I'm probably going to be picking up a copy of Assembly for Dummies or something similar to peruse next time I ship out. From all I've read though, you'll be able to do just about everything without having to write a single line of code, it's just a bonus. Also, with program exchanges and what not (think I mentioned before there's going to be a floppy disk analogue for this kind of thing), if you want more advanced stuff you can always trade for it the same as ship components. After all, you don't need to know how to make games to play them, after all. The specs for the in-game computer have already been released, and there are already a ton of coders and even coders' guilds releasing things publicly that'll be ready to use the second the alpha gets released. About 4 solid, user-friendly OSes I've found, and even a fully-functional version of Zork you can play on a long mining expedition =p
Far as the casual player being screwed goes, ISC seems quite benevolent. Also, the rumors are that there will be upwards of 100,000 star systems, so no matter how big various organizations get I'm sure you'll always be able to find some quiet corner of the galaxy to do your own thing in without being bothered. Also, the organizations that exist now might not even exist when the game releases, so who knows how it'll all play out. I was part of a 50-man shipyard corp that's already more or less disbanded. Plus, compared to the number of people who will likely end up playing, the number of people currently active on the forums is miniscule. Could see tons of different organizations and governments crop up that totally eclipse the "established" powers. All the current "balance of power" on the forums really does is give those groups a bit of a first-mover advantage when the game goes live =p