The government has more advanced tech than the public. What we normally consider v-tubing is only a fraction of what's possible.
Metaphysic demonstrates their technology on America's Got Talent:
Other demonstrations of this technology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QA_mfhLvq0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr8yEgu7sHU
After seeing that, I question whether or not the person who recently gave an address from the Oval Office was actually Joe Biden:
I don't like the new world. Computers were a mistake. I wonder how much work I can get done on a typewriter.
Computers weren't the mistake, user interfaces were the mistake.
We could have been a technocratic priesthood for a millennia but nooooo.
That certainly is an effective gatekeeper whether you meant limiting them to program entry via machine code or going as far as a command line. There was a certain level of minimum intelligence required to use then.