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Levitzlast Sunday at 1:07 AM3 repliesview on HN

"It does X for you" is the point of many technologies. You still require knowledge to work around it.

Context helps immensely, for example. Think of what you can do that someone outside tech can't.


Replies

strogonofflast Sunday at 1:22 AM

The “it does X for you” aspect of technology is not completely without its downsides, for various values of X.

For example, take “X” to be “walking”. Do we have the technology that allows us to pretty much never have to walk? Sure. As far as I am aware, though, we do not generally favour a lifestyle of being bound to a mobility aid by choice, and in fact we have found that not walking when able in the long run creates substantial well-being issues for a human. (Now, we have found ways to alleviate some of those issues for those who aren’t able, but clearly it is not sufficient because we still walk.)

The problem is exacerbated immensely as the value of X approaches something as fundamental to one’s humanity as “thinking”.

maplethorpelast Sunday at 8:26 AM

> "It does X for you" is the point of many technologies. You still require knowledge to work around it.

When running water replaced the need to pump water out of the ground yourself, were people urged to "learn faucets"? You kind of just need to twist a knob and water comes out, right?

Maybe there was an intermediary stage where running water was slightly more complicated and there were more steps to learn, but devoting time to learning those steps would have been a waste of time, since the end goal of the system was for it to function without much input.

Moonye666last Sunday at 1:28 AM

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