> This “encouraging learned helplessness” you talk about is in fact the opposite.
> and when they break they should be taken to professionals to fix
That's precisely "learned helplessness". You can't do anything, take it to the professionals, is the lesson you're supposed to learn.
Example of cars is apt. The owners manual of a car these days doesn't tell you anything useful, anything that needs works is just "take it to the dealer". Compare to car owner manuals of decades past which went into deep technical detail on maintenance, valve adjustments, etc.
The analogy is apt, yes, and the reasons are the same. Cars decades ago were simple physical systems. I could take apart my 1980 Mercedes with one box worth of tools. A modern Mercedes can’t even be tuned without special software. Even more modern cars — EVs — are basically laptops with wheels. The old world is gone, and we’re never going back to it.
It’s not learned helplessness for me to realize that I can’t debug the firmware of a modern car. Even if it were OSS, I’d still have to rely on the expertise of others to solve my problems.
Do you know how to plant wheat? Butcher a cow? Refine iron? Is it “learned helplessness” that you can’t do these things yourself? You’re not an island :)
> A modern Mercedes can’t even be tuned without special software.
And these trends are a tragedy, for all kinds of products not just computers and cars.
Sure, most people didn't care to repair their widget even in the 70s they just took it an applicable professional. Which is fine. But some people wanted for various reasons. Some of these people got so interested that it became their career and went on to great developments. Nearly every engineer can tell stories of tinkering with some products as a kid and it drove their career.
A lot of that is lost when products are un-tinkerable. Think of the generations growing up today for whom a computer is a hermetically sealed device from apple where they can't do anything but consume, tightly within the guardrails apple enforces. That's not bringing up a generation of computer tinkerers.
> The old world is gone, and we’re never going back to it.
For you it may be gone, for many others - myself included - it was and is and always will be. The key factor here is self-reliance, the desire and ability to take care of your own`environment. This is, no matter what "experts" and those who parrot them say, still possible even when confronted with modern equipment. Not with all modern equipment, mind you, but that is not a problem given the wide array of choices presented to us by the oft-lambasted capitalist economy - vote with your wallet and avoid user-hostile equipment.
>That's precisely "learned helplessness". You can't do anything, take it to the professionals, is the lesson you're supposed to learn.
Pretend you're a common man, you're Joe Schmoe: Is it worth your while to learn, know, and care about all the intricacies of how a computer (and specifically a Mac) boots? And even if you do, is it worth your while to learn, know, care, and have on hand the means necessary to fix a computer that won't boot?
I would answer: No. Taking it "to the professionals" is the quicker and cheaper option.
The problem isn't that most people don't care to learn, it's that platforms become more and more locked down to the point that people can't learn. Or even if they can, the device is so "sealed" that they can't dive in even if they knew how.
A big part of the reason I got into computers and software development was because I wanted to know how things worked. And I could do that: I could dig into things, write simple programs, take things apart, put them together, all that. Young minds these days have fewer opportunities to satisfy any curiosity they may have about these sorts of things.
> and when they break they should be taken to professionals to fix
That's precisely "learned helplessness". You can't do anything, take it to the professionals, is the lesson you're supposed to learn.
Example of cars is apt. The owners manual of a car these days doesn't tell you anything useful, anything that needs works is just "take it to the dealer". Compare to car owner manuals of decades past which went into deep technical detail on maintenance, valve adjustments, etc.