I'd also say that when I've worked through people's confusion surrounding git (and other complex systems, it is because they are attempting to model the system

I'd also say that when I've worked through people's confusion surrounding git (and other complex systems, it is because they are attempting to model the system as simpler than it actually has to be. They're not thinking of cases the system must handle, and in the absence of that (essential) complexity, they come up with an incorrect mental model that they believe works (as they're not aware of the counter-examples to it). This happens often. As another example, a former PM of mine used to assume that if our wearable recorded heart-rate data, it also had sweat data. That is, the wearable either had a lock, and recorded, or didn't. But sweat came from a different sensor than HR, and the two sensors could independently get or lose their signal. And so, sometimes one was null, sometimes the other, sometimes both, sometimes neither.