Kissimmee River
River in central Florida, flowing south into Lake Okeechobee. It was straightened in the 1960s and partly re-meandered from 1999.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Now Entering: The Era Of Bleh | Aaron Horwath | subject | A river “made more efficient” by removing its bends: the article’s metaphor for what AI takes out of knowledge work. |
Now Entering: The Era Of Bleh — Aaron Horwath (2026)
Source: Readwise highlight
The Kissimmee River, in central Florida, kept flooding the land around it. They identified the problem: 103 miles of pesky river bends.
- Role: subject
- In the article: Under the heading “Make it More Efficient …Wait! Not Like That!”, the article tells how the Army Corps of Engineers straightened and dredged the river between 1962 and 1971 to stop the flooding. The bends had trapped silt and oxygenated the water. Without them, sediment and nutrients flowed into Lake Okeechobee, floodplain habitat was destroyed, and wintering waterfowl collapsed. “And so, starting in 1999, work began to add back 44 miles of bends to the Kissimmee.”
- Why it matters: The river is the article’s central metaphor. The “inefficient” bends stand for the slow collaboration and iteration in knowledge work that AI promises to cut out, and the costly restoration is the warning. A generic example would not carry the argument the way a documented, billion-dollar reversal does.