Can complex technology be explained to lay decision makers?

An attempt is made to answer the question of whether technically complex systems can be explained to the layman. Using the examples of a jogger, a bicycle, and a passenger car as modern means of transportation, the clarity of message, the quality of the transmission, and the necessary knowledge of the receiver are illustrated. It is concluded that successful communication will take place when technologists have been educated under a system which accepts the challenge to insist that they must be competent communicators of technology as well as competent practitioners. Lay people, i.e., all those not trained in any one technology, must still have sufficient knowledge of technical matters to understand the technologist, lest they become disenfranchised in making the important choices for their own future. In societies which permit such a system to take root, the technologist then becomes technocrat. He dictates his own version of technical progress to society, rather than serving society with his technological expertise