Having worked front line tech support, I have to disagree. People are inherently dumb, and choose to stay that way in many cases.

> People are inherently dumb, and choose to stay that way in many cases

This is called optimisation and is in most cases okay. I choose to be dumb about cars. I ask specialists dumb questions and expect them to give me useful answers. Computers are similarly ancillary to many people’s core value added.

Maybe it would be better to say that describing a person as ignorant without a scope rarely makes sense.

I mean I've worked with literal rocket scientists that can't figure out how to attach a PDF to an email. I would have a hard time describing them as 'dumb'. And don't even get me started on trying to help doctors and surgeons when I worked in medical.

Just because we might find something easy or 'intuitive' after spending most of our lives in front of computer doesn't mean it's actually easy.

pats back Indeed, but you might be missing the forest for the trees.

I'm sure your car mechanic, doctor, electrician, plumber, etc feel the same about you. You can't know how to do everything.

The opposing view is also true: You cannot ignore everything.

Your physician, airline pilot, CFO, or lawyer could most likely easily point out the same about you, for a given context.

The cross section of people you deal with is inherently skewed toward the less capable and less competent, though, which can bias your thinking on the topic.

Consider your sampling bias- the only people that regularly call support are the bottom of the barrel.

Having worked front line technical support, I have to disagree. People are indeed dumb, many choose to stay that way.

It’s as if a person working in geriatric care claimed thet people are old. I rarely call or contact the support, the though of being treated as a dumb person make me solve the problem myself of abandon the service/product instead.

Well to be fair a lot of people contacting a front-line service center for a non-specialized product/service can't even articulate their problem accurately, if at all. I'm sure it'd be pretty easy to get jaded about people after hearing "I don't know if it's on or not, it just doesn't work...fix it" enough times.

That person calling in more than likely knows significantly more than you about some other topic, and that's the point.

Someone calling in that doesn't know the difference between the PC tower and the monitor and doesn't care to learn isn't "stupid" any more than you are stupid for not knowing an alternator from an AC compressor, and chances are you won't remember even if shown once or twice because you pay someone else to know and maintain/fix that stuff.

Yeh but what would the mechanic think if I didn't know the keys had to be in the ignition? Such are the level of questions you field at First level tech support.

You also get those kinds of questions at a shop.

Stuff like "where's my seat warmer?", "How do I turn off the windshield wipers" and "why does my window go up all the way when I just touch the button" are all questions I was asked when I worked as a mechanic.

And if they are coming to my shop to get those answers, then it's my job to help them. Hopefully come tax time when I need to talk to that accountant he wont laugh me out of the room because I didn't know I needed to keep my own tax when working as a contractor.

"why does my window go up all the way when I just touch the button"

hmmm, in many cars the window dongle has two states. Half pull moves the window only as long as it's pulled, full pull makes "the window go up all the way" even after releasing the dongle... and it might depend on whether the keys are inserted and whether the doors are open. Took me some time to figure it out in my car.

Bingo! However this guy had owned his last Mercedes for almost 20 years and had a million little questions like this about new features.

Really smart dude, but just needed some help with his new car.

No, this just shows some folks aren't specialized in the same way you are. Everyone has their areas of non-specialty, and everyone has limited mental energy to devote to things. Everyone sometimes has a "stupid" moment. But I'm going to guess every one of these folks you talk to have things they know that, if you tried them, you'd seem pretty stupid as well.

There's a difference between being dumb and being ignorant. Most people aren't dumb, they could learn to handle their technical issues if they were motivated to spend the time. But time is valuable, and if you can have a specialist handle your problems for you, is it really worth the trouble of learning and keeping up to date on something that doesn't really interest you?

They are probably wasting more time being on hold and explaining the problems to someone else. Also problems repeat, so if you know how to solve it yourself you save time.

But you're seeing a selection bias. The people who are doing just fine don't contact you.

Having used things that require technical support, I have to disagree. I'm not an idiot, I just don't have time to learn the idiosyncrasies of the problem that I have.

Are you able to determine if some piece of equipment you use every day is turned on or not, and able to accurately relay this information?

If so, you are not part of the demographic the parent is talking about.

Can you even determine the difference between a common law, and a civil law system of justice? Some non-trivial percentage of the population, including some very intelligent people cannot understand that - something so incredibly fundamental to the society they live in.

Ignore these haters mate, I'm greybeard sysadmin type who did his time in the helpdesk trenches, and it's a fact despite the many protestations of the others here. Prost!

ps. I would correct though and say some people are dumb. I've met others on the other end of the spectrum too. Also, something something, the difference between ignorance and stupidity, etc.