cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/46357907
Not for my daughter, I'm starting her early on Arch (she's 4 but she will learn to love the terminal lol)
this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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"Now sweetie, find the etc directory or no ice cream."
You mean like that's difficult?
We all start somewhere!
I mean, for gen alpha, that's an intentional effect. Tech is becoming more and more obfuscated by design.
Error messages when I was growing up:
Network Error: TCP protocol not installed.
Error messages now:
Something went wrong. :(
I'll just check the logs then...
The logs:
We have 209 monkeys working on it
Exactly. That second example infuriates me. Just give me something to troubleshoot, for fuck's sake.
It infuriates me because it’s disrespectful. The message insinuates that I wouldn’t be able to figure it out.
Needed to add my phone number for 2FA on a website. Something went wrong :( checked network tab and the error being returned from the API was too short phone number, they'd made an assumption based on the country they were from.
I still had to message their support to let them know, but... They could've made it easier to find out the reason at least.
You mean being made easier for normies?
Year of the Linux desktop and day now.
Ballsy of you to assume that it got "easier for normies", the answer probably lies in asking "easier for what?". Computers have been redefined as consumption devices in a scheme to extract maximal profit out of their captive users. So it's certainly "easy" for a growing number of users baited into dark patterns to hand over their credit card details and get addicted to antisocial networks and whatnot. But using modern devices as traditional computers, with intent, as a productive tool? It got much harder, except maybe for the Linux users, normies and "geeks" alike.
The word 'normie' is just insulting. It implies a hierarchy of knowledge that I just don't accept.
In a (rare for me) defense of Boomers, goddamn, the one dude I knew who learned COBOL on his GI Bill out of Vietnam...
that man was a fucking wizard.
He actually cackled to me when he told me how C Suite knew he was retiring in 6 months, they were not planning on hiring a replacement for him... he was planning on being hired back as a contractor within 2 years, seeing as he personally built the company's entire transaction accounting payroll and billing systems in the mid 70s, and no one else had any idea how any of it worked.
... For an international logistics company, with over 100 offices all over the world.
But yes, the rest of the Boomers csn go back to Minions memes and being catfished by AI Brad Pitt or whatever it is they do these days on the 'puter.
We often forget that half the boomers were the hippies, pioneers of the Internet, and activist that got the civil rights act passed.
We forget that it was a minority of them. The majority is like every other generation: kept disinterested and selfish.
Well, we (boomers) actually invented the PC…
A few of you. The rest can barely operate a smartphone let alone do online banking, much less understand a phishing scam.
The problem though isn't that people in general lack the understanding or capability to operate computers, it's that we live in a society where continuous learning is not encouraged nor funded. Education is seen a means to an end, and learning isn't seen as a way of life.
If the government either provided or paid for lifelong learning, things would be very very different. For example when new tech comes out affecting everybody, it should be encouraged to take a week or two off work, at full pay or paid for by the government, to stay current. But right now, only the wealthy and lucky few can even afford that.
Most of ‘us’ were street smart in our glory days and would not have fallen to the current day scams then. But even without dementia involved, our cognitive abilities degrade and our ability to adapt to changes slows down.
Unfortunately, your generation will get there too.
More of your generation fell for the scam that is religion.
My generation has 17 inch long dicks.
Especially the women! 😋