4 ms·

You just described human society in the large, and the answer appears to be "We muddle on."

sincerely 9y ago
I think this phenomenon has become a lot more important in the last few decades...I think it was fully possible for one person to understand how a car worked, how household appliances worked, etc, until quite recently
- fixermark 9y ago
  Probably depends on how you slice the question / define "fully understand." "How it works" in terms of being able to tell yourself a story that makes sense? Sure. Car burns gas, gas makes engine go, engine turns wheels. But what about the details you'd need to actually make a car (which include but are not limited to thermodynamics and metallurgy)? Probably not.
  - mjmahone17 9y ago
    One difference is that there are parts of the system that, most likely, not a single person understands nor, even with weeks of effort, could understand. At least with cars, you can be reasonably sure somebody understands or can reverse engineer any specific component. With certain software that is a lot less possible. It would be like if our society couldn’t fully function without Roman concrete, but no one knew how to make it anymore. Which is sort of what happened during medieval times: people continued to use Roman roads and Roman bridges. But if anything degraded, there was no hope of repairing it.
  - crpatino 9y ago
    There's a middle ground, which is far from complete but very useful for practical reasons. Also, there's no cannon, but most people in the know would agree that the useful middle ground includes many (most?) of the following things: 1. Being able to drive safely and efficiently, even in bad road or climatic conditions. 2. Recognizing all the regular maintenance the car needs, and being able to perform at least some of that on your own. 3. Recognizing all the main subsystems of the car, down to their most important pieces. Being aware of the most common problems each subsystem usually show and what symptoms you should be in the look. 4. Being able to perform emergency repairs while on the road, with only basic equipment. 5. Recognizing the parameters of the most common models, on how those affect the performance of the vehicle. That kind of knowledge was more common a couple of generations ago, but then... cars were much simpler machines back then, too.

I think this phenomenon has become a lot more important in the last few decades...I think it was fully possible for one person to understand how a car worked, how household appliances worked, etc, until quite recently

fixermark 9y ago
Probably depends on how you slice the question / define "fully understand." "How it works" in terms of being able to tell yourself a story that makes sense? Sure. Car burns gas, gas makes engine go, engine turns wheels. But what about the details you'd need to actually make a car (which include but are not limited to thermodynamics and metallurgy)? Probably not.
- mjmahone17 9y ago
  One difference is that there are parts of the system that, most likely, not a single person understands nor, even with weeks of effort, could understand. At least with cars, you can be reasonably sure somebody understands or can reverse engineer any specific component. With certain software that is a lot less possible. It would be like if our society couldn’t fully function without Roman concrete, but no one knew how to make it anymore. Which is sort of what happened during medieval times: people continued to use Roman roads and Roman bridges. But if anything degraded, there was no hope of repairing it.
- crpatino 9y ago
  There's a middle ground, which is far from complete but very useful for practical reasons. Also, there's no cannon, but most people in the know would agree that the useful middle ground includes many (most?) of the following things: 1. Being able to drive safely and efficiently, even in bad road or climatic conditions. 2. Recognizing all the regular maintenance the car needs, and being able to perform at least some of that on your own. 3. Recognizing all the main subsystems of the car, down to their most important pieces. Being aware of the most common problems each subsystem usually show and what symptoms you should be in the look. 4. Being able to perform emergency repairs while on the road, with only basic equipment. 5. Recognizing the parameters of the most common models, on how those affect the performance of the vehicle. That kind of knowledge was more common a couple of generations ago, but then... cars were much simpler machines back then, too.