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I think oversimplification is a major contributor to magical thinking, and magical thinking lends itself to continued failures to understand things, especially in the context where the computer is not operating normally.

Imagine if people generally understood that automobile combustion engines work by ”combusting fuel” without knowing anything more about their car.

That’s absolutely true in a sense, but if we left things at that, drivers would probably be inclined to think some kind of magic is happening, because that’s what science thought of combustion for a long time! (see ”Phlogiston theory”)

I wonder how those drivers would explain the functioning of the pedals and the shift knob.




You're probably going to have trouble finding an average car driver that can explain to you how automatic transmission works.

> Imagine if people generally understood that automobile combustion engines work by ”combusting fuel” without knowing anything more about their car.

No need to imagine.


Now imagine how much safer roads would be if people understood much more about their cars!




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