If the internet goes down, very few can reconnect or restore critical infrastructure. In short, people are dependent on complex systems they neither control nor can fix.
In defense of people, the number of technologies necessary to master in order to fix anything is beyond human capability. I have done welding, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, logging, running heavy equipment, sheet metal, car painting, mechanical work, prototype machining, made simple logic circuits, built a computer, lots of digital photography... but you know I don't do all of them every day; I have to relearn most of those skills when I take them on. Yet worse than that, even with all those skills there is a lot I cannot fix. I sure as hell don't know how to fix a smart phone.
Skills are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, no doubt. But more important, the knowledge that goes into a product is so huge that NO ONE can master them all. Consider finite element analysis and CAM. For example, look at a DJI drone. That degree of integration is a result of multiple product generations by a team of experts familiar with the manufacturing 'skills' of injection molding, heat transfer, power transmission, tiny motors, and automated assembly. In a sense, the building of drones drove the design technology.
This cuts to one of the most damaging consequences of outsourcing manufacturing. The idiots looking to cash in on cheaper labor thought we could retain the demanding technical skills while shucking the touch labor. That cost us the immediate feedbacks of materials handling, plating, molding, and assembly doesn't get back to the designers. Shipping production overseas made design less capable. THIS is where the environmental regulations governing the externalities of plating, water and air quality, noise... crushed the learning process everything from building nanometer factories to making ships to defend ourselves.
In defense of people, the number of technologies necessary to master in order to fix anything is beyond human capability. I have done welding, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, logging, running heavy equipment, sheet metal, car painting, mechanical work, prototype machining, made simple logic circuits, built a computer, lots of digital photography... but you know I don’t do all of them every day; I have to relearn most of those skills when I take them on. Yet worse than that, even with all those skills there is a lot I cannot fix. I sure as hell don’t know how to fix a smart phone.
In a similar vein, while at hp one of the projects was an impatt diode that was targeted at the radar system of the F16. We had the contract until one of the gals on the line left. The lost skill seemed to be her ability to tune the impedance by repositioning the bond wire. The contract went to Hughs. Further down the line, Jerry C. used c-clamps to fine tune waveguides...
FReeper Carry_Okie: In defense of people, the number of technologies necessary to master in order to fix anything is beyond human capability.
IMHO this brings us more to a need for community, both in the family and as neighbors. My son-in-law and daughter lives 20 miles away in a very remote area in which the only internet is StarLink. I live close enough to "town" to have better and cheaper internet service through Spectrum. I also have lots of solar and battery storage. So when the power goes out at my daughter's house, she and her husband stay with me and he brings his Starlink equipment. If the grid is down in my area too I don't have land internet, even if my house has power (through solar). Between the two of us, we have both power and internet.
The same with helping each other fix each other's cars before we give up and take it to a mechanic. The same with work on the home (though I'll admit I'll pay for a professional with major plumbing or electrical). The same with managing each other's investments. (I designed the portfolios and for a while manage them whenever they said they want to invest each paycheck. Now my "kids" do it with me looking over their shoulder --- just sort by balance and invest into whichever mutual fund has the lowest balance to buy low. Opposite for selling when they help me handle my mother's retirement withdrawals -- sell high.)
Admittedly, to FReeper Carry_Okie's point, there's still the issue of being unable to fix individual components like we used to. (i.e. Fixing this laptop's motherboard wouldn't be as easy as the times my father had me crawl into a console TV and tell him color codes on resisters as well as readings from the voltage/ohms meter.) And our knowledge tends to be more specialized and less general (i.e. my decades experience as a programmer, mainly on the back-end data side, has made some nice coin but those skills aren't applicable to my family except how I used them to download market data and query the stew out of it to build investment plans, and query the telemetry from our solar equipment to see if it's working well and which parts were feasible to upgrade and get goody out of it or add insulation because the furnace ran more than I realized even after we were in the house with the doors shut for the day).
even with all those skills there is a lot I cannot fix
= = =
New car repair requires special tools. And special computer programming from the factory only.
They wanted to charge me to reset the battery monitor module after I changed the 12 v battery. Not like the good old days.
Thunderous applause.