The underlying theme is very much a mark of our times. There is no doubt that it has genuine resonance for many people as they deal with an overwhelmingly complex world. On the other hand, it is a position fundamentally based on ignorance, and thus there is not much hope of reasoning with it.
It's not as if the issue of complexity has never been investigated. We knew from the earliest days that simply by being constructed of digital elements, computers would be characteristically different from other human artifacts. David Parnas and Fred Brooks both made early contributions on this subject, and their work is still eminently relevant today.
Probably the simplest artifact in common use is the knife. Yet given our resources and technology, it's appalling what passes for a knife in most people's kitchens. If the simplest artifacts still have such problems after thousands of years of refinement, what can we reasonably expect from the newest and most complex artifacts ever created? Demands to make them "simpler" can only be met cosmetically, and of course the illusion of simplicity in a complex system is necessarily fragile.
The fact is that the design problem is very hard in digital systems. The popular mood may be to deny this problem rather than to engage with it, but that doesn't change its nature or its inevitability. If our species survives long enough, I think we'll eventually the maturity and humility to see this.
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What a desperately stupid example.
Remember being a kid, and having this conversation with your mum? What was your response?
Mine was, "But I don't know what I want to do. That's why I'm bored!"
Computers are complex.
That makes them difficult to use.
We don't like that.
Fix it now.
The underlying theme is very much a mark of our times. There is no doubt that it has genuine resonance for many people as they deal with an overwhelmingly complex world. On the other hand, it is a position fundamentally based on ignorance, and thus there is not much hope of reasoning with it.
It's not as if the issue of complexity has never been investigated. We knew from the earliest days that simply by being constructed of digital elements, computers would be characteristically different from other human artifacts. David Parnas and Fred Brooks both made early contributions on this subject, and their work is still eminently relevant today.
Probably the simplest artifact in common use is the knife. Yet given our resources and technology, it's appalling what passes for a knife in most people's kitchens. If the simplest artifacts still have such problems after thousands of years of refinement, what can we reasonably expect from the newest and most complex artifacts ever created? Demands to make them "simpler" can only be met cosmetically, and of course the illusion of simplicity in a complex system is necessarily fragile.
The fact is that the design problem is very hard in digital systems. The popular mood may be to deny this problem rather than to engage with it, but that doesn't change its nature or its inevitability. If our species survives long enough, I think we'll eventually the maturity and humility to see this.