[vacri]

    vacri@thingy:~$ rm /sbin/init
    rm: cannot remove ‘/sbin/init’: Permission denied

I don't seem to be able to blow away /sbin/init.

If I've elevated myself to be a global administrative user, then I should be able to do global administrative things, without being treated as an 'uneducated user'.

> it is not unreasonable to expect some basic level of literacy

I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect some level of literacy for administrative-level tasks, and that's what nix does.