to increase it for yourself and everyone around you. By doing this, you lift all of us.