I'm aware that just about everybody in this forum is pretty handy with computers - so perhaps you guys would be the best to comment on this sort of thing.
Does anybody else get the impression that the general public's view of what computers are for is at best rather vague (computers are "tools" or "thinking engines") and at worst outright wrong (computers are machines with which to shuffle around data, always to be supervised and told what to do by an unskilled human)? I ask because I take the occasional temporary (like, a week tops) data entry position to supplement what I make from website design, advertising and hosting, and I note that pretty well every single job I take could be completely automated with an hour's programming - which makes me very frustrated, as performing such jobs is a perfect waste of human life when we can simply program the computer to do said tasks for us.
I've blogged about it in greater detail
here, if anyone's interested (along with a primer for new users on what they should expect their computers to do for them, and why it doesn't always work out that way).
What are the forum's views on this problem?