source: @n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca
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.