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User accountability and complicated technologies
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this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Technology
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I kind of get where you’re coming from with “it’s our fault for not wanting to deal with the burden of knowledge,” but it feels a little bit like blaming people for not being superhuman. One person can’t always learn everything. It’s my fault for not knowing how to fix every single thing that can go wrong with a house, because I didn’t want the burden of knowledge of plumbing, electricity, and carpentry. It’s my fault I can’t cure myself and have to rely on a doctor because I didn’t want the burden of knowledge of medicine and surgery. It’s my fault I have to buy food from the store because I didn’t want the burden of knowledge of gardening and agriculture.
Not everyone wants to spend time learning about something they don’t have an interest in when there are other ways to take care of it. We’re not all Renaissance folk (in the sense of having knowledge about everything) and sometimes we need a little help from other people. Sometimes certain topics are legitimately hard for some people to understand. Sometimes people figure that it doesn’t benefit them to learn the ins and outs of something that they can have someone else fix for them—they have other things they need to do that are more pressing.
As a non-car-enthusiast, I think it’s okay for me to want a car that “just works”. As a person who isn’t a plumber, electrician, or carpenter I think it’s okay to want a house that “just works”. If I weren’t a somewhat-tech person, I would probably want my technology to “just work”. We all want things that we’re not experts in to just work, to not have to acquire expert knowledge to use it at all.
This all comes from a place of me trying not to be condescending to people who don’t have knowledge that I have. I am an arrogant person with little patience. So I usually have to argue against my own “do you seriously not know this, what idiot doesn’t” tendencies, both to be a better person and to avoid the social consequences of being an arrogant jerk. So I may have swung a little too hard towards no user accountability or responsibility to learn about the thing you’re using.
I believe the solution is a balance of people spending a little more time learning and companies not making so hard for people to fix/change stuff.
I see this a lot around me. People are convinced that nothing can changed or be fixed. And if you just turn to people with knowledge in general you get the complete opposite picture.
Knowledge gives power to the people and takes away all the desperation they have. You don't have to know specific technicalities but enough to know where to look to change what you want, and enough to get the feeling that you can actually change anything you want.