There is a huge difference between explaining how indexes come from offsets and understanding operating systems. I think more emphasis should be put on the insane amounts abstractions underlying the high level language at hand when teaching programming. Explaining that 0-based indexing comes from offests seems like a good start in that direction for a kid learning python.

And when beginners won't be beginners anymore they'l have to learn how the underlying abstractions work anyway. A programmer that doesn't at least superficially understand how operating systems work is not going to be able to write performant or secure software, let alome combine those qualities.

Digital logic is a good start...

You don’t have to understand the low level details to be productive at the higher levels, you just have to understand the interfaces.

I've worked with programmers like that. They can glue a lot of things together, but when the slightest of problems appears, they are absolutely lost with how to debug. They usually resort to making pseudorandom changes until it "appears to work", and are also unable to appreciate just how fast computers are supposed to be.

I learned physics and transistors at comp-sci. It didn't help with programming at all (though it made wonders for my understanding of the philosophy of computation).

The kind of understanding you're rooting for relies on formal logic, not electronics.