> I realized something: he doesn't know numbers. With the abacus, you don't have to memorize a lot of arithmetic combinations; all you have to do is to learn to push the little beads up and down. You don't have to memorize 9+7=16; you just know that when you add 9, you push a ten's bead up and pull a one's bead down. So we're slower at basic arithmetic, but we know numbers.
Maybe one of "them" could post here offering some opinions about ways in which learning the abacus enhances or extends "their" thought processes in useful ways. Or are "they" too limited by their rote learning? Or are we safe in our comforting knowledge that we have nothing to learn from "them?"
A cautionary tale about tools.