My sense is that there was a sweet spot in the late 18th to mid-20th century when modern(ish) things were still built by human hands, mostly using simple tools, so people could learn to build (and repair) those things for themselves. That accessibility was partly recreated in the 80's with the PC, but things have shrunk down and become hermetically sealed with fewer ports, switches and physical buttons. And memory density has increased to the point where even sophisticated users will never understand all the software running on their machine. Cars have become far more complex than their mid-20th century counterparts, to the point where few people even check or change oil.

Americans are born and bred these days to be administrators of some kind, where all physical and digital goods and services can be purchased on the virtual open market behind touch-sensitive glass. If that glass breaks, you call a (low status) worker to fix it; if something behind the glass breaks, you complain to a (slightly higher status) worker to fix it. You yourself don't do or make anything - you allocate funds and then, at most, measure progress and outcomes.

Such an admin does not make a usable character like that in Twain. In fact, neither would either of the two low status workers, since they only "make" at the tip of an enormous world-spanning supply chain. You'd need to be a machinist, metallurgist or chemist with an interest in low-tech methods. Pretty rare.

The author of that article who kept looking for reasons to be offended bluntly dismisses the Church's endorsement of slavery because it was standard practice at the time while also basically calling Twain a bigot because of his southern American-based view of Catholicism, which was also standard practice at the time.

You and the author both act both bigoted and ignorant towards Twain and call him childish in response to perceived bigotry. Twain was also not an atheist, he was a deist who attended church regularly. Someone can be of a religion and also criticize religion, it doesn't mean they're an atheist because as we all know, religions aren't perfect. But at least to the author's credit, he took a bit higher road than you and didn't go as far as calling Twain "childish".

yes, that's true, but it's a great story and today most people don't care about the various social satires in it. Just like Dante placed lots of his political and social opponents in Hell, but it goes over the heads of most readers, who in any case are more interested in the timeless qualities of the story than the bickering about long forgotten debates.