OR NOT

I'm a rarity. I've forgotten more about cars than most people will ever know. I've done SMT rework on circuit boards. I've programmed in three languages, written a webpage or two, installed a garbage disposal and built shelves from lumber. I'm a long goddamn way from a "Renaissance man" or "polymath" but I have a basic, passable understanding of the world around me.

I am not an expert in all things. I have a workable expertise in all things that impact my life such that I feel confident enough to know what I can take on and what I can't, to know who can help me with my problems and who can't. That, to me, seems like the essence of pragmatism. I learned it from my father, my wife learned it from her father, and we will no doubt instill it in our daughter. It doesn't mean I can code apps, it doesn't mean I can reprogram the ECM on my car (the bike is another matter), and it doesn't mean I represent myself in courts of law but it means those that can do those things neither laugh at me nor take advantage of me.

I am not the people listed in this article. Most people aren't.

There are those who are taken advantage of for their ignorance. There always have been. There always will be. Those with a narrow expertise tend to apply it to their band of expertise. Here we have an IT person lamenting the fact that people no longer know how to set IRQs and DMAs that happens to be perfectly cool with the idea that his son will never need to learn to drive because Google will do it for him. No surprise, his attitude towards cars is:

I’ve owned a car for most of my adult life and they’re a mystery to me.

(despite quoting Cory Doctorow: "There are no cars, only computers we sit in.")

Unfortunately for the dyed-in-the-wool nerds, there is less configuration necessary on computers than there used to be, and in those rare instances where you need to step outside the box, the expertise necessary is far, far greater. What this means is that for most people, the operating systems he celebrates (W7 and OSX) "just work" and for those that it doesn't, their illiteracy is that much more evident.

Idiots will be idiots. Sunrise, sunset. "Don't be one" is always the truth. Does it require a massive call to action? No. By the author's own admission, the issues discussed would probably fill a 3-hour seminar (good friend of mine has a nice side business doing exactly this at senior centers). For those who haven't picked up the basics, but want to, the basics are picked up with predictable ease. For those who haven't picked up the basics but can't be bothered, you'll get what you deserve.

My mother in law still calls her browser "the Mozilla" and in order to prevent her from connecting via Compuserve dialup I had to put in a wireless router. But I taught that woman to use Pro Tools because it was the best solution to a problem she had. She learns what she needs to learn.

I ain't worried in the slightest, and neither should you be.