I don’t think we’ve lost our curiosity, but that the advance of technology is just too overwhelming. Scientific discovery and invention follow a parabolic curve, and more and more new consumer technology is created. It’s just not feasible to learn about everything we use. But some people are still interested in that stuff. I spent 2 hours learning about how flash memory works yesterday. Flashinating. Edit: Also, our culture values newness and disposability, so we don’t really need to know how things work. If they break, buy a new one. You probably don’t have the tools to fix it anyway. I’m not endorsing this view, but it’s impossible to not notice that Apple releases a new iPod every 6 months.