gems

Great cop out.

You're trolling.

1. Ubuntu comes with a more modern kernel than any Debian release.

2. If you don't care about system internals, then you're probably more productive with ubuntu than with, say, arch.

3. I've never used mint, but based on its description, it seems to be even friendlier to beginners, so I don't really understand your point.

Again, can't you get these same packages on Ubuntu?

"Universities are a trap."

Why do you think your experience allows you to make a general conclusion? There are at least a few universities which teach truly valuable things: work ethic, overcoming difficult problems, and using practical (and modern) tools.

The sys admins I've known have generally been some of the most technical people I've met. They talk to vendors, know a lot about hardware, and have a great understanding about unix/ linux. They're not just administering your infrastructure, but also troubleshooting really low level things. How exactly is 'troubleshooting' going to be replaced by programs?

What makes you think you can't be truly innovative by using somebody else's construction? There are new things to be done by building off of somebody else's work or by starting from the ground up. If you attempt the latter, you can almost be sure that your work will be less fruitful, unless you have some truly unique perspective.

"The only gains to be had from intimately understanding underlying structures are to be found in performance optimizations."

Or, you know, being able to effectively troubleshoot when something breaks or when abstractions leak.

Almost everybody that studies computer architecture, even a little, is aware of these numbers.

This almost seems like promotion.