Tim Hunt
Posts made by Tim Hunt
Yes, but this is a perennial part of the human condition.
The oldest example I know is from Socrates, bemoaning the invention of writing:
"The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, [274e] “This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.” But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; [275a] and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess.
"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem [275b] to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise." (From Plato's dialogue Phaedrus 14, 274e-275b.)
There are more here: https://www.mickmel.com/people-always-afraid-effects-new-technology/
I have seen similar list too more focussed on educational technology. To pick just one example from that, there were people who thought that the replacement of slates with pencil and paper was a terrible thing.
I wonder if the site where it is not worked has some extra pluins installed into Moodle's HTML editor.
To investigate this, Start an attempt on each system, and in the HTML editor, use the option to view the source code. When you see what is there, that might provide a clue.
