this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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Since you mentioned cars, here is a theory my coworker told me that I think makes a lot of sense.
Our parents were the last generation to learn about cars because back then you needed to know how a car worked in order to own one. Cars are too simple now and you couldn't fix one even if you wanted to since they are so locked-down.
We are the last generation to learn how computers work since we needed to know how a computer worked in order to use it. Now computers are too simple to use and you couldn't fix one even if you wanted to since they are so locked-down.
Obviously not saying nobody today knows how cars or computers work, but it is a lot less common. Anybody who learns about cars or computers today do it because of personal interest, not because of necessity.
Yes, same thing between computing hardware (I'm not gonna say computers, because for a lot of people nowadays, their only device is their smartphone) and cars. It used to be that things were more complicated to use, but easier to repair, so a large percentage of users could also repair their things.
Nowadays, you don't even need to know how to check your oil level because the car will tell you if it's low. You might not even have a dipstick. And with service intervals being 25000km and more, how much are you REALLY saving by doing your own oil change and stuff? I still do it, but
Similarly - as a kid, I had to fix small issues that popped up with Windows XP ALL the time. Couldn't connect to any website? Flush the DNS cache. No connectivity at all? ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew. Mouse stopped working AGAIN? Use the keyboard to navigate to devices, reinstall mouse driver.
If I was growing up right now, I'd have no idea how things work, because they JUST DO. So you don't learn a lot anymore. As for cars, I still learned because I grew up poor, so my first car was around 500 euros and I did everything myself.
Decided on a whim to fix up an old car from the 80s. I was able to tear it down to the frame and reassemble it with not much more than a set of imperial wrenches. That's a bit of an oversimplification but not much. And while there was a lot that could go wrong there was nothing that was a black box where you could get to a point where if something was wrong you would throw up your hands and say, “Oh, well. Guess this is garbage now!” Different time, I guess.
Yup, now you spend several hundred on a Chinese clone of whatever factory diagnostics tool allows you to code modules and such. And there are still probably things you can't touch.
I mean, I'd argue they're too complex. But I agree, you need so many specialized widgets (many that vary by brand and model) that its impractical to do more than change the oil.
I was looking at a Model A on display at a dealership when I went car shopping recently. They had the engine open, and I was looking at the thing thinking "If you sent me this in a box as a 'Build your own car' kit, I'm pretty sure I could do it".
Sorry I meant simple to use. Repair and maintenance is very complex. You often can not even do some maintenance since you need specialized tools or software that only mechanics have access to.