Similar to my view of Government purchasing, That the equipment you use in life and death situations is provided by the lowest bidder, I also believe that people are inherently ignorant. Now, no offense to anyone, but people in general really are ignorant.

It takes A LOT of work not to be ignorant as proven by all the schooling we have to go to through our lives (or do we have to, but we do it anyway?) The number of books we read about everything. People say computers are dumb machines, but think of it this way...the computer does exactly what you told it to do the first time you told it to do it. Right or wrong results, it did do what you told it to do. How many people do you meet in your day that can respond that way. "Didn't I give you a twenty, so my change should be $15.", "You were supposed to be here between 12 and 3 and it's now 6", "I said a trim, not a shave", "I asked for no onions", ...

The increased popularity of self check-out lines and credit card/ATM payment features is further evidence that though people consider computers to be "dumb machines" we still would prefer to deal with a dumb machine than a ignorant human.

I've simply learned that if I meet someone who does not say something ignorant right off the bat, I have met a hardworking human who has made an effort not to be as ignorant as they were yesterday.