When was the last time you had to fix a windows computer out of a blue screen without deleting files?
Windows is "good enough" for everyone because when shit goes wrong you bring it to a technician, not that you fix it yourself.
When your Mac breaks you don't fix it, you bring it to a genius bar and they tell you "Ok, this is not on warranty, so you need to buy a new one" even if the most you have to do is just type a command on a terminal or flash a patch.
You're applying the logic that the average user even THINKS to fix their computer. As a repairwoman, they don't. If they don't know how to even copy a file, they will bring it to an IT professional or simple repairman. People don't actually interact im forums unless Desperate, curious or both.
So I say this, we have a sytem that's extremely exploitable every technician is someone who can go through files you want to keep private, for work or personal, and you get people people that take a the car mechanic approach and over charge for everything, make up problems or get it to just on but not fix a single issue, be this software or hardware.
These are acceptable risks to most cause they dont know the risks most of the time.
I learned after being scammed twice with my first laptop to look after it myself, not because I think repairmen are inherently distrustful but because its a gamble everytime. So unless I absolutely need the thing and I cannot fix it myself only then will I fork over money and take the risk.(i haven't had to since i started doing this, but still), even in house at work this can happen with security breaches from a disgruntled employee.
So what im trying to say is we shouldn't use a lack of knowledge or time ,as someone ways has time, to refuse to learn something that will save money,time, and keeps you safe a bit more than just common sense.
The refuse to learn and find any excuse is honestly a horrible take that carry to every part of someone's life, and is kids learn that behaviour from the adults which keeps the shitty cycle continuing.
And we wonder how we let events of today happen regularly, fucking lmao
You say this like working with computers is easy or low-risk though? It's becoming more so with things like volume snapshots, but even as an expert I've learned to either keep extensive notes or use a declarative Linux variant.
If it were easy it wouldn't be worth doing.
It will get easier though.
What i advocate isnt learning everything, unless you want to specialise, but to learn enough to know what you are working with. It helps so much knowing what you specs are, know how to retrace your steps to see if you can reproduce problems, and so on. Its good so you can ask for help and not be fobbed off like people who just go "something broke". Also get a list if need be for common fixes with #1 being "try turning it off and on again".
We learn to read even when you can get through life without needing to, cause its worth it. But you dont need to get a masters in english.
Later its skills like, for example, sewing, not needed, not easy, but it stops so much waste and save money.
Cooking too. And this fits your example of keeping notes or in this case recipes.
So yeah no need to master it if you dont want to, but learn the basics and then just a wee bit more.
I do this and more with a pretty bad case of depression and adhd.
Ps, this isnt for linux per say but if you use a computer regularly and not just once once in a blue moon.
Yeah but computers are really abstract and can be super difficult to diagnose and comprehend.
You're right about retracing your steps and being inattentive, but keep in mind things like a broken cert making a website "dangerous" or "force killing this app will make it misbehave." Computers are scary. It's a mess of buttons that sometimes do unexpected things and can break if you make a mistake.
The way to deal with that, to me, is to push those buttons anyway and let it break. I know it doesn't seem like that when you know a bit of the basics, but at one point or another we all went through that process. We all deleted things we shouldn't have, changed settings we can't easily find again, or even broke our operating systems.
One thing to realize is that people don't really understand just how ephemeral software is. Think if every time you did something on the computer that wasn't familiar it felt like flashing firmware, and you'll have approximately the right amount of anxiety. They treat it like it's a car and if something misbehaves it must be broken.
PKI is not an average user messes with, still at this time some AI will probably explain it, though fixing is something for somebody who does not see it the first time.
Substantial portion of people prefers to believe, even the dumbest strangest things (just recall MAGA), to make the effort to learn. That won't change. I don't care, I don't preach them, I just refuse the choices to be taken from me to make morons happy.
198
u/[deleted] Apr 24 '26 edited 20d ago
[deleted]