[Zak]

While I agree with you (I daily a rooted Android phone), anyone who cleaned up a few Windows machines for non-technical people 20 years ago probably at least understands where Apple is coming from. The average person is really bad at system administration, and it doesn't take many bad actors creating malware and scams to have a big impact.

[seec]

It's not really about system administration. The average person is a low effort moron who will do whatever he pleases without thinking about the consequences.

The difference with computing is that since it's "new" and sometimes it has bugs, they will blame the hardware/OS any chance they get.

[saagarjha]

Just like your comment was not really about providing anything new, but insulting people who use technology?

[seec]

Have you done a lot of tech support for people? If not, you really don't know the extent of it. It's not insulting, it's just how people are. You should meet the guy who had a lot of issues on his MacBook Pro, related to low storage left (barely a few gigs) that was entirely due to his extremely large porn collection.

When asked about it, he doesn't have too many files. What do you do in that case? Isn't he a moron both for storing so much porn and at the same time (somehow) believing a tech support person wouldn't find the root of the problem. It was in a "hidden" folder, so not only he is a moron for the first offense, but doubly so for thinking a competent person wouldn't find something so obvious.

So, I reiterate, most people are morons, and technology just reveals their ineptitude in plain sight, it's simple as that.

You are free to believe in your idealized version of the world, but it doesn't match my experience at all.

[saagarjha]

Yes, I do. In fact I had someone visit my house literally today because she needed to fix her SMS setup for her phone and I have been her tech support for years (as I am for most of my family and their friends). The people I help are quite smart but they have better things to do than figure out exactly how technology works. I explain what they need to understand and they know they can always ask me when they are confused.

I actually think your example illustrates this: people use their computers for porn. There's nothing wrong with that. If it's so large that he has no space left, I mean that's a pretty actionable thing to tell him. He's not an idiot for not figuring it out himself. That he "hid" the folder from you–I mean, people hide things from professionals all the time. Nobody volunteers to their doctor that they wipe in the wrong direction and thus have chronic UTIs. It's your job to work around the reasonable things people do that make your work harder and bring them to "oh, that makes sense, thanks" perspective.

[seec]

So you are telling me that someone who doesn't make the connection between low storage on their computers and their large porn collection which is the reason of this low storage causing issues is not an idiot. They could have deleted their stach (or at least part of it) anytime to see if things would improve, which is how not moronic people work (you know, the try and see feedback loop of proper learning).

You are just of bad faith, pretending to be outraged about what I said even though it only describes the reality of the world. Your newfound religion is so bad that you find offensive something that doesn't even have any moral implication to it and is factual proven by so many statistics that it is not even worth arguing about.

If you what you mean is "not every computer user is a moron" you need to work on reading comprehension because that's not what I said. I stand by my original statement and you are somewhat proving me right.

[saagarjha]

Maybe they’re just smarter than you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43447194

[Zak]

That's unfair. Modern computers are extremely complicated to the point that even the most knowledgeable person has only a partial understanding, and nearly everyone is required to use them to function in western societies.

There's probably something important and complicated in the world you have to interact with regularly that you don't understand very well. Based on this comment, I think it might be people.

[seec]

Modern computers are complicated to build and to use for complicated stuff but they have been extremely easy to use for regular stuff since the late 90s.

Pretending otherwise is nonsensical, since the richest economies in the world depend on it and surely not everyone is at a genius level.

There are some things important and complicated that I don't understand very well but they are not about basic operation of relatively simple things. It's like saying operating a washing machine or using a knife is something special.

And I do understand people very well; in fact, much more than I wish, by necessity. Your average person is frustratingly basic to the point of being extremely annoying on top of boring. I just choose to not pretend and "be nice" anymore, because it just hides reality and doesn't help anyone. The fact that we have some people designing complex computers or sending people to the moon while others are barely able to cook a meal is largely a testament to that.

You might want to get rid of your ideologies if you believe what I said is controversial or wrong. Most people, by statistical definition, are idiots. Technology just reveals that fact very clearly, it's as simple as that.

[dickersnoodle]

Word. When my kids were pre-teens and teens I moved their computers onto Red Hat because I was tired of cleaning spyware off of it when it was a Wintel box. I moved my wife onto a Macbook Pro for the same reason, and she used to do user support for a community college back in the day.

[The_Blade]

> The average person is really bad at system administration

the average person doesn't even understand the basic concept of what the average HN reader considers system administration, and we're wrong anyway eh