One interesting thing I've noticed in this pandemic is how many highly intelligent people actually don't seem to understand how infectious disease works. A LOT of people talked as if COVID just manifested out of the air, or from some foul miasma.

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) May 10, 2021

But that is the level of understanding most people have of how disease works, including nearly all “believe science” liberals.

And this relates directly to my years on help desk. While there, I learned that most people have no comprehension at all of how anything actually functions — not even the first inkling. They perform the little ritual they’ve painfully memorized, and if that doesn’t do what they expect they are then completely and forevermore stumped. They have nothing at all to fall back on because there is no abstract comprehension of anything below “click on green icon.”

This is true of computers and IT systems — but it’s also true of nearly everything else in society as well. Most people have no idea of the mechanism behind anything, and in many cases don’t even conceive that there is anything deeper at all.