Re: Dumb de dumb dumb

Subject: Re: Dumb de dumb dumb
From: <puff -at- guild -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 14:10:16 -0400


Andrew Plato writes:
> I think this also brings up an interesting phenomena in technology. As
> technologies mature, they leave the "geek stage" and enter a "commercial
> stage." When they are in the geek stage, geeks horde knowledge and create
> barriers to obtaining it. This allows them to dominate the information and
> the technology. Eventually, this information does leak out and businesses
> begin exploiting it.

Bullshit. Geeks don't hoard knowledge (though there certainly
are a horde of them :-), they spread it (whether you want it or not
:-). It only looks like hoarding and creation of barriers to people
who want simplistic answers to complex questions:

"What kind of computer should I buy?"

"Well,, what do you want to do? Or how much do you want to
spend?"

"Just tell me what kind I should buy!"

Technologies and how they're used do change, which eventually
eliminates the barriers to entry. Part of this change is that people
take the time to build accessible tools, but that's only a small part.
The lack of accessible tools is not because geeks are jealously
excluding others, but because geeks don't need - and DON'T WANT -
those accessible tools. They want the real, raw thing in all its
glorious mess.

This goes hand in hand with another part of the process. A big
part of the "maturation" of a technology is not the maturation of the
actual technology, but the maturation of how society uses and
interacts with it. It's not a question of "better" but simply of
"different". After a technology has been around for a while, it's
possible to look at how and for what people are using it, and make an
80/20 tradeoff in the interface to the technology. A big part of
accessibility is, quite simply, cutting down the options.

Well guess what. Geeks like options. Geeks like to understand
what they're using. Geeks like to know what's happening inside the
box. They like to fix things that are broken, and the surest way to
drive a geek nuts is to give him something that is broken and tell him
he's not allowed to fix it.

This is why you see geeks getting annoyed about the dumbing down
of technology. Not because they have anything against non-geeks using
technology, but because that dumbing down often ends up being a
defacto removal of options for the geek. In a sense this very is
analogous to the issue of free speech (a point that occasionally comes
up in the discussion of open source). It also leads to a situation
where people have false knowledge - they think they understand
something, they take what appears to be sensible steps, they run into
trouble.

> When the technical information becomes commonplace, there are always these
> geeks that become enraged over it. Their baby has grown up and become an
> adult and they're suffering from separation anxiety. Its also a power
> thing. They have lost their power and their angry about it.

While I have no doubt that geeks have just as much variety as the
rest of humanity (albeit with a somewhat sharpened bell curve), most
of the time the rage is because:

a) some idiot marketing/manager guy decided that it would be a
good idea do something STUPID because it would be easier to
sell it.

b) the mainstream happily laps up the product

c) the mainstream says "See! This wasn't so complicated after all.
Now why can't you solve my other problems with simple solutions
like this?"

d) the mainstream then jumps up and down on the geeks when
something goes wrong.

Case in point: Outlook.

> I remember a networking girl I knew back in the late 1980s. She was BIG
> time into the Internet. At that time the Internet was young and still
> pretty unknown. As the 90's progressed the the Internet explosion
> happened, she became more and more bitter about everybody using the
> Internet. She had 5000 word essays on her personal web site about how AOL
> and Microsoft were "destroying" the Internet and ruining its potential.
>
> She was wrong. These firms have boosted the Internet and helped give
> her a high-paying job.

She was right. The internet of the late eighties and early
nineties WAS destroyed. I miss it every day. The culture of clarity
is gone, drowning under the endless wash of spam and corporate
marketing. The open exchange of information becomes ever more
strangled by people trying to legislate truth. Just because she and I
can get a job doing internet-related programming doesn't make this any
less true.

On the other hand, I understand how and why it happened. It's a
sad comment about human nature. So what? Do I rail for the "good old
days"? No. Do I seek to understand the principles and tendencies of
human nature at work and learn from it? Yes.

> The dumbing down of technology is therefore a natural part of its
> inclusion into our society. If you're on the wrong side of that
> process, its natural to feel angry. You're knowledge is no longer as
> special as it used to be.

The desire for simplicity is a natural human tendency. The
dumbing down of knowledge and technology is not. To quote Albert
Einstein, "Everything should be as simple as it possibly can be, but
no simpler." There is a difference between accessibility and
stupidity.

Steven J. Owens
puff -at- guild -dot- net


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

Sponsored by Cub Lea, specialist in low-cost outsourced development
and documentation. Overload and time-sensitive jobs at exceptional
rates. Unique free gifts for all visitors to http://www.cublea.com

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: Re: Looks like I'll be freelancing again
Next by Author: RE: Getting PowerPoint and Word to coexist (Longish)
Previous by Thread: Re: Dumb de dumb dumb
Next by Thread: Re: Dumb de dumb dumb


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads