In general, two things are taking place: "arcane" <description>, and "command line" <horrible fact!>. They don't come out and say it directly, they just use this description. They hint that the GUI is a positive thing, although not directly.

Lets zoom a bit further on this again.

What is really being implied:

"Oh-my GAWD, you mean I have to type?!? On a, GAWD FORBID, keyboard!?!". Also implied is another issue: You may actually be expected to <gasp> read documentation <faint> before attempting a complex task. Or, even worse, get some <Oh my Gawd no!> Training <ominous sounding music>.

Such wasteful things! Reaching all the way over to the keyboard to type! Just to get something to happen! And even worse, that documentation/training thing? How much time do you think we have here?!?

Paul, you pathetic, moronic, wasteful clod!

Of course, I have a response:

What?!? You don't have time to read documentation and/or to go to training? Don't you have plenty of time to re-install a pantywaist operating system? Look, it falls apart more often than a house of cards in a wind tunnel! You seem to have plenty of time to click mindlessly, looking for options that are not there, or grayed out when you find them. You have plenty of time to sit and browse through help hypertext that has all kinds of useful help for tasks that you will never attempt.

But you don't have time to further your understanding of your computer. Now that is time wasted.

Don't forget, this pathetic operating system is going to do it all for you. You don't need to learn a thing about what is really going on.

Believe that lie. Go ahead. Keep buying unstable, unusable, proprietary software that is essentially a black box. Things are going to get much better with this trend, see? Watch as all aspects of your life, including your banking and house are controlled by this same type of computing environment. It's not scary at all, is it?

Is the horse dead now? Maybe, but I'm just getting warmed up. If you've had enough, click somewhere on your browser and go somewhere else. Stop reading now. I'm sure you have some other URL set in your "Favorites" section. Click on that favorite so you won't have to type it in and press the GO button. The GO button is there, by the way, because some people were having trouble understanding that they had to press return-key after typing in the text for the URL!

No, I'm not finished yet--the horse isn't dead. Arcane? You call something as elegant as a command line arcane, and then point to something like the previous example as superior? The essence of all these stupid arguments is that the GUI is better than the command line for computer users.

More to the point, the GUI is associated with ease of use, power, speed, freedom, justice and the American way.

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