I agree with one caveat: I would change it to “should be designed to reasonably accomodate people’s skill sets and aptitudes”.

I know the whole driving vs computing analogy is beat to death, but I’m going to pull it out again. Driving carries with it substantial development of new skills that require some pretty intense training and lots of practice. We understand that only so much accommodation is reasonable and worthwhile. We only make the roads so wide, we only make cars safe to a certain degree, we still require both hands and feet to drive, etc. We don’t expect car makers to make cars dead simple to drive because driving is itself a complex task and simplification of the devices used to drive can only mitigate that complexity to a certain degree.

To beat the comparison to death, this particular incident was very much like going out into a parking lot, seeing a car that is the same model as yours, and trying to open it. When your key doesn’t work, instead of noticing that the car is in the wrong spot, or that the interior contents are different, you walk away and call the car dealer in a furious rage, accusing them of changing your locks and taking your stuff.

Should we make every car absolutely unique so that people don’t have to expend even the slightest brainpower or observational skills to choose which one is in fact theirs? Is any other stance auto-nerd elitism?

It’s completely reasonable and rational to stop accommodating people at some point. The question is where do we draw this line?

Navigating the internet caries with it complexity that can only be mitigated to a certain degree without a complete re-imagining of how it’s architected.

While I understand that computers in general have been developed and made for people who can navigate their complexity, and there is certainly a lot of headroom to make things more simple, it’s okay to acknowledge that some people are too stupid to use facebook. And in a world with almost 7 billion people, unfortunately that’s likely to be a big number.

She will end up a horror movie fan when she gets older, I’m sure.

Ubiquity will bring the “will nots” around. The “can nots” should be designed for, at least if you want them to use the tech.

I do not – really do not – want to see online voting in the US. The potential for fraud is simply too great. All the incredible crap in Florida a decade ago about “hanging chads,” etc. was at least about material evidence of actual physical acts of casting votes. If we allow the process to become disembodied into software, we are asking for the whole thing to be stolen by those who can hire the best hacks. No thanks.

And I completely agree that the level of self-importance in a lot of the petulance is breathtaking.

This incident really, really scares me when it comes to the idea of online voting.

Willful ignorance is a different thing from constitutional inability, and while I hold empathy for both, we should treat them differently.

We should by all means try as much as possible to offer different and simpler solutions to those who are constitutionally unable. Task oriented computing is the order of the day. Help them accomplish something they already are doing without imposing or exposing the computational enabler.

But we don’t give licenses to people who are unwilling to learn how to drive cars to some minimum competency. There are some functions, some tasks that will always carry some burden of training or challenging thought. Those who demand the benefit of these functions without bearing the burden we all bear, are petulant assholes.

Reacting with rage and demands when confronted with unexpected challenges, even minor ones, at least to me points more towards entitlement than to disability. Demanding the world conform to your expectations of it, and losing your shit if it doesn’t seems like a “will not”, not a “can not” attitude.

I think we computer monkeys often do make the mistake of assuming that people don’t get the things we get because they are stupid. And I think we are as a group moving toward an understanding that we’re not necessarily smarter, we’re simply more specialized, or more prone to think in specific ways. But we often forget that much of our patterns of thought are trained, and not inborn. The fact that we joyfully pursued that training, does not make the training any less necessary for the kinds of things we accomplish. And others can be trained as well, no matter how alien it is to their current thought process.

Though I will admit, some people cannot. Let’s just be clear about who in fact is lazy and who is genuinely predisposed away from this kind of thought.

Should be interesting, and I think it will work.

And you totally delivered. Alas, you couldn’t do double blind, but one does what one can.

It’s disappointing that salt can’t magically make cheap steaks taste better. Are you going to continue with the experiment and do some dry aging?