Technology

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.

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.