| HN Mirror

It most certainly is. Current “startup culture” (or should we say “swindle culture”?) values illiteracy of the masses because everyone's dream is, in simple terms, to screw millions (or billions) of fools over and make a lot of money from it. No wonder the path of adopting to ignorance, downgrading to lower level is chosen instead of the path of education and lifting people higher.

A user who doesn't know what address bar is and types all the things into search engine benefits Google. Therefore, you won't see any changes in Chrome.

Obviously, it's more general topic than bashing the usual IT evils. People take reading and writing for granted, just like they take having electricity and water supply for granted, but it doesn't just magically happen. There is an enormous continuing work. Remember the '80s talks about teaching kids using and programming computers because it was ESSENTIAL FOR THE FUTURE? What has happened? Computers haven't got simpler at all. You still need to teach how to use them, but today it's not a fashionable topic, and everyone pretends it's not their problem. The result of a disparate, self-maintained education is — who would've thought — uneducated people. In addition, the “educated” “specialists” treat users as if they are on a tropical plantation in a cork hat: “Those damn brutes can't learn to do anything properly! Can't argue with nature, stick to whips and simple tasks.”

It is important to remember that the radiance of modern IT sphere has little to do with Jobs' iphone presentation and whatnot. Without old simple-hearted initiatives, long forgotten BASIC listings in hobbyist journals, government programs on educational computers, and local electronics clubs a lot of people would not work there. Everyone was stupid once, there is no exception to that. The focus should be on the process of learning, not the state of being stupid.