(c) programmers are predisposed to convincing others that programming is too complicated for "normal people" as a means of job security and achieving social status; computer manufacturers and their software-making friends are predisposed to a marketing message that states: computers are too difficult for normal people, so buy this new machine/software, which is finally the computer/software that normal people can use! together both sides form a kind of mutual ratchet imo
(the trope of the "computer nerd" in media is such an effective embodiment of both sides of this rhetoric that its prevalence almost seems like a conspiracy imo)
anyway, whenever someone says something like "LLMs have finally made programming accessible to normal people!" I try to remember that the Silicon And Fossil Fuel Pyramid Scheme Industry has spent literally hundreds billions of dollars in an effort to convince you that computers were *already difficult to use* (a grift that computer programmers are largely in on!) and to politicize LLMs as being "easy to use" in contrast
(to develop/clarify my thoughts here: i am NOT trying to say "actually computers are secretly easy!" i'm trying to say that people successfully engage with difficult, sometimes learner-hostile practices *all the time*, and politics/economics have an outsized influence in maintaining the understanding of computers as being *uniquely* difficult in comparison to other practices)
Edited 11h ago