The story of the AutoCarrot

1. Glazed carrots

Okay. Imagine you’re, like, trying to make glazed carrots or something.

Maybe a really simplified recipe looks something like:

1. Cut your carrots into suitably sized pieces with a knife.
2. Use a measuring spoon to get the right amount of oil, sugar, salt, etc.
3. Throw the carrots and other ingredients into a frying pan.
4. Serve the carrots on a plate.

You’ll notice that there were a bunch of different tools you used. The knife was used to cut the carrots into pieces. The measuring spoon was used to get the right amounts of other ingredients. And the plates are just there for the presentation of your dish. All these tools are things you see in any kitchen, but they do a single, completely unrelated thing.

Now imagine someone asks you:

I’m confused, why do people use a measuring spoon for cooking? Why not just use a frying pan?

If someone asks this question, then it indicates something is really wrong with their understanding of cooking. The English idiom “comparing apples and oranges” would be an understatement. It makes no sense to try to use a frying pan “instead” of a measuring spoon; it’s practically a type-error.

2. Introducing the AutoCarrot

You might be incredulous anyone could ask a question as nonsensical as the example I just gave. But that’s because most people have used a measuring spoon or frying pan sometime in their life, so it’s obvious to them that a measuring spoon and a frying pan are not interchangeable.

Now imagine instead that we lived in a world where you had the AutoCarrot, which was this big box sort of like a laundry machine. The AutoCarrot had a big opening at the top and all you had to do was dump in the carrots from your fridge. It comes pre-installed with a lot of oil, sugar, and salt. The AutoCarrot would automatically cut the carrots for you, add in the right amount of other ingredients, cook them at low heat, and even 3D-print a plate for you to serve the glazed carrots on.

… Actually that sounds kinda nice. Why do four steps when you can do one? NEW STARTUP IDEA LET’S GO.

3. What do you mean you didn’t read the manual?

Imagine the AutoCarrot works great!

At first.

Then one day you decide you want carrots to be less salted. But you’ve never seen a measuring spoon in your life, you’ve only used the AutoCarrot, so you do the only thing you know how to do and send an all-caps email: “HEY EVAN I WANT MY CARROTS TO BE LESS SALTY BUT I CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHAT DIAL ON THIS MACHINE TO USE IS IT THIS FAHRENHEIT ONE????? PLEASE HELP URGENT”.

Or maybe the AutoCarrot ran out of the pre-installed cooking oil, so the carrots aren’t cooking and just burn instead. But you don’t know what cooking oil is, and have no idea what would cause food to get burnt, so you just throw the whole machine out and buy a new AutoCarrot instead of buying a bottle of olive oil for 3 bucks.

And then you wonder why the chefs at actual restaurants are so snobby and keep saying you should be using a measuring spoon and frying pan separately instead of the 350-dollar AutoCarrot you bought on Amazon.com. Geez, don’t they know you have better things to do than learn how to cook? So many extra steps! So much complexity! The chefs are clearly just showing off.

Like, what, you’re telling me I should cut the carrots myself? By hand? And I have to buy my own knife for that? Sheesh! It’s not like you want Michelin-star level carrots, you just want to eat. You’re happy with the AutoCarrot.

4. This is all a metaphor

I work with math students who use LaTeX, and the LaTeX analog of the AutoCarrot has taken over.