this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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It's helpful to take a few steps back from time to time to reassess where we're each coming from on our knowledge of tech (or anything) to better communicate.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (20 children)

Many people are very uncomfortable with the degree to which their work and life depend on computer systems they do not understand. They feel vulnerable to computer problems, pressured into depending on more tech than they really want, and do not believe they have the knowledge or resources to remedy problems with it.

So when something goes wrong, they feel helpless. This is not unfounded, but it can often make the problem worse.

Depending on the person, this can lead to blaming or blame-dodging behavior. IT folks — did you ever ask someone what the error message was and they say "It's not my fault!" or "It's not my job to fix it, you're the computer person!" ... as if blame ever helped!

The "tech person" differs not so much in knowledge but in having a different emotional response to tech doing a weird/broken thing: when something goes wrong, they jump to curiosity. It's not "I already know how to fix this" but "We don't know what happened here yet, but we can find out." Knowledge comes from exercising this curiosity.

But this is not something that everyone can do, because people who feel unsafe don't typically go to curiosity to resolve their unsafety.

[–] ineffable 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance begins with a discussion on this very theme, before it gets weird (weird and good)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I don't remember that very well, I just remember it describing the scientific method. I probably need to reread that.

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