So he shames people that are clueless with a computer but at the end admits he's the same with his car.
The truth is nobody can master everything so there's no reason to feel superior to someone that is clueless in your domain.
The truth is nobody can master everything so there's no reason to feel superior to someone that is clueless in your domain.
Its odd, as the two share much. The average modern mechanic now knows hex, rom flashing, checksums, and some basic networking, in addition to metalurgy, gas/vapor flow, and customer service. The complexity has increased dramatically, but social respect has not.
I expect people to be able to perform slightly-nontrivial Google searches ('site:' and similar tags; Boolean operators).
I expect people to have the equivalent of "electrons flow in copper" (electricity) or "explosions push the pistons" (ICEs) level of understanding of what's in a computer and what it does, what the internet is and how traffic flows across it.
Now, the reasons some of these don't happen is poor teaching materials, but I think we need to get to that point -- where everyone knows at least those things -- before we can sanely discuss technology as a society. Democracy will break down -- is breaking down -- because most of the electorate refuses to know even the basics of one of the major social forces.
If anything, in tech, "anyone who doesn't know exactly what I know is an idiot" send to be the dominant attitude. And management generally sees anyone in tech as a socially stunted weirdo who is overhead rather than an investment.
like mechanics are now?
Where are you that mechanics are so disrespected?
At this point people who remain willfully clueless will suffer serious disadvantages, as computers start to make decisions for them, before they decide for themselves.
We pretend that machine learning has only good intentions and is pure of heart. It may seem like that now, but it won't last forever. Not every artificial learning system will play nice.
Facebook has psychologists on staff seeking to manipulate your emotions for Facebook's benefit using ML and other tech.
By living in a "modern society," we're trusting in so many things that we do not thoroughly understand. In some way, this is the principle that makes human "progress" possible. If every individual had to be competent in a given area in order to benefit from/take part in that area then things would move much more slowly.
Of course there are clear disadvantages to taking part in activities that we do not fully understand. We will make sub-optimal decisions because of our ignorance. But in sum, this isn't a problem. In sum, we gain a lot by organizing things this way.
Ignorance isn't good. It isn't ideal. But it's a necessary feature of human societies, and articles like this just come off as nasty and mean spirited.
It comes to this: Computer Systems aren't simply inert turing machines we can pull the plug on anymore. We are letting them off the leash and they are moving on their own out in the world, and they are making decisions to interact as peers or better within our social structures.
The car analogy [0] doesn't work anymore because cars are starting to drive themselves.
If you put this into an ecological premise, consider that we've been at the top of the food chain, above all other animals, and we have dominated the biosphere for a million or more years.
Now we are introducing machines as peers and they may soon dominate us, if we're not careful.
Look at the examples in the article, and consider that malfunctioning wi-fi might illustrate how poorly equipped most people are, to confront machines that don't act in their best interests.
If you had to choose between being banned from using any computer for the next 20 years, or being banned from operating motor vehicles for the same time period, which do you think would disrupt a typical person's life more? I mean, how would you even apply to anything other than an entry level job without being able to submit your CV online, or use a word processor? Think of all the professions you couldn't do at all: doctor, accountant, etc.
Even in places like sub-sarahan Africa, losing access to the computer-that's-a-phone would be a major impediment.
In contrast, there's lots of people who haven't driven a car in the last year that are perfectly well integrated into society.
If you can use your computer but don't know how to fix things when they break, then you pay someone to fix it for you. That's what this article is complaining about: people who don't know how to fix issues with their computer, or don't use it in the most 'optimal' way.
And sorry about the fucking vote up in your comment, I'm drunk as hell, couldn't click the fucking right button.