I have come to the profound conclusion that technology is making us dumb - devolving us in a way. CNC means we can program a design, and it is very useful, but smart phones that do all our learning for us so that we don't have to know much anymore, our divorce from the natural world as so many of us wall ourselves into fortresses against the outdoors in city warrens, our inability even to understand (as a species, not individuals) how our food even comes to be, has made us pathetically inept in so many ways.
A select few can code machines, and they are called marvels. Yet coding in all its many forms, creating electronic devices that do so many things for us, is itself a form of creative genius, the resulting products carry us towards a realm of impotence that is amazing to see.
I teach Algebra in school and we eschew calculators except when they keep us from wasting time (like very long division with decimals that will not increase ability but take time - mine already know how to do long division). When I did so, my kids actually became better at the math - all forms of it. They have bought on to the idea that they want to be better than the "cheap Chinese piece of plastic" that the school issues (even if it is a Texas Instruments 84). My brother-in-law, a doctor, retired Air Force Major, and director at a major hospital in charge of network information and design realized the same thing and is sending his daughter to a private school that has zero technology beyond books, lights, pencils, and air conditioning. Sure, she has a tablet at home, but at school, not at all.
Browning was a genius who deserves mentioning along with the likes of Euclid, Newton or that lesser man Einstein (Euclid and Newton were titans compared to the latter). His mechanical understanding proved he was a savant. I regularly use my Savage 720 from about the same era and it is still every bit as capable (except it won't take 3" shells) as any semi-auto shotgun today. It's a Browning design. I dare say nobody on this forum can claim to have a collection that lacks at least one piece that is not based on his designs - even Glock's are based on his designs (and more so, when you consider his original Hi Power concept was striker-fired).
