UI Voters & the Decline of Civilization
In the modern world, “low information voter” takes on new meaning (voters have always been ‘low information’). The power of the government to corral such voters and coddle them in myths of improved user experience and unbreakability has advanced tremendously in the past two decades.
Those who came of age in the 1980s and 90s grew up in the interregnum of user interfaces (UI). Previous generations had UIs that weren’t really UIs (or, not much thought was given to the UI other than operational necessities). Those generations had user manuals, which not only served the purpose of explaining how to operate a product but, and more importantly, how not to break it. If you pressed the wrong button at the wrong time, the product may just stop working. Hence the prevalence of large reset buttons (Nintendo NES circa 1985 — there was no button bigger than the reset button) and the concepts of “just turn it off” or “unplug it.” These were devices that an unwitting operator could cause to malfunction just by incorrect usage.
UI thinking took a huge turn as software became increasingly complex. Software wasn’t a blender, and designers couldn’t just make a button for each function or a user would be staring at a thousand buttons. As software complicated machines, the UI implications became significant. About 20 years ago, UI took a turn when it began to focus on “unbreakable.” It didn’t matter what buttons the user pushed or when — the user might not get the desired result, but even the dumbest user couldn’t break the software or machine. Reset buttons and the “just turn it off” era began to recede, and user manuals grew thinner. In the past decade, user manuals began to disappear entirely because now the user manual is built into the UI.
We think of kids as being “good with software.” They aren’t; they just live in a world of unbreakable UIs. A 10-year-old can spend a few minutes just hitting buttons and links and whatever on mom’s iPhone and will start to understand the operation of the software. It doesn’t matter if li’l Timmy just clicks around — the software can’t be broken. Mom won’t need to reset it or take out the battery. (The fact that Apple makes the iPhone’s battery non-removable is evidence of a new UI epoch.)
Now, there’s an entire industry for hire that will help you design a product from the perspective of the user experience; that’s not a process your grandma’s blender went through. And young voters have grown up with the UI serving as user manual. Just try it and maybe after a while you’ll understand it — regardless, you can’t break it.
These are voters, and one wonders of the new left — all those Democrat candidates in the second debate of 2019 who confirmed they’d provide healthcare to illegal immigrants — view government through the interpretative lens of the new UI culture. Just mess around with it … it can’t be broken. And they don’t need no stinkin’ manual. They already know how to use it; they’ve hit some buttons.
Obama was our first UI president. Designed and built by UI designers to maximize the user experience. The concept of a manual or product limitations is unknown. And 10-year-old li’l Timmy understands it as well as anyone. And the greatest malfunction in all of this is that we click I have read and agree to the terms of use.
We don’t need any terms of use just like we don’t need any user manuals. It’s an attitude, not a fact. And it’s an attitude that propels the propaganda machine to greater efficacy, that seemingly justifies low-information users of the democracy machine, and produces dialogue that’s ultimately never about the machine’s operating principles but rather about the user experience. It is the culmination of selfish, uninformed, user-experience democracy. There are no principles in using an iPhone; there’s only getting what you want with as little effort possible.
And so we live in a post-user-manual era, and this is also why Hillary’s notorious 2009 reset button didn’t work with the Russians. We don’t live in a reset button world anymore.
About Nathan Allen
Formerly of Xio Research, an A.I. company. Previously a strategy and development leader at IBM Watson Education. His views do not necessarily reflect anyone’s, including his own. (What.) Nathan’s academic training is in intellectual history; his next book, Weapon of Choice, examines the creation of American identity and modern Western power. Don’t get too excited, Weapon of Choice isn’t about wars but rather more about the seeming ex nihilo development of individual agency … which doesn’t really seem sexy until you consider that individual agency covers everything from voting rights to the cash in your wallet to the reason mass communication even makes sense….
