> Dumbing things down for people does not make technology easier, it makes people dumber. It’s important to understand, while we, the users of Hacker News may

> Dumbing things down for people does not make technology easier, it makes people dumber. It’s important to understand, while we, the users of Hacker News may find it odd that everyone doesn’t know these things, perspective will tell us they probably have other priorities for their time–and that’s OK. I don’t know, and honestly don’t care to know or prioritize the deep and intricate complexities of how deodorant or shampoo is made—or how it’s distributed, made safe for human use, etc. This does not make me dumber, it frees up my mental time for other priorities. The same can be said for the 1000s of things I use daily from toothpaste to refrigerators to stop-lights to dentistry. While I may have a general idea how these processes happen, my knowledge is by no means expansive. A deep understanding of everything should absolutely not be a requirement to function in a society. Is Google doing this for bad reasons? Maybe. But let’s not pretend as if simplifying things makes people dumber. It’s freeing up our limited resources. Expecting everyone to know deep details on the thousands of things they use everyday would absolutely bog us down into uselessness. One of the smartest things we ever did was to free ourselves from needing an intense understanding of everything we use throughout the day. As you move throughout today, notice the thousands of things you interact with which you have little idea about what went into it.