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this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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OK so I have a pet theory about this. I grew up in a period when computing involved friction and lack of ready resources to ease that friction. Solving problems involved actual research, in the research process more and more details of how computers operate were exposed to me. I had the time and focus to learn and the motivation to stick at it when it was difficult. I then did something horrible to almost everyone who asked me for help, I removed that friction.
With the noblest of intentions I prevented everyone around me from experiencing that friction, I made it easy. Consequently I caused those people around me to miss out on those basics I struggled with. I uncovered the arcane lore of endianess so everyone around me who wasn't already an adept would be spared. I plumbed the mysteries of the parallel port so that others could use a printer with only mild mystical invocations. I immersed myself in SCSI termination so that my friends and family might partake of IDE (retroactively named PATA) in peace.
I came from an era of computing where these things mattered (at least to some degree) and they moulded me and shaped how I use a computer to this day. My brothers will always be dependent on myself and my ilk to act as guides and so much of what I know is functionally useless today so a neophyte could not follow the twisted path I did.
I was blessed as well to come of age in a time when a computer was a comprehensible assemblage of parts, when I could identify at an IC level the components of it. I feel like that is what is missing in the modern incarnation of technology. I also worry this is where we stagnate, the field is too large for anyone to compass it entirely and we splinter in to specialisations.
However this is also a sign that technology has come of age. I am certain, absolutely positive, that if I was to pick an arbitary topic, say music, I would seem as illiterate and helpless as the Zoomers we are bemoaning as mere consumers of Tech. I can enjoy a piece of music, I can even take a rough stab at the rusiments of how it is made. Ask me to explain the nomenclature of a time signature on sheet music and I will look the dunce before I finish the first sentence.
So maybe we should give them a break and realise that for a lot of them, It... Just... Isn't... Important...
They will learn this stuff if and when they need to. Otherwise "magic box does things when I perform this ritual" is enough for them to function in their world, the same as "Car starts when I turn this key" is enough for me to function in mine.
Holy crap, I wrote this on my phone, what is wrong with me?
Fun read, but the zinger of "it.... Just.... Isn't.... Important" really damages your argument.
The difference in knowing how our technological systems work versus just using them is how you wind up in a world where capitalist rule, intelligence dwindles and choice is stolen. We're seeing these effects in real time. And it's just not technology; take the electoral system here in the US. It stopped being about the functions of our government and became flag waving and baby kissing. Now our tax dollars kill children, the rich are all but unstoppable and we're at each other's throats all because we, collectively, let the systems work without understanding how and why.
Tech today being a glass and aluminum block feeds our lust, insecurity, inequality, comparison etc all in an effort to generate wealth and further divide, all by design. Didn't you think it's very important to know that?
As a zoomer (17) I kind of agree but I really don't think its that deep although big tech does seem to profit off people's incompetence. Yes kids my age know very little about the computers they use. Hell most kids don't even seem to know where their files are or how file paths work. I recently in Comp Sci class had a kid look at me confused when I mentioned the folder he was looking for was in his home directory. The dumbing down of Tech is definitely a culprit. Not always even in ways that the tech easier to use. Finder on MacOS outright hides things from you on purpose like file paths and being able to access arbitrary folder on your system. There are a considerable amount of features locked away in the settings menu where the vast majority of people will never even look. I highly think all of this is malicious as it severely degrades user experience and sets them to fail in the long run. Don't even get me started on the whole random files will end up in ICloud/Onedrive and there is nothing you can do about it.
I am not arguing in any way that there should be some basic competence required of everyone who uses tech, in the same way that despite my aversion to cars I know how to change a tyre, check and top up my oil, feel the windshield wiper resevoir and check the radiator level. It is incumbent on me to have that knowledge as a foundational level of being a driver and car owner, and yes I am aware that there are a number of drivers who do not know these things, but that is another discussion.
I think that far, far more important than all this is teaching critical thinking, media literacy and scepticism. A grade 11 & 12 (I'm Australian so not sure how closely that maps but 17-19 year olds) health teacher I was talking to recently told me that more than 80% of her students admit to recieving the vast majority or all of their health information from TikTok. It genuinely does not matter if they understand the finer points of say file system structure, if they are uncritically listening to a shitty AI voice over a video of three people doing a synchronised "dance" telling them that oranges cause shin splints.
If our society, not just a segment of it, was taught to understand what media is, how it interacts with culture, and how rich people use it to establish and maintain control. That control from a ruling elite via newspapers, or TV, or the Internet is IMHO far more responsible than anything else for the state of your country... And my country... And the world. With that in mind I put my effort into trying to get my kids to research things for themselves and to look for the hidden motivations behind the facade of everything they do.
Sounds like humanity's understanding of tech in Warhammer 40k.
Maybe the writers at Games Workshop pulled a bit of prescience out when they did their exercise in hyperbolic projection of trends across 38,000 years.
Or maybe it was influence of the warp and Tzeentch...
Nah, no breaks. Their ignorance is the foundation upon which further learning will stumble.
Is it their fault? No. But neither has it been Millennials' fault for inheriting a vast slew of fuckery dropped at our feet since the late 90s.
Baby Boomers ARE the culprits in most cases, but they'll never accept their roles in destroying the greatest and broadest reaching wealth engine in the modern world.
I guess what I was trying to say with my rambling 1am slightly drunken screed, is that all of us swim in a sea of ignorance. I sure as hell do, I know little to nothing about mining, a lot of farming practices are completely unknown to me and the logistics used to coordinate the delivery of healthcare at a national level are frankly mind boggling (I live in a country with a somewhat functional healthcare system, ignore this example if you live in the US).
The biggest thing, IMHO, that seperates me from a lot of the younger (and older) people I meet and interact with, is that I am happy to say "I don't know." And if it's important I can and will go and find out how it works, at least well enough to approach the cliffs of competency and decide if it's worth the effort to scale them.
I cannot tell you how many topics I have learnt enough about to decide to eat the steak and declare that "Ignorance is bliss." Thankfully I haven't had to do so while betraying my colleagues to the agents yet.