For instance Grote Reber

Long before you and I were born, everybody in town knew how to do everything. You might not be good at baking bread or shoeing horses, but you at least understood the gist of it. Kids bought magazines that showed them how to build their own full-sized gliders and crystal radios. The big deal last week was the 75th birthday of the transistor, an apparatus which you simply cannot build at the kitchen table. I can’t find the choke on my car’s dashboard. It’s not pleasant to admit that one is hopelessly stupid and incompetent, but there you have it.