[johngunderman]

In my experience there is a large class of people who lack basic curiosity about how things work. They are content to believe that things just "exist". I haven't done much research into this, but I would be interested in seeing if this is considered more an education problem, or if some people simply don't have the capacity for curiosity.

[hencq]

Yes, I've noticed this as well. Growing up as a kid I was always interested in how things worked. Luckily my dad was an engineer and was more than happy to answer all my questions. In university I was also surrounded by people who were fascinated by how things worked. Because of that I'm still very surprised when I meet people who show no such interest. That said, I now know quite a few people who fall in that category. They're all very smart people, with good educations, but they're just okay with the fact that things exist.

The dangerous thing about this attitude though is that these people often underestimate what it takes for something to be created. You see this when politicians are eager to cut on education or when someone looks for a programmer to 'quickly implement their briliant new app'. Note that these people aren't necessarily dumb, but they've just never thought about what it takes for things to be built or designed.

[rwillystyle]

No, they are dumb, and you can find them in abundance in pretty much any MBA entreprenuership class.

[gaius]

I have a friend who is a teacher, she had to explain to her class that no, they did not have mobile phones during the Great Fire of London, no, not even "bricks". Some of the class didn't believe her.