Quote - But things being complicated is nothing new, what is new is your inability to adapted to the new complications as you get older and your brain slows down.

Winterclaw - please, go outside and open the hood of your car.  Do you recognize anything (other than perhaps the battery) there?  Do you feel that you could maintain that engine in any meaningful way?  I once had a 1964 Dodge Dart with a straight 6 engine.  I tore the entire engine apart, replaced the rings and gaskets, and put it all back together.  And it ran for another 50k miles or so before I sold it.  I could not possibly do that with my current vehicle.  Cafe, environmental and other standards have required such levels of engineering and problem solving that the basic internal combustion engine somewhere under all the controls and sensors is unrecognizable.

Complexity rises exponentially, and will continue to do so.  When dozens, or hundreds of people design and manufacture a product, as is now common, it becomes more and more difficult for an individual to truly master the use of said product.  This has not always been so, but will accelerate in the future.  Think of what our parents needed to know to get through an average day, then what we have had to master, and what our children will be called upon to understand implicitly, simply to navigate a normal day-to-day existence.

The only constant is change, and its velocity increases over time.

Klebnor

Lotus 123 ~ S-Render ~ OS/2 WARP ~ IBM 8088 / 4.77 Mhz ~ Hercules Ultima graphics, Hitachi 10 MB HDD, 64K RAM, 12 in diagonal CRT Monitor (16 colors / 60 Hz refresh rate), 240 Watt PS, Dual 1.44 MB Floppies, 2 button mouse input device.  Beige horizontal case.  I don't display my unit.