If computers are the future, why are computer users permanently illiterate?

If computers are the future, why are computer users expected to be permanently illiterate? If computers are the future, why are computer users expected to be permanently illiterate? March 11 2026 I was introduced to computers by my father, though not intentionally. Now retired, my father worked in sales and was assigned a local territory within which he traveled by car to meet with customers. It made more sense for him to keep an office in our home and travel from there instead of first commuting to an office building and then traveling. For his home office, my father purchased an Apple II+ computer in order to run the “killer app” at the time, the spreadsheet program VisiCalc. He also purchased a modem to connect his computer to the company’s computers. I was fascinated by the Apple II+ and taught myself how to use it, with no prompting from my father. In fact, he became quite annoyed when I monopolized our family’s only telephone line connecting to Bulletin Board Systems via the modem. In retrospect, I don’t know why I wasn’t forbidden from using the computer, but my parents did frequently implore me to get off the computer and go outside. Nowadays the macOS Terminal app is considered a tool only for “power users” (which I would contrast with disempowered users), but the Apple II+ was essentially and entirely the Terminal app, with no other user interface. My contention is that if an adult with no college degree (my dad) and a kid with no high school degree (me at the time) could learn how to use an Apple II+ and become power users, then this skill is well within the capabilities of so-called “ordinary people.” We didn’t have an alternative, because the Macintosh with its graphical user interface and mouse had not been invented yet, and needless to say, neither had the iPhone. Steve Jobs promulgated the metaphor that a computer is a bicycle for the mind. A bicycle is a tool that enables us to vastly exceed our natural capabilities, to travel much faster and farther than our legs alone would allow. Likewise, a computer is a tool that enables us to vastly exceed the natural capabilities of our minds unassisted by computers. A computer supposed to help us “Think Different,” according to the marketing slogan. I would note that if we take the bicycle metaphor seriously, it’s not a demand for utter simplicity, the dumbing down of computers. Riding a bicycle is a learned skill that requires significant practice. I vaguely recall learning how to ride a bike as a kid. I distinctly recall falling over repeatedly. If I recall correctly, my parents started me riding on the grass to cushion my falls. A method does exist to make riding a bike easier for kids: training wheels. However, training wheels restrain you as much as they help you, greatly limiting what you can do with the bike. Permanent training wheels would be ridiculous infantilization. Several months ago while on a walk around my neighborhood—my smartphone deliberately left at home, by the way, a refreshing throwback to my past without such a security blanket—I came upon a heartbreaking sight that stuck with me: a kid too old for training wheels riding a bike with training wheels while looking down at a smartphone. Truly a symbol of our times. At best, vendor lockdown of our computers is equivalent to training wheels for the mind. At worst, it’s equivalent to a bicycle lock for the mind. We’re told constantly that computers are the future, both the future of work and the future of personal efficiency, yet the computer vendors seem intent on keeping users in a state of permanent illiteracy. The term “power user” has become almost a slur, as if power users were abnormal in some way rather than simply possessing knowledge about computers, a normal consequence of experience with computers… unless the computers provide no room for personal growth. It’s alleged that power users make unreasonable demands on the computer vendors, demands that if satisfied would ruin the computing world for everyone else. What ordinary people need, indeed what they deserve, according to the computer vendors, is protection, safety, paternalism, as if we were all children and the giant for-profit tech corporations the only adults in the room (never mind that those corporations tend to be populated disproportionately by 20something engineers). The justification for computer lockdown, or should I say the propaganda for computer lockdown, posits a false dichotomy between computers for the unwashed masses and computers for the few power users. Typically this false dichotomy is framed in terms of mobile vs. desktop computing: a smartphone needs to be “simple,” for ordinary users, whereas a desktop computer is allowed to be more complex, also providing power users with broader personal leeway. I’ve always felt that the argument here belied a critical underlying economic component. The reason the dichotomy is false is that smartphones and desktop computers are not inherently competing products. Every desktop computer owner who I know, including myself of course, has a smartphone too! I’m fortunate enough to afford both. I didn’t buy an iPhone because it’s simpler than my Mac; I bought an iPhone because I can carry it in my pocket, use it in my hand while standing, and connect to the internet from anywhere via a cellular network. In contrast, my MacBook Pro presents a number of physical limitations: I can’t transport it conveniently without wearing a backpack, can’t use it without a flat surface such as a desk, table, or my sitting lap, and can’t connect to the internet without a nearby, available Wi-Fi network. In most other respects, though, I find the Mac much easier to use than the iPhone, due to the hardware keyboard, larger screen, and superior operating system. Initially, smartphones were subsidized by cellular carrier contracts, lowering the price of smartphones and thereby encouraging widespread adoption. Desktop computers never had such subsidies. You might even say that smartphones were pushed like a drug, getting users addicted, then eventually raising the price. In any case, if a person can afford only one computing device, the choice is usually a smartphone, both for the convenience factors mentioned above and also for the lower price. According to the Apple quarterly financial results from Q4 2018 , unfortunately the last time that Apple reported unit sales in addition to revenue, the Average Selling Price of Mac was $1399, iPhone $793, and iPad $422. I focus on Apple because I’m a longtime Apple customer, but I would guess that the overall markets for desktops, smartphones, and tablets break down in a similar way. The price of entry is typically higher to the desktop computing world than to the mobile computing world. Personal computing freedom ain’t for free. From my perspective, the argument that mobile devices need to be locked down for the masses is in effect discrimination by wealth: computing freedom for the affluent, computing prison for the poor. As a Mac OS X enthusiast (you can read into this my lack of enthusiasm for macOS), I’m certainly not opposed to graphical user interfaces or non-keyboard, pointer-based inputs. On the contrary, I prefer them! On the other hand, I do not prefer to be restricted severely in my computer usage. I want direct access to the file system, access to the terminal, root access, the choice to install and run whatever software I please on the computer I purchased and own. At its heart, Mac OS X was, more or less, UNIX, a selling point for me. The Mac used to be designed according to the principle of progressive disclosure: the system presented a default interface that was as simple as possible for inexperienced users but nonetheless allowed much greater configuration by expert users, with options initially hidden becoming available when needed. Since the iPhone was introduced, however, Apple has progressively locked down and dumbed down the Mac step by step, making the Mac more like the iPhone and iPad over the years. Apple even took advantage of the processor transition away from Intel to lock down the Mac hardware in ways similar to iOS hardware. The price of faster, energy-efficient Apple silicon CPUs was a host of new restrictions, especially on how the Mac handles internal and external disks. The iPhone seems to have engendered a culture of anti-intellectualism and learned helplessness so pervasive that users have become evangelists for their own disempowerment. They demand that all software be “intuitive,” by which they mean idiot-proof, so simple that a n00b can use the software effortlessly and effectively. A suggestion to read the fine manual is greeted with charges of user hostility. Those who habitually, endlessly scroll YouTube or social media would balk at investing a little time to master the computing tools they use daily. Perhaps they would be surprised to learn that the supposedly intuitive 1984 Macintosh came with 170 page manual . A common conceit is that the Mac was easier to use than other computers out of the box; the reality is that the Mac was easier to use after the initial learning curve. The system went out of its way to establish internal consistency and interoperability, but the user first had to make sense of the system and its principles. The latest front in the war against power users is Artificial Intelligence. The promise of AI appears to be that you’ll never have to learn anything . Don’t know something? Just ask AI for the answer. Can’t do something? Just ask AI to do it. Ignorance is bliss. Laziness is encouraged in the name of efficiency. The prospect that one may have to work and struggle to achieve one’s goals is considered abhorrent. The very notion of self-improvement becomes obsolete. Life under AI is a video game, pure joy… as long as you continue inserting tokens into the machine. Hopefully my video arcade metaphor hasn’t become obsolete too. A more contemporary example: playing guitar, which practically anyone can do with practice, is replaced entirely by playing Guitar Hero. I’m sure that there are Guitar Hero heroes, people who have mastered the game, but could a single one of them ever write a song? I guess we have to ask AI to write our songs in the future. The public debates whether AI will eventually become as intelligent as humans, or even super-intelligent, when I think the relevant question is whether humans will eventually become as dumb as AI, or even super-dumb, as in Idiocracy. I fear that none of this will end well, except for the computer and LLM vendors.