"One of the primary arguments for manually installing and configuring your system is that it will teach you a lot about linux and operating systems in general. While there is a small grain of truth to this, it's incredibly misleading. [...] A significant drawback of the "manual means advanced" slogan is that it creates a narrative that is precisely the opposite of the truth. Computing is about automation, and advanced users are those who write software or use existing software to make their computing lives more painless."

Sure... and how exactly is one aquiring the "expertise to automate" when they never actually did it manually to know what to automate?