Free software scares normal people

Over the years I've gotten really tired of this obsession with "normal people" and not just because I'm one of the so called power users. This is really part of a growing effort to hide the computer away as an implementation detail.

https://contemporary-home-computing.org/RUE/

That's what "UX" is all about. "Scripting the users", minimizing and channeling their interactions within the system. Providing one button that does exactly what they want. No need to "scare" them with magical computer technology. No need for them to have access to any of it.

It's something that should be resisted, not encouraged. Otherwise you get generations of technologically illiterate people who don't know what a directory is. Most importantly, this is how corporations justify locking us out of our own devices.

> We are giving up our last rights and freedoms for “experiences,” for the questionable comfort of “natural interaction.” But there is no natural interaction, and there are no invisible computers, there only hidden ones.

> Every victory of experience design: a new product “telling the story,” or an interface meeting the “exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother” widens the gap in between a person and a personal computer.

> The morning after “experience design:” interface-less, desposible hardware, personal hard disc shredders, primitive customization via mechanical means, rewiring, reassembling, making holes into hard disks, in order to to delete, to logout, to “view offline.”

Some people just like to eat food, they don't want to learn how to cook it. You or I may think that's a tragedy, but I don't think e.g a dentist has an obligation to become fluent in the things that I'm competent in.

I'm no dentist, I go to dentists. I let them work, and try not to be too annoying. I learn the minimum that I need to know to follow the directions that they deliberately make very simple for me.

This will result in generations of generally dentistry ignorant people, but I am not troubled by this.

As technologically competent people, one of our desires should be to help people maintain the ignorance level that they prefer, and at every level steer them to a good outcome. Let them manage their own time. If they want privacy and control, let's make sure they can have it, rather than lecturing them about it. My grandmother is in her 90s and she doesn't want people reading her emails, listening to her calls or tracking her face. She is not prepared to deal with more than a couple of buttons, and they should be large and hopefully have pictures on them that explain what they do. It's my job to square that circle.