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> I think it's worth considering that most people aren't able to properly diagnose or troubleshoot something that's broken; especially electronics or mechanical things.

This is quite sad to consider. For a device like a telephone or laptop it’s quite understandable: adding the affordance for many (though not all) repairs would add cost and decrease reliability.

But there’s a kind of learned helplessness in not being able to dismantle and consider something manufactured. I’m a backpacker and the lines between make/modify/improvise/repair are often hard to find. And I think it’s also a kind of stance: the same self confidence and debugging perspective are required to fix a tent and figure out who should be president.



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