Linux

Why is this a screenshot? Couldn’t you have just copied the text?

This feels like a bit of a sideways take. I'll preface this with that I love Linux, and its been my preferred operating system for years.

That being said, "helplessness" isn't Microsoft's fault. Most people do not want to know the ins-and-outs of how something works, and that's perfectly okay. I am a software developer, but despite the fact that I have an Android (Pixel) phone I generally do not care to root my phone, flash alternative ROMs, etc anymore. I use Linux on my PC, but I do not want to spend hours tinkering with my phone, only for it to most likely end up in a state that is less-than-par than what it came with. I am glad that Android is open enough (well, its not as cut-and-dry as that but its more open than iOS) for the people who do want to tinker around with it to be able to do so, but its not for me. If I'm out and trying to request an Uber, I don't want my phone to crash every time I open the app just because the ROM I'm using has a bug.

By the same token, there are times where I don't really want to mess around with going through a million settings on my PC when I just need it to allow me to do some work. That is a trade-off that you tend to make with Linux (though its certainly gotten a lot better over the years), and I can't fault people for not wanting to go through that. Sometimes, I wish I hadn't made that trade-off and had just stayed blind to the love/hate relationship I've come to form around Linux.

I do not want to tinker around with my keyboard, I just want it to allow me to type. I don't want to tinker around with my headphones, I just want to listen to music. I use my refrigerator every day, and while I have some rudimentary understanding of how it works, I really rather not tinker around with it - and if it stops working, you're not likely to find me trying to fix it myself (short of say, the light bulb going out).

A coworker of mine convinced another coworker to wipe their system and install Fedora, and use the Looking Glass + VFIO passthrough trick to have a Windows VM within Linux like he does. He spent both of his days off trying to get it to work (and facing weird issues that even I couldn't explain and find a solution for), and at the end of today he decided to reinstall Windows so that tomorrow he can have something reliable to use for work. This is exactly why I usually don't push people to use Linux. If they want to know more about it, sure I'm happy to show them the ropes - but selling it as a perfect solution is a bad idea and only makes Linux look bad.

If Microsoft didn't make an operating system that was simple enough for users who just want things to work, yet powerful enough for those who want to do more with it (such as making games, or using CAD software for engineering) then someone else would. I definitely get frustrated with Windows, but at the end of the day, it is what most of the world uses for a reason (just like Linux is used for most web servers around the world for a reason) - its the right tool for their job, whatever that job might be. Sure, the vague error codes that you get from Windows is frustrating at times, but Windows isn't open source and that is not likely to change. How is the old XP error code format of STOP CODE 0X003ABF VIOLATION OCCURRED AT KERNEL.DLL (along with the rest of the useless stack trace) going to help you anymore than the shorter ones that are generally found on Windows nowadays? You can't exactly go submit a pull request to fix the issue. In terms of the ability to search for the error, I've very rarely ever seen a Windows error code that didn't have a million and one causes (and ^2 the amount of potential "solutions" for the supposed cause). It's certainly not going someone whose just trying to do their homework for school, or edit their resume for job applications.

The same thing applies to the whole iOS vs Android debate. The same coworker who sold Linux to my other coworker uses an iPhone (actually, they both do as far as I'm aware), because its been reliable for him. He doesn't need to have the source code to iOS in order for it to do what he needs it to do. Quite frankly, the whole "sheeple" thing that you tend to hear people say, and this "Windows users are zombies" take being portrayed in this comment is incredibly childish. If you're not sharing the computer, the phone, etc and someone else owns it - why does it matter what they use?

I suppose you could argue that the majority of people these days don't want to troubleshoot anything, but can you really blame them? Imagine yourself before anything that you learnt about Linux, Windows, and computers in general - with the way things are built (think laptops and phones, with how their components tend to be soldered in) doing anything yourself to repair stuff is very difficult, and has a high chance of leaving you with a brick (which isn't a Microsoft invention). How many people have you seen try to fix a software related issue on their PC or phone, and ended up making the issue worse (which can be done just as easily, if not easier, on Linux)? Those stories are why a lot of people do not want to try to fix something and reach out to support, take it in for repair, replace it, etc.

Is that an image of a text post? I ain't readin allat

Most people who drive cars are not mechanics. Most computer users are not also computer engineers; they don't want to be and shouldn't have to be.

If you want to drive your car with spare parts and tools in the back, outfitted with gloves, goggles, a scarf, and an oilcoat; you can do that. That doesn't mean that everyone else should do that. It's not 1992 anymore.

Weird company to target, these days I feel like Windows PC users are on average far on the "knowledgeable" side of the spectrum, not as far as Unix system users of course.

Apple and mobile OS users are the ones who know nothing about their system.

Nice, I made a wokrshop about that earlier this year for RightsCon :

"Can you host the metaverse? How learned helplessness from Big Tech made you believe you can't

BigTech seems expensive, complex, secure, new and basically the only way to use any modern tool. This is a blatant lie, repeated daily and orchestrated to limit emerging technology to very few for-profit corporations. Being a repeated lie is a problem because instead of at least trying to challenge the status quo we, all of us, can assume it is true and give up on trying, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Before digging into the technical aspects it is important to first prove it by running a short experiment then, only after, question how lie made us collectively and individually impotent. Learned helplessness itself will be used to identify extremely difficult situations most of us did encounter and might still encounter in the present.

This session will invite participants to simply try what is the state of the art of BigTech marketing at the moment, namely "the metaverse", and show that behind the abstract concept there is a technical reality that is not that complex and definitely not unachievable, even for a independent person with a very limited budget.

The workshop itself will rely on self-hosted open-source tools in order to both communicate and capture lessons learned, demonstrating by its own execution that synchronization and exploration of such a topic is possible today. "

If people here are interested I can record it again in a presentation format.

Good argument. I definitely read that.👍

Apple does more than M$.

Why have we posted a massive wall of text as a picture?

I can’t relate at all to the GUI hate. A GUI you can explore. “What does this button do?” “What changes when I enter a value here?”

How does that compare to a command prompt? How would you even start guessing commands?

I haven't read all the comments yet so forgive me if I'm repeating this.

This is not specific to Windows or Microsoft. There's been a general dumbing down and more hand holding going on for decades now.

People don't need to think for themselves more and more. A huge amount of technology and information dessert is allowing people to become increasingly stupid.

Driving for example, many would assume that technology like lane assist is there to keep people safe from mistakes. Which it is, certainly. But only because people are becoming lazier drivers.

It's not so much a chicken or egg issue as a horrible feedback loop of stupidity or downward spiral into dumbness.

I honestly worry for the human race with how increasingly lazy and idiotic we are collectively becoming.

At this rate, we don't have to worry about robots, aliens or AI obliterating us, we'll be too dense to recognise it and welcome our extinction with open arms and apathy.

The core problem is education and bad UX. People are taught how to do specific things (click here, type this word, press this button) without ever being told why. And the bad UX discourages exploration of different ways of doing things. So it never occurs to them that there might be a better way.

Personally, I think it's ok for people to not have a deep understanding of their computer, but if you use one for hours every day, it makes sense that you know how to use it. Just like I don't expect a driver to know how to take apart an engine but they should know how to change a flat or put in coolant.

"If you try to hide the complexity of the system, you'll end up with a more complex system" - Aaron Griffin

I work with a lot of Windows admins who have to move over to Linux, and this post is extremely accurate. One additional thing I've noticed is that because Windows error messages are terrible the users have learned to simply ignore them as there's no useful information. Getting them to stop and read what's in front of them is one of the hardest things to do.

This is valid late 90's critique on Windows. In the modern day, it's valid critique on the entire state of computer software. There used to be a time where I could run "ps axuw" on a then modern Unix system and understand exactly what the fuck was going on and what each process was for. These days the nerd-favoured systems are also a big mess of complexity.

I think a lot of older nerds also under-appreciate the position tech has taken in the world in the meantime. Look at it like electricity. When that first popped up, people involved with it knew all the ins-and-outs, they -had- to know all the ins-and-outs. But by the time I grew up, electricity was a done deal. You flip the button, lights go on. Same has happened for the rest of the world with IT. You click the icon, facebook pops up.

I feel like a lot of this is also the case with Apple's ecosystem. People get used to having specific apps and get complacent. In that case though I feel like another driving factor is the financial investment when you have iOS and MacOS apps, an iPhone, an iPad, and so on that all mesh with each other.

What does this have to do with Linux?

people shouldn't have to know how computers work. Computer scientists exist to know that for them

you shouldn't need to be a radio engineer to use a phone

Great post, but I’d argue that the existence of a GUI can help in learning how the system works as long as it’s well designed, mostly because it allows a user to wonder around and turn knobs. That’s why I kinda like OpenSuse and yast and woukd like to see more programs like it spring up elsewhere in other distros

My experience as a casual computer user for the past 25 years is that Microsoft tried to develop a OS more intuitive to people who aren't that knowledgeable about computers. They did this while keeping the old system intact but hidden so the 'new user' wont feel overwhelmed while the 'old user' can still find what they need. In the end having 2 competing standards on the same device made it a confusing mess for all parties.

Tldr: something something Microsoft bad

Does this person think these are unique insights? It's not some big secret that manufacturers and software developers have continually tried to make their products easier to use so as to attract customers.

Learned helplessness lmao, what a load of shit.

It's freaky how easily this can apply to other fields as well. Take psychology for example - think tanks and other media donors churn out articles like "What's driving the 'No Hope Effect?'" or "The Science of Who'da'thunk-ology" to mystify basic cause-and-effect phenomena like paranoia, social alienation etc. Always written so solipsisticly and "quirkily", offshoot of those early hipster-era bathroom readers like The Book of Awesome, like it's written by a clueless parent trying to explain out-of-their-league concepts to a toddler. The whole OP comment's also spot on for politics, economics, hell even modern military/police tactics (at least for the US). Look how robotic and consequently jumpy they get with that training.

The business and political giants who fund this stuff love to try and re-label a concept to sell it back to the public, as if it were brand new, so they can guide the overall public dialogue. It's social engineering 101.

It pains me to have people complain about some large company who broke there workflow.

An increasing amount of people don't even own or need a PC anymore. There's no way Windows is more of a cause of this than smartphones that automatically call the cops and void your warranty because you had a passing thought about uninstalling the forced Netflix app.

...isn't this quite obvious? You will become lazy if you have a lazy life and avoid anything that requires any amount of effort. You will become (negative aspect) if you have a (negative aspect) life and avoid anything (add positive aspect here).