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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zappo" data-source="post: 277389" data-attributes="member: 633">I find it's pretty normal that we don't know how our technology works. Technology is getting constantly more and more complex, while our mind is less or more the same. There's no way on Earth that a single person, in a post-holocaust scenario, manages to build a working computer from raw materials. You need a super-high-tech semiconductor facility, but even if he had that, he still wouldn't have the skills to 1) design the microchips, 2) put them together, 3) provide steady electrical energy, 4) program an OS, 5) program applications (and 6) create a cool-looking case <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />). Each one of those skills is hard enough that it takes a lifetime to master it to the point where you can do a decent work all by yourself. Most of those tasks are usually done by teams of dozens of people.All the same, I don't feel in the least bit ashamed that I can't skin an animal, or find enough food in the wilderness. I just don't have time to learn those skills. Why should I? I don't need them, in our society, and that society doesn't seem like it's going to change any time soon (if not in becoming even more technological).Fact is, it's pointless to worry about not knowing how what you are using works, or about what would you do without it. You depend on society to provide you with it. There's nothing you can do about it, and even if you could, why should you bother? Because of the 1:50000 possibility that in 17 years a meteorite strikes the Earth? Nah. I'll keep basing my life on high technology which I don't understand, instead, to be ready for the 49999:50000 possibility that in 17 years even a car will be so complex that no single man will be able to fix it except by replacing whatever is broken.Which is already the case with computers, BTW: don't worry Monte, if your computer goes seriously broken, even a technician (hell, even the Intel R&D chief) would just tell you "dude, it was old anyway, get a new one. With a geforce 9..."</blockquote>

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