[HN Gopher] Willingness to look stupid
___________________________________________________________________
Willingness to look stupid
Author : ZephyrBlu
Score : 1811 points
Date : 2021-10-21 09:25 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (danluu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (danluu.com)
| desktopninja wrote:
| Pinky and the Brain. Need I say more? :)
| trillic wrote:
| I resonate with the author, but there's no chance I'll wear a
| helmet while sailing.
| wolfspider wrote:
| Intelligence is cultural and I think many people don't realize
| that. If I were to be dropped off in a random place on Earth I
| would encounter people, most likely, I wouldn't be able to
| communicate with and even if they did understand me based upon
| who they are I may seem very stupid. In the wilderness I don't
| have a lot of real survival skills and if someone discovered what
| I was doing to survive I may come off as very stupid in that
| context as well. Lots of examples and scenarios for this. For
| myself I have to consider things like just because someone hasn't
| read history or literature and doesn't understand the references
| I'm making does that make them stupid? Does their culture even
| concern itself with these things? Who am I to judge ultimately
| what makes someone stupid or not?
| darkerside wrote:
| "looking stupid" seems like a poor abstraction for two other
| things: 1) failing to come to terms with your own insufficiency,
| and 2) being willing to do things that others are not doing. I
| think separating them out helps us realize they are separate
| skills, and this way, those of us who are not naturally talented
| at them are more likely to pick them up.
|
| Another helpful thing would have been examples. What were the
| stupid questions he was asking in college?
| mlang23 wrote:
| This article is stupid.
| drummer wrote:
| This person definitely is stupid for thinking masks work against
| sarscov2.
| Threeve303 wrote:
| Story of my life. Also, it helps if you can fail up.
| desktopninja wrote:
| Its actually pretty amusing to watch the "cognitive dissonance"
| on the other persons face when they clearly labelled you "stupid"
| but your solution to problem the problem at hand is
| clear/concise/defined. They eventually learn to fear you :(. Ah
| humanity!
| 7402 wrote:
| I think that sometimes "willingness to look stupid" can simply be
| a function of your power situation.
|
| When I was a respected Principal Engineer, secure in my position,
| I was willing to look stupid.
|
| When I was in a contract-to-hire position, where I had spent
| months looking for a job and where I was constantly judged and I
| thought I might be let go at any moment, I was not willing to
| look stupid.
|
| When I was a long-time group leader and project architect, I was
| willing to look stupid.
|
| When I worked at a place where I was in the political and
| religious minority, I was not willing to look stupid.
|
| One shouldn't be afraid to look stupid in situations where that
| fear is groundless. But I think it's worth having some empathy
| for people who are in a situation where looking stupid could
| actually be a threat.
| Woberto wrote:
| The author mentions this as the biggest drawback,
| understandably so - if getting a job depends on knowledge and
| confidence, which it usually does, you really need to be
| careful with how you come off
| speedgeek wrote:
| I have this theory that there is an direct relationship between
| intellect and doing really stupid things. A genius will sometimes
| do the most idiotic things. Take comfort the next time you do
| something really dumb because it indicates you are generally very
| smart.
| bittercynic wrote:
| If I'm spending very much energy thinking how brilliant or
| stupid I look or feel, then I'm not focused on doing something
| fun or useful. We probably all have to put some amount of
| energy into image management to be part of society, but the
| less energy put into that the better. At least for me.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| ah yes, we all know the saying "stupid is as stupid doesn't"
| amznbyebyebye wrote:
| The best people who do this are those that ask stupid questions
| in a way that makes it seem like the question they're asking is
| because the other person is stupid
| azangru wrote:
| There's a beautiful illustration from Neal Stephenson's
| _Cryptonomicon_ on this topic:
|
| ===
|
| _They gave him an intelligence test. The first question on the
| math part had to do with boats on a river: Port Smith is 100
| miles upstream of Port Jones. The river flows at 5 miles per
| hour. The boat goes through water at 10 miles per hour. How long
| does it take to go from Port Smith to Port Jones? How long to
| come back?_
|
| _Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You
| would have to be some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption
| that the current would add or subtract 5 miles per hour to or
| from the speed of the boat. Clearly, 5 miles per hour was nothing
| more than the average speed. The current would be faster in the
| middle of the river and slower at the banks. More complicated
| variations could be expected at bends in the river. Basically it
| was a question of hydrodynamics, which could be tackled using
| certain well-known systems of differential equations. Lawrence
| dove into the problem, rapidly (or so he thought) covering both
| sides of ten sheets of paper with calculations. Along the way, he
| realized that one of his assumptions, in combination with the
| simplified Navier Stokes equations, had led him into an
| exploration of a particularly interesting family of partial
| differential equations. Before he knew it, he had proved a new
| theorem. If that didn't prove his intelligence, what would?_
|
| _Then the time bell rang and the papers were collected. Lawrence
| managed to hang onto his scratch paper. He took it back to his
| dorm, typed it up, and mailed it to one of the more approachable
| math professors at Princeton, who promptly arranged for it to be
| published in a Parisian mathematics journal._
|
| _Lawrence received two free, freshly printed copies of the
| journal a few months later, in San Diego, California, during mail
| call on board a large ship called the U.S.S. Nevada. The ship had
| a band, and the Navy had given Lawrence the job of playing the
| glockenspiel in it, because their testing procedures had proven
| that he was not intelligent enough to do anything else._
| jmchuster wrote:
| The moral of the story is that Lawrence was an idiot for not
| properly understanding what answer the test administrators
| wanted him to give?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| From the wording, it sounds like he only answered the one
| question. Since he kept his work, all they know is that he
| answered at most[0] one question correctly.
|
| [0] It's possible he gave an answer that wasn't what they
| expected and it was "incorrect".
| jmchuster wrote:
| Then, at the risk of looking stupid, he could have first
| asked the administrator "Do you care at all about how many
| of the questions I answer?"
| [deleted]
| bo1024 wrote:
| I'm in academia and willingness to look stupid (sometimes to be
| stupid) is an important and difficult skill that we try hard to
| train and almost all of my colleagues now have.
|
| But I believe that it's also very cultural and gendered so it's
| not as easy or successful for everyone, unfortunately. (Adding) I
| mean not easy personality wise due o their background, OR not
| easy because people more often treat them as stupid given an
| excuse because of who they are or what they look like.
| davesque wrote:
| Shoutout to anyone using user agent styling in 2021.
| bjarneh wrote:
| This post seems like some sort of humble-brag about not really
| being stupid, but being _" willing to look stupid"_ to people who
| are actually stupid.
|
| To be honest, this entire post make him look stupid, but we all
| know now that he doesn't care what we think. I'm probably stupid
| for falling for another one of his clever schemes where he's just
| pretending to be stupid.
| misja111 wrote:
| Exactly. E.g. this: "Although there are some downsides to
| people thinking that I'm stupid, e.g., failing interviews where
| the interviewer very clearly thought I was stupid"
|
| This isn't just looking stupid, this is being stupid. Why in
| Heaven's name wouldn't you at least adjust your behavior when
| you're in an interview?
|
| Acting stupid can be a convenient way to hold up your belief
| that you're smarter than the rest. Nobody will ever challenge
| your belief because hey, if they think you are stupid, it's
| because you made them believe that, which means that they are
| actually the stupid ones!
| bjarneh wrote:
| Agreed, that blog post was pure cringe from start to finish.
| genewitch wrote:
| I don't change anything about myself when I interview for
| jobs. I can't even fathom why I would, in this industry (or
| really any not customer-facing industry, really).
|
| They saw my weird resume - it always gets a comment. It was
| revised and edited under direction from a retired
| entrepreneur and CEO who explained how employee employer and
| employee/employer/HR/hiring managers interactions work "in
| real life".
|
| They did a phone interview. They called me in. The only times
| I get the "thanks for interviewing, but" calls is when the
| recruiter or headhunter obfuscated the job description to
| prevent poaching and/or losing their commission/bonus and I
| had literally no idea about any of their
| stack/business/whatever.
|
| I could just be lucky, I guess, not having to lie or
| embellish or present a facade.
| bserge wrote:
| It's more like "willingness to be confident no matter what",
| isn't it?
|
| I mean, stupid people do exactly the same stuff. The difference
| is their thought process is actually flawed but they're confident
| they're right.
|
| The only difference is in being objectively right or wrong -
| either way, just be confident.
|
| Smarter people seem to have trouble with that because they are
| often open to learning/being corrected and second guess their
| decisions.
| blfr wrote:
| As a man, every condescending comment you get in person only
| tells you one thing: your deadlift PR is still too low.
|
| Get jacked and all these problems disappear. No matter how silly
| your questions and objections, no matter how dumb they may think
| you are, all your concerns will be treated very seriously,
| criticism couched in most polite terms, and weird stuff written
| off as eccentric.
|
| (It helps to be taller, well-dressed, and sound sophisticated but
| solid deadlift is by far the most effective.)
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| It's amusing to see people get worked up over this. I'm not
| even jacked, but it's obvious that having a lot of muscle mass
| makes you look more intimidating and dominant.
| dtjb wrote:
| I can't think of a single politician, CEO, professor, author or
| esteemed leader where this holds true.
|
| If anything, I think the meathead/jock/gymrat stereotype is
| more pervasive.
| dymk wrote:
| I interpreted GP as saying being jacked is a sufficient, but
| not necessary, condition to people not condescending you
|
| And sure they might think you're a meathead, but they sure
| won't tell you that.
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| Sounds like great advice! Why should I listen to guys like Dan
| Abramov when I can listen to you?
|
| In all seriousness though, this comment almost sounds like its
| from another language when read here on HN. Its crazy how
| completely wierd some parts of the internet has become.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Dan Abramov has something greater than muscle: status. What a
| random guy says about being heard is probably going to be
| more useful than what Dan says because it's not confounded by
| having high status.
| joeberon wrote:
| Are these seriously the quality of comments we are happy with
| on Hackernews these days?
| blfr wrote:
| It's a social reality most nerds ignore at their own peril.
| The way you're treated is very loosely correlated with being
| smart, having unusual tastes, or asking questions but tightly
| with how you present yourself.
| joeberon wrote:
| "at their own peril"? It's really not a big deal lol
| blfr wrote:
| Being treated poorly compounds, just like the fear of
| looking stupid. Especially in the dating market.
| joeberon wrote:
| You sound like an incel. Anyone who cares about this
| stuff is already weak.
| sidlls wrote:
| Attractive people generally illicit more empathy and
| cooperation in work settings, and are generally more
| successful in their careers, than those of average or
| below average physical appearance.
|
| It's not the mark of an "incel" to take note and think
| this is important.
| wccrawford wrote:
| There's an unfortunate amount of truth in it.
|
| I noticed a marked difference in how I was treated and
| respected when I gained weight. When I was skinny, I was
| pushed around and ignored.
|
| When I gained weight, suddenly people were wary of me and
| much more likely to accept my input or requirements.
|
| I didn't even exercise. I merely gained weight.
| sidlls wrote:
| I've spent the majority of my career having plenty of my own
| ideas, thoughts, and opinions ignored only to see them
| seriously considered when echoed by taller, fitter, and more
| attractive male peers.
|
| Software engineers and computer scientists like to think
| they're above this stuff, but they aren't.
| Thorentis wrote:
| For somebody who doesn't mind looking stupid, there is a glaring
| lack of examples of when you actually were stupid.
|
| This seems like a really long example of a typical narcissistic
| interview answer to "what is your biggest weakness?", of "people
| think I look stupid but actually I'm really really smart".
| shrubby wrote:
| Awesome. A friend I was on a same team, told me once that its
| always good to show up a bit slow witted to your opponent. I've
| had no issues in adjusting to that. Not stating that I'm anything
| of a genius BUT that it makes life a lot easier when you lose the
| excuse to pretend smart and can be actually yourself.
| dynm wrote:
| I'm really surprised by a lot of the negativity here. The author
| never claimed to actually be stupid, nor did they claim to be
| humble, nor did they claim that this particular essay was an
| exercise in looking stupid or an exercise in humility. All they
| did was claim there were some situations where it was beneficial
| to be willing to look stupid, and listed those situations.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| And this could be _precisely_ the reason of all the negativity.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Brilliant!
| j7ake wrote:
| The fact that the author withheld information from the Apple
| clerk suggests to me that the author thought the Apple clerk
| would not understand the "real" reason why he wanted the smallest
| box.
|
| I believe the author thought the clerk was too stupid to
| understand the real reason and it would be a waste of time to
| explain to the clerk why.
| unobatbayar wrote:
| From my experience, the Japanese people have really mastered the
| art of looking stupid. Going as far as acting like they don't
| understand anything and has zero clue of what you're talking
| about.
|
| In nicer cases, they get so amazed of how well you play the piano
| when in reality they're one of the greatest of pianists and
| you're just a beginner.
|
| It's difficult to tell who is who. Knowing this, I cautiously
| assume everyone is smart. Sometimes, it's scary how smart/skilled
| someone actually turns out to be.
| deedree wrote:
| But why did he want the smallest box?
| dusted wrote:
| When I was younger, I often met people who seemed kind of dim to
| me, at first, and later found the majority of them to be orders
| of magnitude brighter than me. It was not hard to connect the
| dots, the reason they were so much brighter was (in part) exactly
| because of what made them initially seem dim.. They asked
| questions, honestly. Not the showoff kind of question you ask to
| show how much you know, but real, honest questions that not only
| showed how little they knew, but importantly, allowed them to
| actually learn and understand, rather than just nod and not get
| it.
|
| My intuition has changed from this, I find it that most times,
| when someone shows genuine interest and asks honest, revealing
| questions about some new topic, they often excel at many other
| things (and will likely on the new topic as well).
|
| I'm adapting this myself, being honest, asking honestly, and
| sometimes looking really stupid (because, in that context, I
| am!), and I appreciate greatly both the wealth of information
| that allows me to access, and that almost anybody worth their
| salt recognizes this trait as well.
|
| Failing an interview due to looking stupid is probably a blessing
| in disguise, you don't want to be hired by people who can't see
| this, and you don't want to work next to people who's just
| pretending to understand, not learning because they can't afford
| to look stupid when they are (and thus stay stupid, and be much
| more inclined to try to pass blame to someone else, like you, who
| look stupid).
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| If you don't know the answers to stupid questions you
| originally don't understand the topic fully .
| josh2600 wrote:
| Confucius says there are 3 ways to gain wisdom:
|
| Imitation, which is easiest.
|
| Meditation, which is noblest.
|
| Experience, which is bitterest.
|
| Anytime I learn anything new, I imitate until I can't anymore,
| then I meditate to understand why I think I can't imitate
| anymore, then I experience my meditation, then I go back to
| mediating based on that experience.
|
| Repeat until you can't OODA loop effectively anymore.
| hnfong wrote:
| I don't think Confucius said that.
| new_stranger wrote:
| Sure he did, I think I heard him on tikTok
| medstrom wrote:
| For the unaware:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
| akudha wrote:
| I think people who are afraid to ask questions are conditioned
| to be that way. It is just easy to keep quiet in a team meeting
| than risk asking/saying something that might expose one's lack
| of knowledge on the topic being discussed. People also secretly
| hope that someone else might ask the same question that they
| are thinking about, so the other person can take that risk.
|
| The environment largely shapes people's behavior. Of course, we
| can argue that we should work towards changing the environment
| for the better, but practically, how much influence does a
| person (who is not in a position of authority) have? In the
| end, people simply take the easy way out, which is keep quiet
| and only speak when they're absolutely sure that whatever
| they're about to say/ask is fully accurate.
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| So, there's that saying, "stay quiet and be thought a fool;
| open your mouth and remove all doubt." In a team meeting,
| it's easy to feel like you'll not only look foolish because
| you asked a question that everyone else knows the answer to,
| but you're also wasting everyone's time.
|
| I certainly remember feeling that way when I was a junior
| engineer. It was kind of a shock to me when I realized how
| many others generally had the same questions I did.
| medstrom wrote:
| >but practically, how much influence does a person (who is
| not in a position of authority) have?
|
| Surprisingly much, for the kind of people who stay quiet.
| They underestimate their own potential impact.
| SquishyPanda23 wrote:
| > the reason they were so much brighter was (in part) exactly
| because of what made them initially seem dim
|
| The causality also goes the other way. Very smart people see
| their limitations more clearly and so tend to be humbler about
| what they know.
|
| They realize they can learn from others and so ask a lot of
| questions that others might feel foolish asking.
| mysticllama wrote:
| this^. it took a lot of intentional practice for me to shake
| the fear of looking dumb when in front of peers. however, i've
| since realized that pretty consistently the people who share
| this willingness to come off as uninformed are the best people
| to work with -- they openly admit gaps in their knowledge and
| are eager to close them.
|
| conversely, when interviewing or evaluating people, if i
| observe someone pretend s/he knows something, that's often a
| really bad sign...
| bena wrote:
| You've mistaken "wanting to be right" with wanting to "be
| correct".
|
| I've never inferred stupidity or lack of intelligence with
| asking questions. The only thing I've inferred was lack of
| knowledge. And the best way to get knowledge is to ask. People
| who ask want to know. They want the information to get to
| correct.
|
| People who don't ask questions eventually make assumptions that
| are wrong. Because they're so wrapped up in "looking smart" and
| they think being "smart" means having all the knowledge. They
| "want to be right" so they don't look information because
| looking would expose they don't already have it.
|
| Smart people seek information so they can apply it. Genuinely
| intelligent people just have faster processors.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| There are questions and there are questions. Some questions
| in meetings are 'smart questions' intended to show you off
| and boost your stock a little, or move conversation to an
| area beneficial to you. Some questions are just ridiculous
| time wasters asked to show that you are there. There is a
| slim minority that asks questions to actually learn something
| and from experience I learned that those questions are best
| asked after the meeting directly to the person.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| This reminds me of the simple brilliance of Socrates. He began
| from the premise that he knew nothing, and would ask all manner
| of simple questions building on top of the previous answers. It
| wasn't long before he uncovered how little everyone else
| actually knew, but what separated Socrates was his honesty: he
| knew nothing and admitted it.
|
| Naturally, the established powers and polite society didn't
| find this to their liking. We all know how his story ended.
| taldridge wrote:
| I don't mean to be _that_ person, but "knowing that you know
| nothing" is a contradictory statement.
| lordleft wrote:
| Strictly speaking yes, but I think it is a poetic way of
| saying that Socrates was better attuned to the limitations
| of his knowledge, as opposed to most people, who believe
| they know things they actually don't know (what is the
| good, etc). As a result, Socrates is actually wiser than
| most.
| agumonkey wrote:
| social reflexes and egos are immense streams of hurdles in
| the way of knowing
|
| i like the term abandonment these days, drop your
| assumptions, drop your habits and try to see things as they
| are
| HeckFeck wrote:
| It sounds simple but it really isn't.
|
| When trying to approach sacrosanct 'truths' from a clean
| slate, I've met torrents of emotional resistance. Yes, from
| others. But also inside myself. It is quite something.
|
| I wish I could spend my days wandering the marketplaces
| asking sincere and pointed questions, but I have to get
| back to work.
| agumonkey wrote:
| of course it's not a thing for daily activities, more
| about ability to accept it when you face big questions
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Naturally, the established powers and polite society didn't
| find this to their liking. We all know how his story ended.
|
| Socrates was sentenced to death not for exposing how little
| everyone else knew. The esteemed philosopher was sentenced to
| death because he was deliberately annoying people - like a
| fly - with badgering questions that would force the
| questionee into a corner.
|
| Today we call this method of exposing contradictions in one's
| mindset the Socratic Method.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| The Little Schemer is a wonderful book that teaches
| functional programming and Scheme by just asking the reader
| questions (aka the Socratic Method). Off putting to me
| initially, but now I'd love it if more books were like
| this!
| darkerside wrote:
| And why do you think people found this so annoying?
| lugged wrote:
| *find
|
| And I dunno, ask my wife.
| watwut wrote:
| > The esteemed philosopher was sentenced to death because
| he was deliberately annoying people - like a fly - with
| badgering questions that would force the questionee into a
| corner.
|
| It had more to do with revolutions in city just before,
| when two his students and friends worked with enemy to make
| dictatorship out of Athens. They killed and tortured quite
| a lot of people. Then it reversed. Now, he did not
| participated actively and citizens behavior during above
| was supposed to be forgiven anyway. It was miscarriage of
| justice.
|
| But, these events in combination with what his ideas
| actually were were closer to why they wanted him killed
| then general "asked too many questions". As far as they
| were concerned, he was actually dangerous.
|
| The yet other official reason was impiety, which despite
| sounding ridiculous to us, to them was important too.
| medstrom wrote:
| Going by Wikipedia, it's not agreed why exactly he was
| executed, but you don't execute someone for being annoying.
| The official charges were impiety and "corrupting the
| youth". Probably some political groups felt threatened by
| the idea of lots of people turning to a different set of
| ethics or starting to distrust authority.
| watwut wrote:
| His students and friends took power once before and
| instituted dictatorship with help of Sparta (enemy city).
| Killed and tortured opposition, then were taken down in
| contra revolution.
|
| So yeah, "different set of ethics or starting to distrust
| authority" but no necessary in a nice way.
| andi999 wrote:
| I don't remember Plato mentioning that :-)
| buu700 wrote:
| TIL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Tyrants#Socrate
| s_and_th...
| gruturo wrote:
| > but you don't execute someone for being annoying
|
| Of course you do, you just wait until you have a more
| ethically "usable" argument than that, you build a solid
| case, then you have a mock trial and a fully expected
| conviction.
|
| It was as true 2500 years ago as it is today.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| <<It wasn't long before he uncovered how little everyone
| else actually knew, but what separated Socrates was his
| honesty <<The esteemed philosopher was sentenced to death
| because he was deliberately annoying people - like a fly -
| with badgering questions that would force the questionee
| into a corner.
|
| The two are not mutually exclusive.
| bambax wrote:
| > _The esteemed philosopher was sentenced to death because
| he was deliberately annoying people_
|
| No. Socrates was executed because he was associated with
| the worst rulers that the city of Athens had ever known,
| all former students of his, who notably went on to kill
| _thousands_ of Athenian _citizens_ (not enemies, strangers,
| or slaves), following the defeat in the Peloponnesian War.
|
| After the tyrants were killed and democracy was restored,
| general amnesty law was granted to anyone involved except
| the Thirty Tyrants themselves and their direct aides.
| However resentment, understandably, remained.
|
| > _There was a lot of bad blood between the people of
| Athens and Socrates' followers. That wouldn't have been
| enough by itself. But the murder of between 5% and 15% of
| the citizen population in 404 must have pushed things over
| the edge. Imagine if Osama bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, and
| Saddam Hussein had all had the same person as their ethics
| teacher: would you be very surprised if that person got
| harsh treatment from a jury? And would you then call that
| person a martyr?_
|
| http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/04/socrates-1-did-
| soc...
| nescioquid wrote:
| Well, he was executed because when asked what punishment
| seemed just to Socrates, he said he should be given free
| meals (like the Olympic champions), rather than
| suggesting a fine of 50 minas. So Hemlock it was.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yeah, there's some people that when faced to what they
| believe is an injustice go all in and decide the world is
| entirely unjust and there's no point on defending from
| anything, because the result is already set. See Galileo
| for another example.
|
| I guess there's some platonic happiness in thinking you
| have it all figured out.
| tk75x wrote:
| > between 5% and 15% of the citizen population in 404...
|
| error 404: population not found
| twobuy wrote:
| He was put to death for being a thinly veiled Spartan
| sympathizer. Not quite just for being annoying.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Ah, didn't expect the venerable Meletus to show up in the
| conversation today. How's the weather in Athens?
|
| > sentenced to death because he was _deliberately_ annoying
| people
|
| I see you're still certain of Socrates' motives.
|
| When you claimed he was 'corrupting the minds of the youth'
| and 'denying the gods of the city' you were simply
| repeating the charges laid at any philosopher who threatens
| the powers that be.
|
| If anyone asks too many uncomfortable but honest questions
| these days, in some societies you will still be met with
| death, though here we have a milder but still harsh
| punishment known as 'deplatforming'.
|
| But more to the point, if you are so certain of what you
| know, you could explain it and wouldn't find questions
| 'annoying'. Frustration justifies the case, because it
| means you really do know nothing but simply aren't honest
| enough to admit it.
| lugged wrote:
| Facts don't care about your feelings and the truth
| doesn't hurt points of view that are legitimate.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm not sure what this has to do with an ancient Athenian
| philosopher being stoned to death for saying things other
| people didn't want to hear, such as "I can't possibly be
| _both_ an atheist _and_ worship false gods".
|
| Care to elaborate?
| lugged wrote:
| Just a modern rif on the same statement made above.
| notenoughbeans wrote:
| Didn't expect a quote from Tom Macdonald when I opened HN
| this morning.
| psd1 wrote:
| Maybe not, but opinions about how we should conduct our
| societies depend on feelings, and things that appear true
| but are subtly wrong can cause great harm.
| strken wrote:
| Here's a gigantic PDF listing ways the truth can hurt all
| kinds of things: https://www.nickbostrom.com/information-
| hazards.pdf
| lugged wrote:
| What's your point? I didn't say the truth was harmless.
|
| Just that it doesn't hurt points of view that are
| legitimate.
|
| Illigitimate views and your feelings may still suffer
| from hearing the truth.
|
| My point is that the facts don't care.
| strken wrote:
| My point is that you can use true facts to give an
| impression that is false, as documented in the pdf.
|
| Therefore, completely true facts can make you believe a
| falsehood.
|
| Therefore, the truth can harm a point of view that is
| legitimate.
| dd36 wrote:
| Who has been deplatformed for questioning the status quo?
| Isn't literally all of BLM challenging the status quo?
| jjdin14 wrote:
| blm is the status quo, that's why speaking against blm
| gets people deplatformed.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| If blm were the status quo the police would have been
| defunded.
| blitz_skull wrote:
| I think a couple cities did that, and quickly back-
| tracked because crime shot up.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Thats a robust and well researched opinion you have
| there.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| He's not wrong, many cities defunded their police and
| then quickly reversed that decision, many adding more
| funds to their departments.
|
| It was a pretty big event so I know we all remember it as
| long as you follow current events, but it's easy to find
| articles mentioning it.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-reverse-defunding-
| the-po...
|
| https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2021/february/minneapolis
| -re...
|
| https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/portland-mayor-
| addit...
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Have you evaluated, or even bothered to seek out, the
| literature that disagrees with you?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| That doesn't make any sense. It's not a philosophical
| view, it's an event in history and a matter of fact.
|
| Cities defunded police departments, crime went up, some
| of those same cities then later re-funded those
| departments, and even increased budgets.
|
| The crime statistics and city council laws passed support
| these claims, I have not found any claims disputing these
| facts.
|
| Even the left most leaning sources agree with these
| claims.
| csnover wrote:
| Hi, Minneapolitan here. I try not to wade into these
| sorts of discussions because it is usually unproductive
| or even counterproductive, but since you have expressed a
| sincere interest in talking about the facts of the
| situation, here's what they actually are here.
|
| The police budget for MPD in 2014 was $145.6M for 850
| officers. In 2020, the year you suggest they were
| defunded, the budget was $181.9M for 770 officers--a 38%
| increase per officer from 2014 (28.7% after adjusting for
| inflation)[0]. In fact, that department is ending the
| current fiscal year $5M _under_ budget[1], and the
| current mayor has proposed an additional 17% expenditure
| increase for 2022.[2]
|
| The police in Minneapolis were never defunded. They have
| more money than ever. Efforts to introduce meaningful
| reforms (inaccurately called "defunding the police" by
| some) have also not been abandoned by the city council.
| We are currently voting on a charter amendment that would
| replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new
| Department of Public Safety. The new department would
| still include police officers but would be coequal with
| all other departments in the city (it currently has a
| unique status where it is controlled exclusively by the
| mayor), and its focus would be on _preventing crime_
| instead of _policing people_.
|
| On the other hand, other parts of the city budget _are_
| underwater due to hundreds of former officers quitting
| and claiming PTSD[3], and the officers who remain are
| engaged in an intentional work slowdown[4] while blaming
| others[5] for what is a largely self-inflicted wound.
|
| What I think the other participant in this discussion was
| suggesting--and something that I would echo--is that your
| sources for news don't seem to be giving you accurate
| information and you may want to reconsider using them as
| primary sources, at least on this topic.
|
| [0] https://minneapolismn.opengov.com/transparency
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/lisabendermpls/status/14501839877
| 1290931... (This is the Minneapolis city council
| president)
|
| [2] https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download/FileV2/24988/
| 2022-Bu...
|
| [3] https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/10/06/mpls-police-
| ptsd-cl...
|
| [4] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
| report/usa-poli...
|
| [5] https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/10/20/mpd-cop-
| says-office...
| hunterb123 wrote:
| December 2020, the Minneapolis city council voted to
| defund the police department $8 million for the 2021
| budget. [1]
|
| February 2021, the Minneapolis city council voted to add
| $6.4 million to the police budget. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-city-
| council-v...
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/us/minneapolis-
| police-fun...
|
| [2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-to-
| spend-2464-...
|
| The budget for 2020 was never in question, the riots and
| defund police movement started in the summer of 2020.
|
| City policies were being discussed late in the year,
| concerning the 2021 budget.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| How precisely did the supposed defunding lead to an
| increase in crime?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| The same way defunding a fire department will lead to an
| increase in fire damage.
|
| Less resources means slower response times or no response
| at all.
|
| That wasn't the premise though, the question was whether
| they defunded and then later refunded when crime was
| rising.
|
| Above I showed GP that Minneapolis did in fact do this,
| as did many other cities.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| The interpretations, not the facts, are what I'm
| referencing.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Such as?
| blitz_skull wrote:
| No, it's not. It's a fact. Seeing as how you have the
| means to comment on Hacker News, you can easily fact-
| check this for yourself if you're concerned about its
| validity.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Which cities?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| NYC, LA, Oakland, Baltimore, Portland, and Minneapolis at
| least
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9625629/REFUND-
| poli...
| Redoubts wrote:
| > The Democratic mayors of New York City, Baltimore and
| Los Angeles are among those now backpedaling on their
| vows
|
| So they didn't actually _do_ anything.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Some cities did defund in their budget, then reversed and
| refunded.
|
| Some cities backpedalled on their promise to defund and
| added to the budget instead.
|
| The existence of the latter scenario does not nullify the
| former.
| singlow wrote:
| Add Austin, TX, although there is a ballot initiative to
| restore the funding being voted on right now.
| dd36 wrote:
| The status quo is qualified immunity.
| ccn0p wrote:
| one example: vaccines are the status quo, I presume you
| agree on that. Most platforms are removing content that
| cause "vaccine hesitancy". YouTube has even expanded
| their this to apply to all vaccines [1]. Furthermore, it
| seems relevant to point out that dictionaries have
| updated their definitions of "anti-vaxxer" to include
| anyone questioning even the government mandates
| themselves [2], which has opened the door to many cases
| where people have supported the vaccine, but opposed the
| mandates, yet still been deplatformed labeled as anti-
| vaxxer.
|
| [1] https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/managing-
| harmful-vaccin...
|
| [2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-
| vaxxer
| dd36 wrote:
| So I won't find anyone complaining about vaccine mandates
| on social media anymore?
| mikeyjk wrote:
| It must only be pretty extreme cases as Russel Brand and
| Brett Weinstein still have their videos up.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> dictionaries have updated their definitions of "anti-
| vaxxer" to include anyone questioning even the government
| mandates themselves_
|
| Merriam Webster has used that definition since they added
| the term to their dictionary in 2018:
| https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/may/17/viral-
| imag...
| dotancohen wrote:
| Actually, I haven't been to Athens since summer 2019.
| Lovely place, so long as you avoid the touristy places.
|
| Though I do like your form of expressing your frustration
| about the trial and sentencing of Socrates at myself as
| though I were his prosecutor, I assure you that I'm an
| under-50 mortal not born of gods and not atanatos.
| > you could explain it and wouldn't find questions
| 'annoying'.
|
| A question would not be annoying. Badgering, accusations,
| and pestering would be. And quite frankly, as we both
| know, every single one of us has contradictions in their
| beliefs and their actions. I'm not going to defend mine
| in public to a beggar following me around with the
| explicit intention of exposing my contradictions to my
| peers as a way to demonstrate that I (and for that
| matter, anybody) am not fit for the office I hold.
| Grustaf wrote:
| He was certainly very annoying, but his crime was
| misleading the youth, making them distrust authority.
| bambax wrote:
| No. That is a legend promoted by Plato. He was not making
| the "youth" (in general) distrust authority, he was going
| around telling the sons of nobility and highest ranking
| officials that democracy was a stupid idea and that they
| would be better off seizing power for themselves.
| dotancohen wrote:
| That was his charge. The actual "crime" has been disputed
| for about two and a half millennia.
| hypertexthero wrote:
| I recently learned that there were two other maxims inscribed
| after the famous "Know thyself" at Delphi:
|
| "Nothing to excess", and "Certainty brings insanity".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself
| ycombinete wrote:
| Socrates was deeply ironic, and usually only played the fool.
| In very few (maybe all but one) of his dialogues is he
| actually less informed than the people that he's talking to.
| pddpro wrote:
| Whenever I ask questions, I tend to go to the very bottom of
| it. And I am not satisfied as long as I get a very intuitive
| and fundamental understanding of the topic. I have seen,
| however, that this can be tiring. Unless you are having the
| conversation with someone who has the time, willingness, and
| the knowledge to satisfy my curiosity, it is pointless to keep
| probing. People would often be exasperated or would be unable
| to provide me the intuition. Therefore, these days, I pretty
| much probe very little and if it seems that my questions won't
| really be answered, I leave it at that, mentally noting to do
| some independent research on the internet.
| Kinrany wrote:
| Sometimes there are details one doesn't need to know to make
| a good decision. All of mathematics is built on this.
|
| However this only works when there is enough knowledge to
| know why the unimportant details won't matter.
| u385639 wrote:
| This is especially tough because of how much skill it takes
| for you the questioner to not make the other person feel
| stupid when they realize they can't answer your questions.
| d23 wrote:
| Yeah, I think the other thing that's made me shy away from
| it more as I've gotten older is asking the "stupid"
| question, getting a jargon-laden response, and realizing:
| this person isn't equipped to communicate the concept. It
| can be pretty exhausting to be the questioner in that case.
| VortexDream wrote:
| This article speaks to my soul. All my life I've been told how
| intelligent I am. It's been such a massive driver for my own
| insecurities and fear around anything I do, since my identity
| is tied up so much in being right and not being wrong, in
| continuing to present this image of infallible intelligence.
| It's likely also fed into my issues with depression I've had
| all my life. I can consistently get people to see how
| intelligent I might be, but it's always such a struggle. It's
| like walking a tightrope. I hate it.
| [deleted]
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Read the "Mindset" book by Dweck. Was introduced by our
| school, and it felt like it was written for me as well.
| stavros wrote:
| It definitely gets much easier when you stop worrying about
| other people think of you.
| terr-dav wrote:
| What helps me is to view intelligence as strictly a matter of
| brain power. I can use my intelligence to do things that are
| stupid, unwise, misinformed, harmful, etc.
|
| What I take from the article is that saying stupid things is
| the best way to avoid doing stupid things.
| manmal wrote:
| > you don't want to be hired by people who can't see this
|
| The issue with this is that you might not even work with this
| one person declining you.
| neilwilson wrote:
| One of the great advantages of having a Northern English accent
| is that people automatically assume I'm stupid because of how I
| sound.
|
| And that's very often to great advantage when you're trying to
| discover something about a system that people would rather not
| reveal.
| ykevinator3 wrote:
| This is a veiled brag session
| ciconia wrote:
| If there's one thing I learned in my time on this earth it's that
| there are very few stupid people. If my first impression is that
| the person is "stupid", I usually find that it's just a matter of
| really listening to the them and to what they have to say with an
| open mind and an open heart.
| bambax wrote:
| Yes and no. Yes there are very few stupid "people", but there
| are stupid reactions and actions. The reason isn't that the
| people are stupid, it's often that they are busy with other
| things.
|
| It's amazing to me how conservative people are with their
| mental energy. Many people hate to think. Not because they
| can't! Just because they would rather not. I'm not sure why.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| i have met people like this and never thought they were stupid,
| but really rude. The point is not that they not only do not care
| if they look stupid, they also don't care or enjoy if they
| confuse/ create unease in their conversation partner by
| witholding critical information to let them understand their
| reasoning. the best case is something like aristotle where at the
| end of a conversation there is some revelation that makes you
| take another standpoint. but the worst example is asking for a
| computer in the smallest box without sharing the WHY. this action
| likely shows that someone either treats the partner as a monkey
| working in a store whose human whish to understand is worth less
| than the energy to give a reason or it shows an autistic
| enjoyment if creating confusion because normal human interactions
| are perceived as boring.
| m0zg wrote:
| There are three things in tension here.
|
| 1. It is usually combinatorially impossible to answer all the
| questions when solving a problem - people just choose some random
| walk over the problem space and it doesn't always lead to ideal
| results.
|
| 2. It is socially unacceptable for "senior" people (who usually
| have better mental model of higher level concerns) not to project
| smug confidence in front of less "senior" people, so they pretend
| to know things they do not.
|
| 3. People have evolved to be lazy as fuck, so unless they
| absolutely must know something and can't do without it, they
| mostly won't even bother. Some won't bother even _if_ they can't
| do without.
|
| I don't have solutions to #1 and #3, and I doubt #3 can even be
| solved at all. But I do have a solution for #2 - it's the
| Socratic method (or as they call it at Microsoft "precision
| questioning"). It lets you save face by asking pointed, outcome-
| oriented questions of someone who likely knows more about the
| problem, without necessarily making your own lack of knowledge
| obvious. Besides that it also surfaces the assumptions, some of
| which routinely turn out to be wrong, and it's the easiest method
| I know for getting people to change their mind on things, because
| they feel like they've arrived at the answers using "their own"
| thought process. It is difficult to master, so it too runs into
| #3, however, but I think all engineers, senior and junior would
| benefit from learning this. Another upside of learning it is it
| makes it harder for unscrupulous others to manipulate you
| maliciously via Socratic questioning, since you know what they're
| trying to do.
| barrenko wrote:
| This is a whole thing, like talking about money, people have all
| kinds of emotions about this.
|
| Reminds me of Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his practice of being
| obviously arrogant to assholes.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Nassim Nicholas Taleb is simply arrogant.
| 323 wrote:
| In his and Wolfram case it's justified.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Why?
| 323 wrote:
| Because Nassim, like Wolfram, delivers.
| sandwall wrote:
| Agree with questioning this. They are both brilliant, but
| that doesn't justify arrogance. IMHO, it detracts from
| his brilliance and clouds the clarity of his thoughts.
| guhsnamih wrote:
| > most small (by transaction volume) startups could get away with
| being on a managed platform like Heroku or Google App Engine.
|
| BTW what's wrong with this? Honest question!
| trog wrote:
| > BTW what's wrong with this? Honest question!
|
| In the context of the article, I imagine it's that some
| Kubernetes expert couldn't design and sell them an
| overcomplicated microservices-based solution which would
| basically only really be useful at Netflix-scale.
| chimen wrote:
| By the end of it I realised everyone thinks he's stupid. He is
| intelligent though.
| Zababa wrote:
| > Going into an Apple store and asking for (and buying) the
| computer that comes in the smallest box, which I had a good
| reason to want at the time
|
| I think that's a case where the Apple store employees err on the
| side of caution. I would bet that they have more clients asking
| for the smallest box while wanting the smallest computer compared
| to clients asking for the smallest box while needing the smallest
| box. I think that's an instance of the XY problem
| https://xyproblem.info/, and people being trained to recognise it
| and having a false positive.
|
| > Air filtration: I did a bit of looking into the impact of air
| quality on health and bought air filters for my apartment in 2012
|
| To take the "opposite view" (as in, don't be afraid of talking to
| people who look stupid) from this, I love talking to people about
| these kind of things (if they are willing to talk about them, of
| course). In many circumstances, I learned a lot by being
| charitable, open and ready to hear the thoughts of someone about
| something, even when they're unconventional/look stupid. I think
| I have that position because I deal more with "look stupid but
| are smart"-type people, while the Apple employee store or the
| stackoverflow user seem to deal more with the "look stupid so I
| have to protect them from themselves"-type people.
| zz865 wrote:
| There is a particular American culture twist to this though as
| Americans are conditioned to be over-confident and project
| knowledge even if they know little.
|
| An American asking a Brit "Do you know XYZ?" The foreigner will
| reply "A little" and to an American that means the know nothing -
| an American who knows "a little" will say they are good at it.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Seth Godin has a whole schtick on the high value of what he calls
| "intentional serial incompetence". Basically, if you're unwilling
| to be seen as incompetent, you can't deal with change. Good
| summary here - https://www.fastcompany.com/38442/change-agent-
| issue-31
|
| My own experience has been that if you're pretty sure you're one
| of the smartest people in the room, you have an obligation to ask
| the "stupid" questions, because the rest of the room will be too
| afraid to look stupid.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| > ...you have an obligation to ask the "stupid" questions...
|
| I really agree with that but it's all about being willing to
| take a risk.
|
| Many settings, especially in corporate environments, are
| intrinsically hostile to inquiry. These are places where
| meetings are run with semi-parliamentary rules-- just pro-forma
| affairs to mark project transitions.
|
| In such situations, it may be that the others know better than
| you do and thus STFU or else be silently, immediately, and
| permanently dismissed for future consideration by those who
| call the shots.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Yeah, well, corporate. If you're in that situation, you have
| some self-splaining to do. ;)
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I think the conclusion I draw from this is that, on the margin,
| there should be more times when people think I am stupid. I can't
| think of a good example off the top of my head of this happening.
|
| I think the car insurance example is perhaps an example of the
| three-part explanation talked about in the article because
| sometimes comprehensive cover is cheaper than third party cover
| (the argument goes 1. Comprehensive is better because it covers
| everything, 2. Third party is cheaper because it covers less, 3.
| Actually comprehensive is sometimes cheaper for weird reasons
| like riskier drivers self-selecting for third party cover) but I
| could also be wrong here. An obvious way would be that the
| author's case is not one where comprehensive cover is cheaper and
| a less obvious way would be if comprehensive cover is deceptively
| cheap (eg maybe if you get into an accident where the insurer
| covers first-party damage because you have a comprehensive
| policy, your future premiums under any policy are higher than if
| your insurer had only paid for third party damage.)
| tappio wrote:
| Willing to look stupid == not caring what other people think of
| you. Most humans spend terrible amount of time thinking what
| others think of you. It's normal, but and good to some extent.
| ashildr wrote:
| The author considers himself to be extremely smart. I don't think
| I'd enjoy their company.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Don't most of us?
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| I'd really like to hear his pitch for working at MS.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| If you're rich, it's called being "eccentric", not "stupid."
|
| When I turned 40 about 10+x years ago, I started wearing garish
| colors and weird jewelry, and styling my hair differently every
| few months. I'm talking mullets, or perms, with yellow blazers,
| leather bracers with gems, purple pants, rings on all fingers,
| red shoes, bright green shirts with zebra stripes... I rotate
| everything routinely.
|
| Now people expect I'm going to say weird things and look at me
| suspiciously.
|
| Random people start friendly conversations, local people I see
| when I walk to the store tell me the look forward to seeing me.
|
| It's called not giving a fuck and it feels fantastic...
| d4mi3n wrote:
| This really resonates with me. I've always had the strong opinion
| that a corporate culture of open, cooperative, non-judgemental
| dialog is critical to building strong teams. The OP's experiences
| mirror my own: I try to be careful to avoid
| this failure mode when onboarding interns and junior folks and
| have generally been sucessful, but it's taken me up to six weeks
| to convince people that it's ok for them to ask questions and,
| until that happens, I have to constantly ask them how things are
| going to make sure they're not stuck. That works fine if someone
| is my intern, but I can observe that many intern and new hire
| mentors do not do this and that often results in a bad outcome
| for all parties In almost every case, the person had at
| least interned at other companies, but they hadn't learned that
| it was ok to ask questions. P.S. if you're a junior engineer at a
| place where it's not ok to ask questions, you should look for
| another job if circumstances permit
|
| If you want dependable, competent people to work with, you need
| to give them the space to become those kinds of colleagues.
| adverbly wrote:
| People also think I'm stupid. I am, but people think I'm stupid
| too.
|
| The secret is that we're all dumb as bricks - most of us just
| dont act like it, and so they go on being a brick. Those of us
| who are self aware and unashamed can be slightly less stupid on a
| good day. That's about all we can hope for, but it's worth it
| imo.
| greyhair wrote:
| My golden skill at my last job was asking questions. My director,
| who was a peer at a prior startup, knew this about me, and
| dragged me into meetings where my core interest was only
| peripherally related. I often spent time in the meeting with my
| head slightly tipped back and my eyes closed, because I would
| have already read through the prepared slide deck twice before
| the meeting, and I wanted to concentrate on what was being said.
| A lot of times, people thought I was asleep. They were wrong. One
| of the first meetings at this fortune 100 company, a chip
| architect was running through the design (too many details) and
| he mentioned one particular communication link they were going to
| use, because that was the only port available on the companion
| chip they were using to constrain costs. I immediately opened my
| eyes and asked one question on the bandwidth/latency for one use
| case, that would be heavily used, and the room went silent. The
| architect tried to wave it off, but another hardware engineer I
| had worked with for three years at a prior job said he would run
| the numbers on it and get an answer. In the end, the design was
| cancelled, because that one flaw (there were likely others) meant
| the design would never work.
|
| People at that company didn't know me well, yet, and as I said, I
| wasn't core to many of the meetings I attended, and I spent most
| of the meeting sitting quietly with my eyes closed. Never assume
| I am sleeping. And don't try to wave off my 'stupid' questions. I
| ask the stupid questions, because if you cannot address it with a
| simple direct answer, then you don't understand the stupid
| question.
| pydry wrote:
| One way to prove that he truly doesn't mind looking stupid would
| be to list times when he risked looking stupid... and it turns
| out he actually was.
|
| It's happened to all of us though we dont like to admit it.
|
| I'm sure it's happened to him too and I looked but I didn't see
| any of those examples listed.
|
| Giving only examples of when people thought he was dumb and it
| turned out he wasn't... that's _kind_ of just a roundabout way of
| humblebragging that you 're an unrecognized genius.
|
| Sadly I think this undermines the point of the article which
| otherwise makes a good point.
| bambax wrote:
| Yes. It seems the point of the article is to take revenge at
| those who might have thought he was stupid (although they
| didn't say anything at the time) and tell them: "See? I was
| right all along!"
|
| He sounds more like my mother in law than like a keen
| philosopher.
| alexandrerond wrote:
| Totally.
|
| There's distance between:
|
| "people think I'm stupid because I'm not scared to show that I
| don't know about something"
|
| and some of the examples which are more along the lines of
|
| "people think I'm stupid because I act as a self-entitled
| genius who provides little context or reasoning behind choices
| and expect everyone to line up behind with no question"
|
| What is the Apple store employee supposed to do to not make
| someone feel stupid when they ask for the smallest box? What
| are the chances they're not a clueless customer in need of help
| and have solid reasons behind?
|
| The boss raises an eyebrow when someome proposes to skip half
| of the test suite? Means a lack of trust.
|
| The insurance dealer does his job and tries to get a higher
| premium? Not surprised.
|
| There's quite a bit of narcissism here: "They though I'm stupid
| but I'm not", " I was right in the end". It's actually arguing
| how everyone else is dumber in the end.
|
| A more sincere approach would have been to explain how he
| realized how stupid he actually was and how not being defensive
| about it helped. But perhaps the author knows better after all.
| Zababa wrote:
| On the other hand, he doesn't spend much time talking about
| the case that could have him die or the one that could have
| him go blind. If something like that happened to me, I would
| probably have a position like the author. There are also a
| few cases (COVID, air filtration) where people disagreeing
| with him had relatively serious health consequences.
| chefandy wrote:
| While this guy is clearly smart, and willingness to ask
| simple questions is a worthy quality that many people
| possess, this is an article about what happens when decent
| intelligence and a good instinct is accompanied by
| narcissism and delusions of grandeur. Being right about
| something feels even better if other people thought you
| were wrong about it.
|
| With his COVID action-- people disagreeing with him, at
| first, wasn't what had serious health consequences. He said
| he started wearing N95s several days before the initial r0
| estimate was even published, and that he based his opinion
| on SARS-CoV-1 data which many relevant experts didn't think
| was applicable. There's a reason they didn't jump to the
| same conclusions he did, and that reason is why they're
| experts. He essentially won a bet talks about it like he
| figured out how to beat poker.
|
| And if he recieved a torrent of negative feedback for his
| penchant for air filtering _in 2012_ , that says a lot more
| about his friends and family than his very not radical
| adoption of home air filters less than 10 years ago? The
| whole sick building/mold aversion/exhaust fumes/smoke/spent
| cooking fuel/etc realm of AQ concerns has been a publicly
| accepted health concern waaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than 2012.
| Sharper Image was making a mint off of their Ionic Breeze
| air purifier at least a decade before that.
|
| Like I said, he's obviously a smart guy, but this whole
| 'they all laughed at me and look at me now!' narrative is
| just not that impressive.
| indymike wrote:
| I read the article as the author sharing how he was
| trying to be intelligent instead of appear intelligent.
| There are a surprising number of people who desire, above
| all, to be seen as the smartest person in the room.
| Zababa wrote:
| > narcissism and delusions of grandeur
|
| I'm not sure why you're painting him as having
| psychological issues based on a blog post.
|
| > He said he started wearing N95s several days before the
| initial r0 estimate was even published, and that he based
| his opinion on SARS-CoV-1 data which many relevant
| experts didn't think was applicable. There's a reason
| they didn't jump to the same conclusions he did, and that
| reason is why they're experts.
|
| The same experts that were telling the public that masks
| were useless in March 2020. Experts are not always giving
| the best recommendations for your specific case.
|
| > Like I said, he's obviously a smart guy, but this whole
| 'they all laughed at me and look at me now!' narrative is
| just not that impressive.
|
| That's a very uncharitable way of interpreting that blog
| post. I personally see it as "next time you feel too
| stupid to do something, think about that blog post and
| maybe I'll give you the strength needed to do something
| that will have a good outcome".
| ManBlanket wrote:
| I was enjoying this article right up until he started
| shaking his fist at the heavens. As it meandered into
| rambling he undermined what was shaping up to be a good
| read. Losing me with foregone conclusion his roommate's
| hesitance to go all-in on masks was the reason she got,
| "long-covid".
|
| Seems he glommed onto the mask because it was something
| an individual can control in the face of an ultimately
| nihilistic reality, over which one has little influence.
| Like buying toilet paper despite assurances there is no
| shortage, myopic assertions on the observable sure seems
| to make people feel better. Speaking of shortages, the
| criticisms of n95's stemmed from a legitimate shortfall
| among medical personnel, despite questionable value to
| panic-buying consumers. "The Science" I'm sure he cites
| behind this rationale has been pretty clear regarding how
| Covid spreads. Prolonged close indoor personal contact.
| Wearing the n95 at the grocery store or while walking the
| dog poses little benefit because those situations pose
| little risk. Given serological investigation puts the
| rates of asymptomatic infection anywhere between 10 to
| 40:1, his roomie is more likely to have contracted it
| from him than from her unwillingness to wear a mask.
| Possibly while sitting at the dinner table with our
| author, rolling her eyes as he urgently espoused the
| virtues of the public N95. We'll never know for certain,
| but he'll surely continue to conversely reason her
| disagreement on the matter led to that, "stupid"
| conclusion.
|
| Given the clarity of hindsight, global epidemiological
| statistics remaining largely unaffected by public mask
| policy starts to makes sense. After all if his reasoning
| behind the mask had an air of truth to it you'd be able
| to observe at least some impact on infection rates before
| and after mandates. Yet for the most part communities all
| followed a the similar bell-shaped trajectory, regardless
| of policy or political orientation. I see a lot of people
| pretending this isn't the case, that there isn't two
| years of data suggesting otherwise, meanwhile the rest
| are quietly bartering with their gods the others will get
| over it and move on with their lives. It's really a shame
| his article blundered into Covid territory, because he
| was starting to say something worthwhile. Like most
| conversations Covid, the substance evaporated as we were
| left with largely emotional appeals. Shame we can't talk
| about politicized risks pragmatically, trying to fit them
| into a wider context of facts and numbers. Like, why am I
| even talking about Covid when upwards of 8M people,
| largely children under 5, die every year from respiratory
| diseases caused by pollution? Sure seems the world has
| other problems. Maybe, like politics and religion, the
| topic just isn't suited for polite company.
| hnfong wrote:
| I agree he's probably a self-entitled know-it-all, but I
| think at least his conclusion for COVID was spot on. By
| 2020-01-26 Wuhan (a major Chinese city) was already under
| lock down, so it was pretty clear CoVID19 was serious. I
| live in Asia, so I'm not in a position to understand the
| sentiment in (for example) the US, so the "let's wait
| until we have more data" attitude is really perplexing to
| me.
|
| Sure, there was no public data on r0 and no proof that
| COVID19 was similar to the other SARS viruses. But given
| only the info of "Wuhan was under lockdown", wouldn't it
| be indicative of the seriousness and the contagiousness
| of the virus, at least in the eyes of Chinese government
| officials?
|
| I always thought the "West" misinterpreted the events in
| China at their detriment. Perhaps they assumed that it
| merely reflected the inability of the Chinese government
| to control a pandemic instead of actual seriousness of
| the disease?
|
| Anyway I started wearing a surgical mask regularly and
| made sure I washed hands thoroughly after the Wuhan
| lockdown was announced. I _hate_ wearing masks but it was
| less than $1 /day and some inconvenience compared with an
| unknown but potentially scary disease. Not sure how
| anyone would come to a conclusion that taking precautions
| could be a bad bet (on a personal level at least).
| Zababa wrote:
| I agree with you about COVID. In January, we had videos
| of China blocking roads that led to Wuhan, soldiers in
| the streets, people disinfecting the streets. At this
| point, I knew that it was probably going to be serious.
| rkk3 wrote:
| More than that.. by the 26th they had already cancelled
| Chinese New Year & implemented lockdowns/restrictions
| outside of Hubei.
| chefandy wrote:
| He said he was wearing N95 masks for a week before the
| 26th. Wuhan locked down on the 23rd.
|
| Ebola was a large and growing problem in Africa in 2015
| which covered a larger swath of the population, had
| nearly identical messaging from the Government, and would
| trigger a lockdown in Sierra Leone. Lots of folks
| regularly travel between the west coast of Africa and
| major American cities. I'd argue it would not have been
| prudent to start wearing Ebola PPE at that point, either.
| Of course, because it was Africa and not China, it only
| got marginal news coverage compared to the enormity of
| the problem on the ground, and much less traction on
| technology platforms because to this day, 25% of Sierra
| Leone's population has internet access. Epidemiologists
| were every bit as concerned about Ebola as they were
| about COVID before COVID's higher initial R0 number was
| released.
|
| I'd like to hear the justification for not donning Ebola
| PPE given what was ostensibly a nearly identical
| situation that fortunately ended up being handled a whole
| lot better. Or maybe he did and he left that one off?
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| "What is the Apple store employee supposed to do to not make
| someone feel stupid when they ask for the smallest box?"
|
| Maybe ask the customer, "can I ask why you would like the one
| with the smallest box?" instead of making assumptions?
| Although note that this might _also_ be classified as a
| question where the person asking is admitting they don't
| understand why someone would want this aka "looking dumb" in
| the wording from the article
| stavros wrote:
| I don't understand why he was asking for the smallest box,
| though? Isn't that an inefficient proxy? Wouldn't asking to
| see the computers have been more accurate?
| mbauman wrote:
| I am really curious what his end goal here was. Apple's
| boxes are all very small -- in what situation would a few
| centimeters in box size outweigh all other
| considerations?
| ape4 wrote:
| The reason is obscure if nothing else.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I assume it has to do with sneaking the machine in and
| out of a place. The other alternative is something to do
| with storage. Maybe it's a backup machine they want
| hidden somewhere in case the feds seize all his
| electronics.
|
| That last one makes the most sense, and explains why he
| didn't divulge it. That way, when the author is raided,
| they aren't going to ask, "hey, where's that computer
| that, _comes in the smallest box_? "
|
| I'm imagining the author has this big book case, and one
| of the books is hallowed out and has an Apple machine in
| it. Maybe it's built into a false floor of a cabinet.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| But as the employee pointed out, smaller box does not
| mean smaller machine. And I don't see the point of hiding
| the machine with the box still around it.
| prosaic-hacker wrote:
| Not the OP. In my case the client want many all-in-ones.I
| proposed a small CPU to fit into the notches on the back
| of a Specific monitor. I used an Intel Compute stick
| which only needs power, an HDMI cable and a powered USB
| hub. This gave me an All in One Computer functionally for
| less than half the price. It also had the benefit of
| being up-gradable by swapping out the Compute stick for a
| newer model. When the client saw it he thought it was an
| all in one and thankfully appreciated the cleverness.
| (Financially, I got the contract)
| skygazer wrote:
| I once give a laptop as a birthday present on a weekend
| trip with my girlfriend, traveling in a small two-seat
| convertible. I struggled somewhat to figure out how to
| pack presents without it being obvious I was bringing
| presents. Fortunately the laptop box was small enough to
| fit behind the seat.
|
| I don't why the author needed a small box, but I did
| think of my experience when I read his anecdote. I think
| a large part of his appearing impaired is not even
| attempting to explain his rationales, suspicions or
| methods in the moment. His goal seems to be to engineer
| these awkward interactions, when they could be otherwise
| lubricated or alleviated. He's acting as though other
| people and their understanding are irrelevant to him;
| they are furniture or fixtures that should trust and obey
| unquestioningly, which is a bit ironic.
| babelfish wrote:
| The author's refusal to explain to the store employee why
| he wants the smallest box makes me think he actually is
| stupid, or at least lacks the emotional intelligence to
| understand that when someone is trying to help you, you
| should explain your intentions to them. If I worked at
| the Apple store, and somebody insisted they want the
| laptop in the 'smallest box' without explaining why, the
| only reasonable conclusion is that they're experiencing
| the XY problem. Not to mention that Macbooks of the same
| form factor all come in boxes of the same size, so
| there's a million other configuration options he'd need
| to provide...
| https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-
| the-x...
| nzealand wrote:
| I think that is the funniest part of this article.
|
| I read his post to the end looking for the answer to why
| he wanted the smallest box, furiously thinking of why. I
| could only think of three reasons that I rejected as
| unlikely. Frustrated, I came here to look at the
| comments. So many comments about the box. It's like the
| contents of the briefcase on Pulp Fiction. It's like a
| McGuffin that forces everyone to talk about his article.
| jaclaz wrote:
| I had exactly the same impressions as you, and initially I
| thought that it was my non-native English interpretation (I
| felt sort of stupid), happy to know I am not the only one
| considering those examples (more-than-a-little) self-
| entitling the author as the ultimate genius on earth.
|
| It seems to me like he puts some intentionality in attempting
| to look stupid and a sort of satisfaction when this happens.
| soneca wrote:
| Yes, he clearly states he thought that the student group that
| thought he was stupid were stupid. And later that the only
| people that would think his test thing was stupid would be
| the incompetent ones.
|
| So his thesis is also that stupid people assume that
| intelligent people are stupid. He considers himself more
| intelligent than those people.
|
| I wonder if he would be as willing to look stupid in front of
| people that he considers as intelligent as him.
|
| It sounded to me like he was saying: I am willing to look
| stupid to people that I consider inferior (dumber than me).
| pksebben wrote:
| I read this more as: "stupid is an important step in the
| process of fostering smart". It's someone's unwillingness
| to _look_ dumb that stalls them at the gate.
|
| I think this is the impetus behind the whole 'crawl, walk,
| run' thing. If you're always hot to trot and pushing an
| image of "I know everything already and I don't need to ask
| basic questions", you're never going to build the
| foundations of understanding necessary to construct more
| complex understandings.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > The insurance dealer does his job and tries to get a higher
| premium? Not surprised.
|
| This is actually an example of where the author IS stupid.
| You will often be found "at fault" in cases where you are not
| actually at fault (the other driver lies better than your
| truth) and there are many cases (at least in Ontario) where
| you are legislatively at fault even if you did nothing out of
| the ordinary (making a left turn while overtaking traffic
| attempts to pass rather than yield). That the broker was
| trying to protect them from this isn't even a conflict of
| interest for the broker.
|
| I wonder how many insurance brokers encounter the "I'm such
| an amazing driver, I don't really need insurance." macho man
| ... I'm presuming the broker, at least initially, assumed the
| author was one of "those drivers" and not "stupid".
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Here in the US, and I assume in Canada as well, there are
| two main kinds of car insurance:
|
| Liability - that pays for damages/injuries to others
|
| Collision/Comprehensive - that pays for damage to your car
|
| It sounds like the author wanted Liability but didn't want
| to pay for Collision. If you have significant assets and/or
| a cheap car, it may be to your advantage not to get the
| collision. Except he didn't use the customary terms but
| described them rather elliptically.
|
| In fact, take the money you save on Collision and get more
| Liability is not a bad idea.
| bittercynic wrote:
| It may be an unusual preference, but I don't think there's
| anything wrong with it. Maybe he drives an inexpensive car
| and can afford to repair/replace it himself, so he doesn't
| want to pay the premium to insure against that risk.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I don't think that's what the author was getting at here -
| a compelling reason is that the value of the payout to fix
| your own car x the probability of it happening is lower
| than the total premium extra. Eg the "Insurance is only
| worth it for things you can't afford" mentality.
|
| This also checks with the OP in this subthread: The
| insurance seller will always push for more coverage for
| self-interested reasons.
| SilasX wrote:
| That's opposite my experience: I took an appointment a
| few weeks ago from my insurance agent (Texas) who wanted
| to review my existing insurance vs my needs. On the call
| I laid out that same logic -- I can afford repairs to my
| car out of pocket, so it doesn't make sense to insure it,
| so maybe I should drop it (just keep liability) -- and
| she agreed, and was happy to tell me the savings!
|
| (I didn't go through with it on the call and maybe she
| would have put up resistance then, so who knows.)
|
| Edit: From reading the source, it seems like the author
| didn't clarify that that was the logic he was using, or
| that he could afford the damage to his car out of pocket.
| Insurers are probably accustomed to people overextending
| themselves and skimping on insurance _without_ being able
| to afford such things, which _is_ risky and something
| agents have to head off early on.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Salespeople have different strategies, so you aren't
| always going to get one who tries to sell you a bunch of
| stuff you don't need.
|
| Some will try to milk you for all you're worth. Others
| will try to stick to things that you plausibly need and
| hope that selling to more people and having a higher
| renewal rate will make up for the extra amount that they
| aren't squeezing out of each person.
| pja wrote:
| I think you've got that backwards - he wanted to only buy
| coverage for damage he did to other vehicles / people & not
| to cover his own vehicle.
|
| However, sometimes, for some drivers, fully comprehensive
| insurance can be cheaper than 3rd party only for arcane
| internal insurance risk-accounting reasons. So by not
| letting his agent even look at the whole market he was
| cutting himself off from the possibility of cheaper
| insurance.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am curious to the mechanics of how the accounting
| situation arises that an insurer would benefit from
| taking on more liability for less revenue.
|
| The entire business is heavily regulated and based on
| accurately accounting and pricing risk. It seems suspect
| that a regulator would allow such an obviously mispriced
| insurance product.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| They are not taking on more liability.
|
| The insurance company now has no responsibility to repair
| the insured vehicle so they have less responsibility.
|
| I suspect Collision insurance is very profitable compared
| to liability.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| pja made the claim that in some instances,
| collision/comprehensive + liability can be cheaper than
| just liability alone.
|
| I expressed surprise that collision/comprehensive +
| liability can be cheaper than just liability alone,
| since, on the face of it, the insurance company seems
| exposed to more losses due to possibly having to pay the
| insured for their car damages.
|
| In my comment, I wrote liability referring to the
| insurer's liability for paying to fix/replace the
| insurer's car, not liability as in auto liability
| insurance where the insurance company pays others for
| damage you cause to them.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Possibly willing to buy collision is a proxy for a
| generally prudent driver.
|
| Also, skipping collision happens most often when driving
| a really cheap car, which can be a marker for a bad
| driver.
|
| Actuaries actually have numbers for this things, but I am
| just speculating.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > Possibly willing to buy collision is a proxy for a
| generally prudent driver.
|
| It's a proxy for not being able to afford to fix or
| replace your car at the drop of a hat.
|
| >Also, skipping collision happens most often when driving
| a really cheap car, which can be a marker for a bad
| driver.
|
| Once again, just a proxy for money.
| pja wrote:
| The explanation I saw was that people who buy
| comprehensive insurance are by and large regarded as
| lower risk than 3rd party only buyers & sometimes that
| weighting can tip the balance to make comprehensive
| cheaper than 3rd party, if the insurer thinks you're
| otherwise a low risk buyer.
|
| All insurers have to go on to gauge your risk are the
| signals available to them & the type of insurance you're
| buying is a signal.
|
| Whether this is still true in the modern world I don't
| know - I probably saw this advice ten years or so ago on
| a well regarded money saving site.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Interesting, I had not thought of that. I have been
| purchasing auto insurance for over 10 years, and I get
| prices every couple years. I always buy extremely high
| liability only insurance because I can easily afford to
| replace my car if anything should happen to it. I have
| always found liability only insurance to be much cheaper
| than comprehensive and collision and liability insurance.
|
| It would greatly surprise me if buying comprehensive
| insurance itself served that good of a signal to offset
| comprehensive/collision insurance for say, a $20k to $40k
| car.
| pja wrote:
| Yes, on the other hand if you own a $5k car then the
| insurer's liability is much smaller & there are plenty of
| older cars on the road driven by older, safer drivers
| that fit into that category.
|
| This was regarded as a weird corner case even then & was
| mostly just used as an example of why you should try
| tweaking various features of the insurance you were
| after, because the price could sometimes change in ways
| that might seem counter-intuitive.
| SilasX wrote:
| That ... still makes no sense. "Discounting insurance for
| revealed [lower] risk class" doesn't work if the insured
| can easily fake membership in the lower risk class, which
| is trivial here -- just ask for comprehensive!
|
| What I _think_ you might be confusing this with, is that
| one _piece_ of the insurance is cheaper if you bundle it
| with others. That is, liability-only might be $50, but if
| you if you get liability + collision, it 's $80, which
| breaks down into $40 for liability and $40 for collision.
| The insurer is taking more liability -- but also more
| revenue, so no funny business.
|
| The "high-risk poor" can't "cheat" here because they
| can't afford the extra $30 to begin with, and "being
| willing/able to spend $30 just to be safe" _is_ an
| actionable signal of being low risk.
|
| But you still shouldn't have a scenario where you get
| strictly greater coverage for strictly less money.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This makes more sense to me.
| Kinrany wrote:
| There's also a scenario where only people who don't look
| at prices buy liability-only, which signals poor decision
| making or carelessness and justifies higher cost to
| regulators.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The phrase "not looking at prices" generally means
| willing to buy the more expensive products or services.
| If you buy liability only, it means you are looking at
| prices and coverage.
| tux3 wrote:
| In defense of the author, maybe they have a dashcam and
| that's what increases their confidence.
|
| But that's where I see a problem: this (or another
| reasonable thing) is not something that would take long to
| explain.
|
| Looking stupid is a failure of communication. You're right,
| but you failed to give enough rope for others to follow,
| and that wastes everyone's time.
|
| The improvement I'd suggest is to dig into why someome
| thinks you look stupid. You could think "they must be
| stupid", but that, in itself, is an overly simplistic and
| inefficient model.
| jldugger wrote:
| > You will often be found "at fault" in cases where you are
| not actually at fault (the other driver lies better than
| your truth) and there are many cases
|
| As I understand it, Dan wants to skip on collision /
| comprehensive, not liability. I can imagine a number of
| scenarios in which you might not want to bother insuring an
| asset, even as you insure yourself for damage to others you
| might be at fault for.
| blitzar wrote:
| As with all voluntary insurance, Its the price, stupid.
|
| $100k for coverage on your car? No thanks. $1? Sure. $1 but
| covers litterally nothing and has a million dollar excess?
| No thanks.
| Zarel wrote:
| I don't think it's about who's at fault, it's about what
| risks you're willing to tolerate.
|
| Insurance is always a trade-off of EV for tail risk. In
| exchange for losing money on average (the insurance company
| has to earn money somehow, after all), you're protected
| from the worst case scenario. You can think of it like,
| yourself from parallel universe where you don't get into a
| crash, pays yourself in the parallel universe where you do
| get into a crash. And the insurance company skims a little
| off the top as payment for the service of sending money
| across parallel universes.
|
| But if you can afford to just eat the cost of a crash, you
| don't need to pay the insurance company for that service.
| And maybe you can eat the costs of some crashes but not
| others: If you crash into a rich guy's car, maybe you can't
| afford those costs, but damage to your own car is capped at
| the price of your own car. So that's all Dan's doing:
| insuring the costs he can't pay (damage to others) but not
| the ones he can (damage to his own car).
|
| The math isn't affected by his chances of being found at
| fault, or how good of a driver he is, at all.
| kristofferc wrote:
| It's my understanding that most insurance companies earn
| most of their money by investing their float, not by
| paying out less than they bring in from customers.
| xapata wrote:
| No, it's the injuries you can't afford. Property damage
| doesn't add up to much (for some definitions of "much").
| rdiddly wrote:
| Good points, to which I'll add, how the heck is he surrounded
| by so many people who a) give a shit at all, and b) are so
| willing to let him know they think he's stupid? No one cares
| or dares in my case. Maybe it's my "tall privilege" again?
| chrisjarvis wrote:
| Yes, every example is "I sounded stupid but I was actually
| correct". From the title I thought the article was going to be
| about not being afraid to learn new things.
| rdiddly wrote:
| Yeah or for that matter, what about the times when people
| wrongly thought he was smart?
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| >humblebragging that you're an unrecognized genius
|
| and this is why this article is popular. Everyone has to deal
| with looking foolish or telling a doctor they know their body
| better than them. I think playing it up this way and in this
| format really sells this idea of being this underappreciated
| genius in a sea of stupid people, which unfortunately a lot of
| people relate to, instead of attacking the social and systemic
| issues this person is actually experiencing. For example,
| poorly trained and non-empathic nurses or mask disinformation
| early during covid. Obviously these things are strongly liked
| to ruthless for-profit healthcare and how the right has
| politicized covid.
|
| Most of the examples are bizarre. The air filter thing makes no
| sense. Its extremely rare to develop asthma in your own home
| because of being near wildfires. So there's no evidence his
| filters did anything. Also most of these are just being over-
| sensitive at not looking 100% competent all the time. Being bad
| or silly at videogames at first? That's a universal experience!
| Being right at work while others are wrong or lazy sometimes!
| That too. Doing the right thing when no one else is? That's
| universal too!
|
| And like you said, they don't list the times they made a big
| seemingly merit-based action but ended up just being wrong.
|
| This person just sounds socially maladjusted and probably
| suffers from a certain level of social anxiety. If they think
| acting normally is constantly making them look stupid, there
| there's something going on with them mentally that isn't
| healthy. Worse, it may reveal how they see others who aren't
| competent in the moment, which is really unfair to them. Does
| this person see us as stupid when we do everyday things? I
| suspect they do.
|
| So the real take away here isn't "btw aren't we all geniuses if
| we're like this," I think he was aiming for intentionally or
| not, but a lesson on being tolerant of others who may not seem
| competent in the moment.
|
| Lastly, this obsession with who is and isn't stupid is really
| unhealthy. I see it in a lot of tech people, and its just an
| ugly form of toxic masculinity. These people will mock sports
| people for being traditionally over-competitive, but don't see
| it in themselves when they do it in regards to smarts.
| eBombzor wrote:
| Agree with everything you said.
|
| The unusual level of hostility the author encountered didn't
| seem right... Like you said, there's some over-sensitivity, a
| lot of jumping to conclusions, and hostile thinking from the
| author himself that led him to believe that so many people
| thought he stupid. Definitely some social anxiety in there as
| well, which is fine, but letting that turn into hostility is
| not.
|
| It's a shame because the articles overall message isn't bad
| at all. Have the willingness to feel stupid for personal
| improvement is good advice but he just comes across it the
| wrong way.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| Absolutely. There's a kernel of wisdom here, but the argument
| buckles without examples where the OP actually _was_ "stupid"
| and wasn't proven to be "the smart one" in the end.
|
| Learning isn't a straight path. It's unusual to _not_ veer off
| and misunderstand something for a while, during which time
| others might be right to assume you _are_ "stupid".
|
| The willingness to look stupid will sometimes reflect that you
| are, in fact, actually stupid. A lack of any examples in this
| category makes this post read more like a humble brag.
| btrask wrote:
| This article does not undermine its own point. In fact, very,
| very few articles _ever_ undermine their own point. In order to
| undermine your own point it means you 've failed to construct a
| logical chain of thought. But that is what people do all the
| time in their daily lives. Maybe children would undermine their
| own points, or someone posting their first ill-thought comment
| on Facebook. But I think most people will learn how to
| construct an argument by their second time publishing one.
|
| In this case, the article is not about 'the joys of being too
| dumb to breathe'. It's about how 1. looking stupid is not the
| same as being stupid, and 2. looking stupid can be beneficial
| in the long run. The author does not need to actually be stupid
| once in order to support this idea.
|
| And I have to worry if you think he's "bragging" about merely
| _looking_ stupid, as if that weren 't bad enough. Maybe if you
| identify as stupid I could understand the offense.
|
| To the author, Dan Luu: I like your article and I think you're
| on the right track!
| tux3 wrote:
| The article is interesting, but it fails for me to make a
| convincing case that looking stupid is necessary, most of the
| time.
|
| Particularly in interviews, what I'd like to read is a
| reflection not on how to avoid thinking in the way that
| results in saying or asking things that sound stupid, but how
| to keep the same internal process without communicating the
| results in a way that confuses quite so much.
|
| An analogy: a mathematician proves a non-obvious theorem. In
| their proof, they skip so many steps that it looks like they
| say intuitively wrong things.
|
| It is NOT that they should stop thinking of these proofs in
| the same way, it's merely a failure of communication.
| wokwokwok wrote:
| You can construct an argument that we never landed on the
| moon if you cherry pick your data carefully.
|
| That's the point being made here: not that his examples are
| wrong, that they are cherry picked to support his views.
|
| It may be superficially thought provoking, but it is not
| compelling as a logical argument.
|
| There are tangible downsides to ignoring expert advice; you
| are not a god. You cannot be an expert at everything.
|
| It is _not possible_ to be an expert at everything.
|
| Therefore, yes, asking questions to understand a topic is
| good, but no, ignoring the advice of an expert is not good.
|
| The examples given only show examples where the result of
| ignoring the expert, or third party advice _was_ positive; it
| can't possibly be true that this can be the case in all
| circumstances, except by _sheer good luck_.
|
| I whole heartedly agree that asking questions is more
| important than looking smart... but:
|
| > Overall, I view the upsides of being willing to look stupid
| as much larger than the downsides. When it comes to things
| that aren't socially judged, like winning a game,
| understanding something, or being able to build things due to
| having a good understanding, it's all upside.
|
| You don't have to look stupid to be able to do all those
| things, you just have to be humble and work hard.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> ignoring the advice of an expert is not good._
|
| If the person actually _is_ an expert, yes. But actual
| experts, at least outside hard science domains where we can
| run controlled experiments to nail down theoretical models
| to the point where the actually do have high predictive
| accuracy, are much rarer than most people suppose.
|
| For example, the author says he ignored his doctor's
| advice; but that only counts as ignoring the advice of an
| expert if his doctor actually _was_ an expert. Most doctors
| aren 't--in fact, one could argue that _no_ doctors are,
| since nobody has a really good predictive model for
| medicine. Many doctors know more than at least a fair
| number of their patients do, but that 's a much lower bar
| to clear than "actual expert". And given the current state
| of medicine and the availability of information online,
| it's pretty easy for a reasonably intelligent person to
| know more than any of their doctors do about their own
| particular condition--since they both are more interested
| in accurate information, and have more time to devote to
| finding it out.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| > You can construct an argument that we never landed on the
| moon if you cherry pick your data carefully.
|
| This is a really nice, concise way to make the point you
| are making. Doesn't it seem like this is the central
| problem with politics today? Everyone has their own data
| and everyone is logical. You can't have a functional
| discussion under such scenario. People don't see any
| problem with their own logic because there isn't any.
| People can't definitively show a problem with the other's
| logic because there isn't any.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| In would say it goes even further than humblebragging, and
| ventures into narcissism and an inability to handle criticism,
| explain oneself, or accept help.
|
| If the car insurance salesperson disagrees with you, maybe you
| should try to understand why? Did you really consider the
| possible that a tree branch could fall in front of your car or
| that you could get caught in a hail storm?
|
| If the Apple store employee doesn't understand why you're
| obsessed with box sizes, explain that the MacBook in the
| smaller box is the one with the features you want and that's
| the easiest way to identify it.
|
| If someone gives you a look like "you're stupid" it's most
| likely that they don't understand your decision not that they
| think you have an inability to reason. Sometimes you simply
| need to explain yourself, but it seems the OP has such
| confidence in their own decisions that they won't accept any
| help or input from even the experts. After all as you noted, it
| appears that the OP has always been right in the end.
| dangerface wrote:
| > explain oneself
|
| I hate this, the idea that I should have to explain myself to
| a random stranger in a shop as if they are entitled to know
| anything about me. I buy a lot of sweets on Friday for the
| weekend and regularly the clerk behind the till will make a
| comment, "Thats a lot of chocolate! Who is going to eat all
| that! You must be having a party whats the occasion?". In
| front of a line of customers who are eager to get home I have
| to explain myself to the clerk "Im depressed!"... and then
| just stand there awkwardly waiting for them to finish doing
| their job.
|
| I get it they are just trying to be friendly but I don't want
| it no one in the queue behind me wants it, no one wants to
| explain themselves to a stranger we will never meet again, I
| just want the sweets / laptop please and thank you.
| blitzar wrote:
| > no one wants to explain themselves to a stranger we will
| never meet again
|
| So you walk into the Apple store, walk up to an employee
| and when confronted with the question "How can I help you
| today?" what do you do?
|
| Telling them "I would like X", seems like an unneccesary
| level of "explaining yourself". They should just know and
| understand exactly what you want from non verbal signals?
| mswtk wrote:
| You don't _have to_ , and I personally also find small-talk
| with strangers rather tedious, but in the specific cases
| brought up by the author, it sounded like he would've saved
| himself time by just briefly explaining his reasoning.
| Which also would've had the nice side-effect of treating
| his interlocutors as rational human beings worthy of a
| measure of respect.
| bradlys wrote:
| > I hate this, the idea that I should have to explain
| myself to a random stranger in a shop as if they are
| entitled to know anything about me.
|
| You sound like someone who has never worked in any customer
| facing position. Many people come in wanting X. They don't
| realize X has many consequences. You know if you just give
| them X then they'll come back another day, leave a bad
| review, or say, "but why didn't you tell me this?!?!"
|
| I mean, ffs - this happens to me _as_ a customer and I'm
| thankful. Sometimes there are obscene arcane scenarios that
| you can't find out about through regular means that only
| that service rep will know about. They are mostly fine if
| you just explain what you're doing - they're safe guarding
| the company's reputation. They have nothing against you
| asking for weird shit - they just don't want your bad shit
| later.
| jonahx wrote:
| > no one wants to explain themselves to a stranger we will
| never meet again
|
| Even though I, personally, feel the way you do, the above
| doesn't ring true. Many people crave those small
| interactions with strangers, and welcome the opportunity to
| talk about themselves. That's the reason they're a social
| norm.
| eddieroger wrote:
| I'm in a very similar boat as you two (why does the
| barista at Starbucks care what my weekend plans are?),
| but I don't think it's always that people want to talk
| about themselves, I think they just want to talk to
| somebody, period. Humans are social creatures and have
| survived on our ability to form communities, so there is
| part of us that sometimes just want people to talk to,
| not necessarily about ourselves. For sure there are
| narcissists who do only want to talk about themselves,
| but I wouldn't say that's everyone.
| greenail wrote:
| maybe a better title is "how to ask questions so I can be
| smug later". I've done this for sure but I've never
| advertised it later.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| The examples he lists are not even interesting. The fact that
| other people make obvious mistakes does not make you a genius.
| papandada wrote:
| I can think of examples of stupid things I've done, but I have
| a hard time thinking of when a willingness to admit I don't
| know something, was itself a stupid thing to do? Can you give
| an example? For me, actually being stupid involves something
| I'm stubbornly wrong about, and willing to look stupid is
| openness and vulnerability to admit I don't understand
| something I "should" know.
| afarrell wrote:
| Or it is an unwillingness to be vulnerable to the entire
| internet. Why? Probably fear of being misinterpreted and
| pilloried by strangers.
|
| It is a justifiable fear. For example, it is easy for people to
| interpret an imperfect amount of courage as "humble-bragging".
| pydry wrote:
| Maybe. He didnt add the caveat "I don't mind looking stupid
| _except_ when the entire internet can see " though.
|
| I thought it was heavily implied from the way the article
| started that we'd be reading some embarrassing stories.
|
| I was somewhat disappointed to see that he was presenting
| himself as just a humble genius who thinks different.
| ridiculous_leke wrote:
| Nowadays it doesn't even end there. You risk getting
| "cancelled" by social media mobsters.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > The person who helped me, despite being very polite, also
| clearly thought I was a bozo and kept explaining things like
| "the size of the box and the size of the computer aren't the
| same". Of course I knew that, but I didn't want to say
| something like "I design CPUs. I understand the difference
| between the size of the box the computer comes and in the size
| of the computer and I know it's very unusual to care about the
| size of the box, but I really want the one that comes in the
| smallest box". Just saying the last bit without establishing
| any kind of authority didn't convince the person
|
| This is not "willingness to look stupid", it's obviously the
| will/need/want to look mysterious to stroke one's ego.
|
| He could have chosen to behave like a good human and say why he
| wanted a smaller box so no one looks stupid (he to the the
| employee and the employee to him) and even give some new
| insights to the employee to help another customer with the same
| needs.
| paxys wrote:
| The entire post is peak /r/iamverysmart material and I'm not
| surprised it is popular here because a lot of the HN crowd fits
| into that category as well.
| seoulmetro wrote:
| HN is more like Reddit every day.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| the author came off as a below average intelligence blowhard to
| me
| beervirus wrote:
| There's a lot of value in this, and I try to do it at work. I'm
| confident enough in my abilities that I don't mind asking
| questions when there's something I don't understand. And I find
| that people who won't do that are insecure, and often for good
| reason.
|
| But still... it can be taken too far. Just as a matter of being a
| person who can socialize normally, what's wrong with spending a
| few seconds explaining yourself? "This is gonna sound silly, but
| I want the computer in the smallest box. Here's why." That kind
| of thing.
|
| I don't let my ego get in the way of learning new things. But I
| don't go out of my way to sound like an eccentric weirdo either.
| caned wrote:
| It seems telling that this post has struck such a nerve within
| the HN community. I suggest there is a predominant
| hypersensitivity amongst this crowd to the perception of being
| "smart", "stupid", or perhaps even worst of all, "average."
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| > I think that being willing to say things that I know have a
| good chance of causing people to think I'm stupid is a deeply
| ingrained enough habit that it's not worth changing just for
| interviews and I can't think of another context where the cost is
| nearly as high as it is in interviews.
|
| Unwillingness to adapt to circumstances maybe isn't stupidity,
| but it's definitely self-limiting.
| yutyut wrote:
| There was a foreign student in my CS classes who asked lots of
| questions at the end of class while everybody rolled their eyes
| because they wanted to leave. I assumed he was having issues with
| the language barrier or was just slow.
|
| Turns out he was the top student in the program and I would guess
| this was due in part to his willingness to ask questions and lack
| of fear in asking them in front of a room. He helped me get
| through an Operating Systems course the next semester.
|
| More importantly, he showed a young me that asking questions is
| actually a sign of maturity and intellectual honesty and that
| what the peanut gallery thinks is of little consequence. That
| lesson has served me well in the last decade. He's now a PhD at a
| major research university and a close friend.
| jnaddef wrote:
| I loved the first paragraphs but then they lost me with their
| list of examples.
|
| Those are not examples of asking stupid questions. Those are
| examples of asking good questions in a stupid way, almost like he
| is trying to look stupid, for no good reason. Why don't you give
| your interlocutor some context so they can help you better? Is
| your goal to instead make them look stupid? I truly don't
| understand.
| canabisjunke wrote:
| Here is my situation. You decide if I'm stupid. We're evaluating
| an alternate database for our product already on prod. I sat in
| along with my manager for meeting with 5 folks from mongodb. They
| presented the annual cost for a licensed usage of mongodb
| enterprise for 500 gigs of ram at $132k annually. So my question
| in the end was - "If I were to simply install mongodb on our
| server with more than 500gigs of ram allocated across the mongo
| cluster by aws, how would you police us down for the extra usage?
| Is your server recording ram usage and sending it back to you?"
| Everyone was silent and the account t manager from mongo said :
| "Well it's an honour system, we trust a big company such as
| yourself to use the product accordingly , we don't police or
| check", my manager followed up with a jovial remark "I don't know
| why you ask such questions ". End of the day, I felt super
| stupid. Point being - I'm not a hidden genius or anything,
| sometimes I just ask in haste without thinking through.
| programmer_dude wrote:
| Wow, this describes me to a T. The only difference being, you
| (Dan Luu) are much smarter than me.
|
| The other day I got confused by a decimal separator on Hacker
| News and posted a comment saying so. I am pretty sure some people
| assumed I was stupid. Perhaps they did not want to put in the
| effort required to understand why some one might get confused in
| the given situation.
|
| I will admit sometimes I fall into this trap too and assume the
| other person is stupid. Nobody is perfect.
|
| I have nothing profound to say, just wanted to share this.
| yetihehe wrote:
| > The other day I got confused by a decimal separator on Hacker
| News and posted a comment saying so. I am pretty sure some
| people assumed I was stupid. Perhaps they did not want to put
| in the effort required to understand why some one might get
| confused in the given situation.
|
| When you try to post low-level questions on a high-level forum
| (no matter what trade it is), you will get negative responses,
| because you dilute the topic. It's like having speed bump in
| fast lane.
| programmer_dude wrote:
| Yes, that's understandable.
| fungiblecog wrote:
| i always start my questions with something like "maybe i'm being
| a bit thick but..." which works well because it signposts up
| front that you're not trying to be awkward or obstructive. Most
| of the time it turns out that a bunch of other people had the
| same questions but didn't want to appear stupid
| shuckles wrote:
| The layout of this writer's website certainly proves their point,
| but I'm not sure how it helps them.
| supermatt wrote:
| Asking "stupid questions" frees you from the trap of assumption.
| This is why people who are good at solving (or helping others
| solve) problems ask "stupid questions".
|
| I suppose "rubber duck debugging" is a form of this.
| grasshopperpurp wrote:
| Some years ago, I learned that I'm better at finding things
| when high. For context, my GF misplace things a few times a
| week, and I like finding them before she can. I realized pretty
| quickly that I did better under the influence, because I didn't
| rule out places the things might be. When sober, I wouldn't
| check certain places, because, That'd be a ridiculous place to
| leave that.
|
| Sounds kinda dumb, but it was an ah-ha realization that
| extended beyond finding misplaced items.
| supermatt wrote:
| i struggle with adhd and have both the same problem
| (frequently misplacing things) and a similar solution
| (checking everywhere, twice, even if im "sure" it wont be
| there)
| nathias wrote:
| the problem is that it frees you from your assumptions, but
| you'll encounter many more assumptions from others
| rkangel wrote:
| A related "power" I've found in the past is being willing to say
| "I don't know".
|
| Fundamentally I work as a consultant. It's my job to solve other
| people's problems, which we usually (but not always) do by
| building something for them. Often our clients deal with a lot of
| consultants of different forms - they use consultants because
| they have specific skills and knowledge in different areas.
| Unfortunately this means that everyone is always trying to sounds
| as smart as possible and never admits to not knowing something.
| For the client they then don't know if they're getting "this is
| something that I know from doing 100 times" from "I'd guess this
| is the answer".
|
| I've found that answering the occasional question with "I don't
| know (but I'll find out and get back to you)" changes people's
| opinion of me (and my company) for the positive. They suddenly
| (usually subconsciously) have greater trust of what we're telling
| them, because they know we'd admit if we didn't know.
| seanhandley wrote:
| Re: "You are not noticing when people think you're stupid"
|
| and particularly
|
| > it's very important that you know that they think that you're
| stupid and will keep increasing the intensity of their responses
| until you acknowledge that they think you're stupid.
|
| I rarely get criticised or mocked and I think it's because I'm
| tall, white, and male. If I say something naive, people are
| almost always accommodating (ok, not on the Internet) because
| they don't want to risk offending the big beardy dude.
|
| This is a shame because I've spent much of my life:
|
| a) thinking people are basically kind and accommodating b) not
| being questioned, so missing a potentially valuable source of
| data with which to check myself and improve
| kevbin wrote:
| > I'd rather spend my "weirdness points" on pushing radical ideas
| than on dressing unusually
|
| Agree. This could be a post in itself.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| I did an MBA which involved plenty of consulting projects for
| real firms. I pride myself on being brave enough to ask stupid
| questions and I found that this was a superpower when consulting
| on complicated projects. Often the instigators don't know the
| answers themselves so you go on journey of discovery together in
| the first few meetings.
|
| A lot of the international students, especially from Asian
| countries, would never ask such 'stupid' questions for fear of
| losing face. This became apparent for a lot of them in the final
| presentations when they still didn't understand the real problems
| danity wrote:
| Dan Luu interprets confusion from his lack of explanation as
| people thinking he is stupid. It almost seems the other way
| around, Dan Luu is the one who thinks other people are stupid
| (Apple Store clerk, insurance salesperson) because they don't
| know what he knows.
| dcminter wrote:
| More often than not when I ask a "stupid" question it turns out
| that the answer isn't known (to the people I'm asking). So I try
| to do so more often. I've noticed that it also makes others feel
| empowered to ask "dumb" questions too (which usually aren't), so
| it's a good policy for the team as well as the individual.
|
| I'd imagine that it's not so viable in more
| aggressive/competitive/toxic environments though? But I've been
| lucky avoiding those.
|
| Edit: Oh and sometimes my questions do turn out to be ... a bit
| dim. Most recent case that springs to mind was asking the local
| equivalent of "what does SSN stand for?" in a context where I
| really should have known. But the average outcome is good.
| [deleted]
| davesque wrote:
| There's a flip side to this. Not sure if it's mentioned in the
| article since I only skimmed it. The complementary point is that
| it _really is_ stupid to try and make other people look stupid.
| And it 's stupid because it's counter-productive, not because it
| reveals that you're trying to learn something, which is covered
| by the article. This problem seems to be endemic in tech
| (although, subjectively, it seems to have improved over the past
| couple years or so). It's such a trope and a drag to deal with
| people who act like everything is obvious. Don't they enjoy
| talking about things they understand? Then they should act like
| all questions are great and answer them with words. It's fun for
| the whole family. Actually, that does seem to maybe cut to the
| heart of the matter. Maybe those types don't like "dumb"
| questions because they don't really understand anything and are
| trying to hide it.
|
| _P.S._ I guess the article does touch on this when it mentions
| the anecdote about the people in class and the "dumb" questions
| being posed to the teacher. Come to think of it, I guess the
| whole article is kinda like a commentary on this phenomenon
| actually :).
| Errancer wrote:
| I find such willingness very helpful in many meetings with
| difficult vocabulary. Instead of nodding to sentences which make
| no sense to me I like to take the risk and admit that I have no
| clue what is going on. More often than not I'm not the only
| person who got lost so it ends up beneficial to the meeting as a
| whole.
| josephg wrote:
| Yeah. Its weird but I find doing this makes people respect you
| more.
|
| If you ask dumb questions, the person speaking (if they're any
| good) will start looking to you to figure out if they're
| pitching their language correctly. The other people in the room
| who didn't understand will be relieved and quietly thankful of
| you because they didn't have to be the ones to ask. And people
| who understood already are usually way more chill about this
| sort of thing than you would expect. Especially if you give
| them the opportunity to explain something in front of everyone.
| And then thank them for doing so.
|
| I don't think I fully understand why, but asking dumb questions
| is often a subtle act of leadership.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| > I don't think I fully understand why, but asking dumb
| questions is often a subtle act of leadership.
|
| Very much so. It helps establishing an environment with less
| ego, more helpful people, and people who aren't afraid to
| learn. It also diminishes feelings of imposter syndrome in
| other people, by showing that not everyone knows everything.
|
| All of those are things leaders should incentivize.
| eranation wrote:
| Making "asking stupid questions" socially acceptable can solve SO
| MANY issues. Being able to politely say what everyone is thinking
| and not keep things to blow later is also probably the way for
| world peace. (Or world war 3...)
| coldtea wrote:
| There's some "willingess to look stupid" here, but also some lack
| of emotional intelligence (which is probably not
| conscious/willed). There's a humble-brag/arrogance element too
| (which also marks for some "emotional stupidity").
|
| As in, the reasoning applied to some of those cases is quite
| Vulcanian-like, maybe a comrade on-the-spectrum?
| motohagiography wrote:
| The author's approach is that he has a reason for his behaviour
| that others don't understand, and he says they treat him as
| "stupid," which may not be accurate. The pop culture trope about
| "genius and insanity," resembling each other has always been
| presented as mysterious, but the link is that both people are
| indexed on things others can't see. The difference is that one
| person is persuasive and manages to cohere, persist, and realize
| ideas from those things others can't see, and the other person
| fails for a variety of reasons related to just being high
| functioning nuts.
|
| The examples the author gives are more about being indexed on
| what others can't see than him being ignorant - but "stupid" is
| an interesting one because that means something else. If you
| separate intelligence and smart as being a capactity for
| abstraction and clarity vs. being able to get or achieve the
| things you want, one person can easily be both hyperintelligent
| and completely un-smart. Nerd is the cliche for that. The low
| cunning of a middle manager can produce outcomes that are very
| smart, without much talent for complexity, discovery, truth, or
| consideration, which is reflected in other archetypes.
|
| I often admit I'm not particularly smart, and that mostly I'm
| stupid in such unexpected ways that people conclude I must know
| something they don't, because nobody with a rudimentary
| apprehension of reality would attempt the things I have. Beware
| an idiot with the element of surprise. This is to say, I look
| stupid every day, and it is often painful and has a permanent
| record, but I see it more like lifting weights, where given the
| options, using your body to shift hundreds of pounds without
| leverage is definitely short term stupid, but the effects of
| persisting are long term smart.
| datavirtue wrote:
| This reads like an account of a sane, rational, thinking person
| trying to navigate a world in which all of that is rare.
| familiarzombie6 wrote:
| Being so willing to look dumb is a luxury much more easily
| afforded to the highly intelligent.
| kchoudhu wrote:
| This resonates because my entire professional persona is Career
| Idiot Asks Questions. It's worked out reasonably well and acted
| as a filter for professional situations where I definitely would
| have been very, very unhappy.
| Kiro wrote:
| If I want to ask something online I intentionally make the
| question sound stupid and uninformed since that provokes better
| and more clear replies.
| instakill wrote:
| Good old Curningham's law
| karol wrote:
| This is terrible advice, I would call it a lack of willingness to
| communicate openly. Also even if you are in the highest echelons
| of intelligence making yourself look stupid will close access to
| some opportunities that might propel you forward. Also, over time
| this behaviour might form a habit that will also influence your
| personal life.
| yetihehe wrote:
| > Also even if you are in the highest echelons of intelligence
| making yourself look stupid will close access to some
| opportunities that might propel you forward.
|
| But maybe we should educate our society so that this isn't the
| case anymore? I know this sounds unattainable, but we should
| still try to make such outcomes invalid.
| karol wrote:
| Of course, write a book about it.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I used to work at a place where we recognized each other for the
| ability to "stick our hand in the fan."
|
| Meaning, we know that some things cannot be understood until they
| are tried, and trying such things often leads to failure (though
| there's an art to keep the failure small and learn fast.)
|
| So we'd basically recognize and reward people for embracing that
| reality, for the ability to say "yup I am gonna probably do this
| wrong the first time but that's gonna lead to progress"
|
| Inverse of that is fear of failure - inability to do something
| unless you are certain you're capable of securing a successful
| outcome. Basically that means you only do things you already know
| how to do.
| digbybk wrote:
| Reluctance to ask stupid questions comes from a fear of
| rejection. I studied physics in undergrad and I found it pretty
| difficult, but wanted to be a part of the group of smart physics
| kids. It left me with a pretty strong fear of looking stupid and
| a reluctance to speak up in class when I didn't understand.
|
| Not minding if you might sound stupid comes from a place of
| security in your life. If you already have a solid in-group, then
| the fear of being rejected by some other group starts to go away
| and you feel more comfortable risking looking dumb in front of
| people.
|
| I think it comes from a deep instinct to find allies and show
| that you'll be a valuable member of a group, or at least not a
| liability.
| mattjaynes wrote:
| If you're looking for resilient, growth-minded friends, I'd
| recommend taking up a class where everyone is guaranteed to look
| bad in the beginning. Only those that can get through the rough
| waters in the beginning will make it to the "shore" of basic
| competence. It can be a great filter.
|
| I realized this when trying to learn Salsa dancing. Some people
| have a natural talent, but most don't and that includes me. It
| was one of the most difficult things for me to learn and it took
| months of very very bad dancing to get to a passable level.
|
| As a guy, it can be tough post-college to make other good male
| friends, but I look back at all my male friends now and they are
| almost all from Salsa. There's a real camaraderie that comes from
| passing through a challenge together and making it to the other
| side.
|
| Sure - it's not a Navy Seal experience or something that intense,
| but the fear of social humiliation is a strong one and if you can
| get through that with some other solid people, it builds a real
| bond.
| adamzerner wrote:
| Through whatever quirk of my psychology, looking stupid has
| always been something that I have been 100% ok with. There are
| various stories that come to mind, but the two that stick out the
| most happened in middle school science class.
|
| One time we were learning about volcanoes. And, of course, that
| they erupt. I was thinking about how the eruption is dangerous
| and causes harm, and what we could do to prevent it. My first
| thought was, well, to put a cap on the volcano. So I raised my
| hand and asked the teacher "what if we put a cap on it?", and
| everyone laughed.
|
| Another time we were learning about plants, and how if you give
| them too much water they will die. That immediately sounded
| insane to me and I raised my hand to ask, "Wait, why don't they
| just not drink it?!"
|
| Both of these stories lingered around for years and people knew
| me as someone who lacks "common sense" and who is known for
| asking silly questions.
| familiarzombie6 wrote:
| Willingness to look stupid is a luxury much more easily afforded
| to the highly intelligent.
| sampo wrote:
| > Covid: I took this seriously relatively early on and bought a
| half mask respirator on 2020-01-26 and was using N95s I'd already
| had on hand for the week before (IMO, the case that covid was
| airborne and that air filtration would help was very strong based
| on the existing literature on SARS contact tracing, filtration of
| viruses from air filters, and viral load)
|
| I think this is remarkable, how common people with some level of
| scientific literacy were able to get this correct much better
| than the whole medical establishment.
| maverwa wrote:
| Another note to the same quote: for me it looks like classic
| half mask respirator is not that "good" against COVID, as it
| only filters on the intake, not the way, out. At least my cheap
| one does. Therefor, while it prevents you from getting it, it
| does not stop you from spreading it. Right?
|
| Sure, that might very well be what you aim for, but from my
| understanding, FFP2 should prevent both, at least
| theoretically, since wearing them correctly is another point of
| failure.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| The medical establishment knew N95s were critical from SARS
| and, at least in, North America had plenty of circumstantial
| evidence that COVID was, at least, somewhat reduced by masks;
| as did the author
|
| Further, my former co-workers from my stint in HIV testing were
| ALL saying wear masks and don't count on a vaccine being
| available until 2021 at the very earliest. They all started
| self isolating very early.
|
| The whole "medical establishment" DID know this.
|
| This was a failure of leadership of the medical establishment
| to either listen to the rest of the medical establishment or to
| effectively push back on the political leadership.
| j7ake wrote:
| I wouldn't say "whole medical establishment". All Asian
| countries and their medical teams were using masks by that
| time.
| orangeoxidation wrote:
| > I think this is remarkable, how common people with some level
| of scientific literacy were able to get this correct much
| better than the whole medical establishment.
|
| I don't think it's remarkable at all. Common people with some
| level of scientific literacy took basically all kind of stances
| about masks. Some of them had to be right in the end.
|
| 'The medical establishment' otoh had to come to one single
| common recommendation and as it's only one there's a chance of
| failure (there were, ofc. individual medical professional and
| scientists who got it right as well).
| mellavora wrote:
| Yes, and because `the medical establishment` cannot risk that
| failure, they have to be much surer.
|
| And they have to be able to communicate it in an effective
| way such that people believe it... AND can act on it. AND can
| act on it in a way that doesn't trigger panic or totally mess
| with supply chains needed to get proper equipment to front-
| line responders.
|
| like Lawrence from azangru's quote above, the medical
| establishment needs to consider many more factors than
| 'common people' before making a public statement.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| This is a great premise, and in my experience spot on both in
| terms of avoiding feelings of being stupid.
|
| But some of the items are more about presenting information in a
| way that makes people change their actions without feeling
| stupid.
|
| Like the ones about blood draws. I've seen my wife do this so
| well, and I honestly never knew it was possible to live so
| harmoniously with society. People are just so much more helpful
| and flexible with her and I attributed it to her Dale Carnegie
| levels of persuasiveness.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| Not sure if this is anyone's else's experience, but I relate this
| closely to First Principle's thinking.
|
| 1. You start by asking the "obvious" questions, the things
| everyone is supposed to already know. Question every assumption,
| every bit of "common sense".
|
| 2. Along the way, you discover that most people don't truly know
| what they claim to know. Instead, it's just years of built-up
| bias.
|
| 3. Soon you're asking questions no one thought of asking in the
| first place.
|
| 4. Finally, you understand the subject better than anyone,
| because you started by questions the foundational assumptions and
| built up from there. You see how all the pieces connect. (To my
| fellow programmers: This is, I think, why many of us dislike
| frameworks... too many levels of abstraction from the real
| thing.)
|
| Related concepts:
|
| - Always be willing to be the dumbest person in the room. It
| means you've surrounded yourself with people smarter than you, so
| you can learn from them. It also means they'll help you be far
| more successful than you could on your own.
|
| - Don't try to outsmart everyone. Just try to avoid dumb
| mistakes. While everyone else is trying to impress each other
| with their brilliance, you can calmly do the next right thing,
| and avoid the next dumb thing. Charlie Munger credits the success
| of Berkshire Hathaway to this principle more than any other. It
| means being willing to LOOK stupid in order to avoid actually
| BEING stupid.
| arthur_sav wrote:
| Smart (in my book) is someone that knows how to navigate this
| world in order to achieve ones goals.
|
| If you don't care how you're perceived, that's fine. However,
| you'll be missing out on many opportunities because reputation
| matters.
| waterhouse wrote:
| "Discovery is the privilege of the child: the child who has no
| fear of being once again wrong, of looking like an idiot, of not
| being serious, of not doing things like everyone else." --
| Alexander Grothendieck
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I preface mine with "In the words of the great philosopher
| Yankovic, I am going to dare to be stupid ..."
|
| Partially, because in IT -- seemingly more than in other
| industries -- variations of the phrase "Why haven't you just ..."
| arise, "just" being that magical simplifier which compacts all
| complexity into a single and obvious step, and often come with
| some measure of "why haven't the boffin pressed the button, I
| told the boffin that the button needs to be pressed" attitude,
| and I do not want to do that to someone else.
|
| The other portion of it is being the rubber duck, quack quack.
| davidw wrote:
| I was hoping someone would reference that song.
| iamben wrote:
| It was a long time ago that I read it, but I'm pretty sure
| Richard Feynman says something similar in "Surely You're
| Joking..."
|
| I can't remember his exact words, but my takeaway was not to be
| afraid of asking super basic questions.
|
| (Also, it probably doesn't need to be said on HN again, but that
| really is a good book.)
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Richard Feynman's lectures are available for free online:
|
| https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/
| lvl100 wrote:
| People who are unwilling to look stupid often have nothing to
| offer.
| mdrzn wrote:
| >>"I had to confirm three times that I only wanted coverage for
| damage I do to others with no coverage for damage to my own
| vehicle if I'm at fault."
|
| But.. why tho?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| The premise of insurance is that you pay more on average over
| time but remove very expensive tail events. Basically you pay
| the insurance company to reduce your risk.
|
| If you are wealthy enough (and mentally prepared) to absorb
| tail events without much negative effect on your life, it can
| be perfectly rational to not insure damage to your car.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| There's a song about this:
|
| "Dare to be Stupid" - Weird Al Yankowich
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMhwddNQSWQ
|
| Asking questions is really putting print statements(or functions)
| in ordinary, physical world. It's debugging yourself or your
| surroundings.
|
| Asking questions is crucial when you're doing sports and trying
| to improve your personal best - for example pull ups or squats.
| Eventually a joint or tissue starts to hurt and you need to
| figure out why or you get an injury. Am I doing it too often? No
| warmup? Bad diet? Sleep? Does your joint rotate too much and in
| which axis?
|
| And you will absolutely not get far in a puzzle game like Baba Is
| You if you're not good at asking questions. When I got stuck in
| that game, it was almost always due to a wrong assumption I made
| early on and failed to recognize. Solving the game is similar to
| tree traversal. If one approach doesn't work, and you don't have
| another idea, you need to re-examine your assumptions.
| hsn915 wrote:
| Having this skill probably helps with all sorts of situations.
| For example, showing people an incomplete product either as
| potential users or investors. If you're afraid of looking stupid
| .. you will probably lack the courage to get your product out
| there even though it's not yet complete.
| dustingetz wrote:
| CURSE OF DEVELOPMENT: the depth of any transaction is limited by
| the depth of the shallower party. If the situational
| developmental gap between two people is sufficiently small, the
| more evolved person will systematically LOSE. A trivial example:
| if you speak English and French, and your friend only speaks
| English, you will be forced to converse in English.
|
| Full quote from Gervais Principle here:
| https://dustingetz.com/d4337a942961484b8b408d4b1963e161
|
| My transition from developer to founder is marked by needing to
| win more (all) transactions with minimized variance. As Warren
| Buffet says "never lose money", you might think it's +EV to apply
| Kelly Criterion here and risk a bit to maximize alpha, but in
| soft human affairs there are too many unknown unknowns to
| quantify risk, you need to keep it simple and not lose
| transactions. IMO
| tomxor wrote:
| > if a date thinks I'm stupid because I ask them what a word
| means, so much so that they show it in their facial expression
| and/or tone of voice, I think it's pretty unlikely that we're
| compatible, so I view finding that out sooner rather than later
| as upside and not downside.
|
| This generalises well... ultimately if being pretentious is
| valued over being genuine then it's probably not a valuable or
| healthy place for you to be, situation to be in, or person to be
| around.
|
| For the other more common example of the intern/junior who fears
| looking stupid to their own detriment. Their only defence is that
| work places exist which _do_ actually prosecute people for asking
| "stupid" but useful questions - if they happen to be at such a
| workplace, it's not worth staying anyway.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I try to lead by example on this one - particularly in front of
| customers or other junior team members. There is a huge hazard in
| training people to avoid looking like they are doing the wrong
| thing. Most of our struggle today is extracting useful
| information from the business so we can deliver a properly-
| configured product to them. You don't want anyone to feel like
| they are being persecuted for not knowing something or you will
| not be able to get much worthwhile information out of them.
|
| The way I push myself in front of the stupid bus is by
| intentionally putting myself into situations where I cannot
| possibly provide a 100% smooth delivery. For example, instead of
| spending an hour to refresh myself on a complex code question
| before hopping on a 1:1 screenshare (presumably so I can look
| like a total smartass), I will ask the other teammember to fire
| up a screenshare right away without any planning. The consequence
| is that I inevitably look a little lost every time and the other
| team member has to remind me of the gaps as we go through the
| problem.
|
| Over time, I believe this builds a strong sense that even the
| lead/architect is not better than anyone else and that we all
| have an ongoing role in keeping each other synchronized on the
| relevant domain knowledge.
| radiator wrote:
| He writes "the smallest box". But the set (width, height, depth)
| of the dimensions of the boxes is not totally ordered. So this
| question makes no sense.
|
| Maybe he means another metric, e.g. by volume? But:
|
| - first problem, he seems to expect that people with whom he
| talks should not make assumptions
|
| - second problem, does he really expect the store clerk to
| calculate the volumes of all the boxes?
|
| I don't know, are we sure he is not actually stupid?
| mwfunk wrote:
| People need to be absolutely fearless about looking stupid.
| Whether or not you look stupid at any given moment is an
| imponderable, an unanswerable question. The fear of looking
| stupid is more paranoia and insecurity than anything else. As
| long as you do your absolute very best to communicate to other
| people, even when that's difficult or impossible, that's the only
| thing that matters. If someone else decides you're an idiot you
| have no control over it, and if you're truly doing your best to
| communicate then someone else dismissing you as stupid is on
| them.
|
| What's much more self-destructive than being afraid of looking
| stupid is feeling like you need to look like you know 100% of
| what is going on at all times- this inevitably leads to
| bullshitting and half-truths and weird circuitous conversations
| where it's unclear who actually knows what. Never try to conceal
| ignorance. People who matter and people who you actually would
| want to work with and work for would never judge someone for
| admitting ignorance or asking questions. People who don't matter,
| and people no one would want to work with or for are the ones who
| get on someone's case for asking what they think is a stupid
| question.
| rlonn wrote:
| When I recognize fear of looking stupid prevents me from doing
| something I see it as a challenge to do it. This makes it easier
| to push through. Most of the time it was the right decision, but
| not always.
|
| When picking up my kid at kindergarten once, I got an urge to
| jump over the fence into the yard, rather than using the gate. Of
| course, a 49-year old doing that might look stupid to all the
| kids and staff present (lots), so I did it. Then a 20-year old
| staff member comes up to me and says "Yeah...so we try to teach
| the kids here not to climb the fence. It'd be great if you didn't
| do what you just did.."
|
| Sometimes looking stupid means _being_ stupid too. But that's ok.
| robocat wrote:
| Kindy fences look so dystopian, like caged animals.
|
| The sight of a young child holding the bars wistfully looking
| out at the inaccessible world beyond them is just painful.
|
| Not that a moat or geofenced electroshock collars would be
| better.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| Meh. Non-fence-climbing isn't some important skill children
| need to learn
|
| I applaud your fence-jumping! I think children learning that
| it's ok to have fun as an adult is a much more important (and
| rare) lesson than learning that sometimes you have to abide by
| arbitrary rules
| tuatoru wrote:
| _Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design_ by Donald Gause
| and Gerald Weinberg is a _great_ reference for learning how to
| ask questions and what questions to ask.
|
| https://geraldmweinberg.com/Site/Exploring_Requirements.html
| [deleted]
| brenainn wrote:
| I too look stupid, but not in "so ahead of everyone I look
| stupid" way, or in a Socratic ironic way, just stupid. It does
| mean I can ask dumb questions and keep up with what's happening,
| or propose dumb ideas and sometimes they stick, but I think I'd
| prefer to not look, and consequently be treated like, I'm stupid.
| SamPatt wrote:
| At my company I'd say "ignorance is my superpower." It would
| usually get a laugh but people seemed to appreciate the mindset
| of intellectual humility.
|
| Asking childish "why?" questions is often very illuminating,
| although if it causes you to stumble into some aspect of
| incompetent leadership then be warned.
| ryanar wrote:
| Author's site could do with this small css change to make the
| articles more readable on larger screens: body {
| max-width: 80ch; margin: auto; }
| m12k wrote:
| Learning something and pretending like you know it already are
| two goals that are very at odds with each other.
|
| It's one of the things I felt got better when going from high
| school to university - in high school I felt like I needed to do
| both to get good grades (because of how much of your grade came
| from the teacher's impression of you) whereas in uni, I didn't
| have to bother and could just focus on learning.
| dekhn wrote:
| my greatest superpower is to sit in meetings and say "wait. I
| don't understand. Are you saying...." and "If that's true then
| doesn't it mean..." and leading the entire team to conclude that
| the consultants really are idiots.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| This is great to see on the front page and I hope it positively
| influences the culture here. HN is larger than it used to be and
| it's harder to ask "stupid sounding" questions and get
| meaningful, civil engagement than it used to be. You are more
| likely to get guff for it than used to be the case.
|
| I fell in love with HN because of the quality of the discussion
| which was rooted in a sincere attitude of "There are no stupid
| questions" (assuming you were asking in good faith and not
| trolling or sea lioning or something like that).
|
| And I'm not enjoying HN as much as I used to and I think part of
| it is I love asking the "stupid" questions and getting real
| answers from knowledgeable people and I feel like that's much
| harder to find than it used to be.
| irrational wrote:
| One of my favorite is "I don't know how to do that." I've found
| that people absolutely love demonstrating that they know
| something and will happily show you how to do X. Or, everyone
| says that they don't know how to do X either. Then we all figure
| out how to do X or give someone the task to research it and
| report back. A good thing to remember is nobody knows what you
| don't know.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I often pretended I did not know something because then I would
| have had to do that something every single damn time.
| jkuria wrote:
| Nice piece but could the op please invest in formatting his
| articles? Surely a techie like you can spend an hour installing
| Wordpress and a nice theme.
|
| Your ideas would then spread more.
| tfehring wrote:
| Minor point: I assume the author's rationale for carrying only
| liability insurance is that he has enough money to comfortably
| self-insure the risk of an at-fault accident. For businesses that
| approach makes sense - big companies self-insure most or all of
| their fleets, because buying third-party insurance costs more
| than the actuarially fair cost of risk. But those businesses also
| have teams of people to deal with the giant hassle that is the
| claims process, including dealing with the other party's (or
| parties') insurers, determining fault, and suing and/or
| negotiating a legal settlement as needed.
|
| For individuals that service is largely inseparable from risk
| transfer, i.e., you can really only get it through insurance.
| Lawyers can handle a subset of the process, but not all of it,
| and besides, relying on lawyers for it is probably at least as
| expensive as the non-risk-transfer component of insurance in
| expectation.
|
| In general, if someone's wealthy enough that they can effectively
| self-insure, even if they're completely risk-neutral, their time
| is probably valuable enough that they'd be better off buying
| insurance just to avoid having to go through the equivalent of
| the claims process themselves. So unless the author's rationale
| is wildly different than I'm thinking, in that example his
| insurance agent was right and he did make a stupid decision.
| jack_pp wrote:
| This reminds me of the good old times when I had to actually talk
| to another person in order to get pizza and I sometimes wanted a
| lot of veggies on it but also meat so I just ordered a vegetarian
| pizza with meat on it and they always thought I was joking or
| being silly. Good thing I never let that stop me
| agentultra wrote:
| Let the haters hate, just ask questions and move on.
|
| One of the hardest lessons to learn in life is to not concern
| yourself with what others think of them.
|
| Be polite, courteous, and caring because you want people to like
| you and you don't want to be ostracized but those things come
| from within.
|
| But, "I want them to think I'm successful/hot/smart/cool/etc" is
| just a good way to show how you're not any of those things. So
| many stories are about people who try _really_ hard to maintain
| these personas and they all fall apart from the tension.
|
| Delightful anecdotes in this article. Well done.
| mam3 wrote:
| Is it just humbleness ?
| [deleted]
| ozim wrote:
| * _Learning things that are hard for me: this is a "feeling
| stupid" thing and not a "looking stupid" thing, *_
|
| When I was younger I found out that things that were hard for me
| were making me angry. I would say that "this thing is stupid" or
| "it sucks". Where in reality I was stupid and I sucked.
|
| At some point I realized it was that I simply don't understand
| something that made me angry and then I started using that
| emotion as a telltale that I should step back and learn a bit
| more about the thing.
|
| In the end it evolved that I don't get angry anymore at things. I
| directly realize that I don't understand something and accept
| that I have more work to do on understanding it.
| jmacd wrote:
| This really resonated with me. When I was learning to program I
| had a mentor (who was just a few years older than me at 17) who
| was an amazing learner but was an incredible teacher. I didn't
| have any money for programming books and libraries at the time
| didn't carry many.
|
| His ability to explain the complexities of Pascal, Basic and
| eventually C++ totally changed my life. I never became an amazing
| programmer, but I was a hacker at a time when that was valuable
| and it completely changed the trajectory of my life.
|
| He set the bar for simplification of a subject and edification of
| an individual. It's something I look for and at some
| understanding someone's ability to explain something became the
| primary way for me to assess their intelligence.
|
| The best way to do that? Ask really stupid questions.
|
| That has really really worked against my in some contexts. I
| spent a lot of time working for a large US company and while many
| of the smartest and most capable executives LOVED those
| conversations where would explore the outer bounds of their new
| ideas, many of the mid level mangers truly thought I was a f$#ing
| idiot. They could not get past their impression of my after one
| simple, stupid, question.
|
| I still don't know how many people I have left in my wake who
| truly think I am dim. I don't really care, but it took me a lot
| of years to realize how it was perceived.
| b3morales wrote:
| Funny, there's a good complement to this* that someone else just
| posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28947926 _"How to
| get useful answers to your questions"_
|
| *Complementary to the headline and premise, at least; a bit less
| so the actual contents.
| tikhonj wrote:
| > _Going into an Apple store and asking for (and buying) the
| computer that comes in the smallest box, which I had a good
| reason to want at the time_
|
| This seems fine, but I've found a better approach in this sort of
| situation is to--as much as possible!--explain your reason to the
| person helping you. It's not about seeming less stupid (although
| that is one of the outcomes) but about giving the other person
| room to help you with your actual goal. When somebody understands
| why you need the smallest box, they'll have no reservations about
| finding it for you, and they might have even better suggestions
| you didn't consider (eg "order this laptop online, the boxes they
| use for shipping are more efficient").
| [deleted]
| tigerlily wrote:
| As an engineer frequently working with high-voltage, in my world
| there is simply no such thing as a stupid question. I gently
| remind my technicians of such whenever they come to me with
| questions they feel are stupid.
| ctvo wrote:
| Can I ask a stupid question? Who is Dan Luu and why does he keep
| appearing here? The content hasn't been amazing. It's not amazing
| here either.
|
| The blog doesn't have an about me page as far as I can tell.
| Google says Dan is a systems engineer at Nvidia.
|
| Edit: Found the About page https://danluu.com/about It's at the
| bottom of articles, but not accessible on the home page.
|
| If this were an actual technical topic, I'd be more inclined to
| continue reading, but here, it's musings framed as a life lesson
| that could have come from anyone in my circle of friends. Life
| lessons from people whose only achievement is working at big
| tech. At least for my friends, they don't walk around assuming
| they're smarter than people.
|
| The reoccurring theme in this post from Dan is he's not the one
| that's stupid, it's the people around him who are too stupid to
| see his underlying genius. Dan comes off insufferable.
| andrewzah wrote:
| I'm not a fan of this article because it seems like Dan doesn't
| understand that people are much more willing to work with
| people who aren't purposefully being obtuse.
|
| But Dan is on here because he generally writes well researched
| articles like [0] [1] and his minimal website aesthetics appeal
| to the HN crowd.
|
| [0]: https://danluu.com/input-lag/
|
| [1]: https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/
| samuel wrote:
| I was too afraid to ask, honestly.
|
| I have another one. Why don't he spend 5 minutes making the
| content readable? Add some margins, it's all what it takes.
| bena wrote:
| Found his LinkedIn and GitHub. I don't know how that helps, but
| it's more information than before. It looks like he works for
| NVidia.
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-luu-37721316/
|
| https://github.com/danluu
| rednalexa wrote:
| That is definitely not his LinkedIn
| bena wrote:
| Yeah, you're right. The thumbnail looked vaguely like the
| same guy. Combined with the work history, I didn't look
| much closer.
| jldugger wrote:
| Dan's posts are usually a pretty good mix of engineering,
| analysis, and engineering org dynamics. I think his diagnosis
| is correct that a lot of junior engineers prioritize avoiding
| looking dumb than coming out of a meeting knowing more than you
| started.
|
| In this case, the post leans more heavily on personal anecdotes
| than survey data, so I can see why people are finding it a bit
| grating. And that mcguffin about laptop boxes isn't helping =)
|
| I'm not sure why he's been posting more frequently lately.
| Usually I'd expect 1 a month.
| nosefrog wrote:
| I know Dan from a friend of a friend, he's a genuinely smart
| guy and I've learned a lot from him.
| reportgunner wrote:
| Slightly related video [0], specifically to _I was shocked that
| somebody would deliberately do the wrong thing in order to reduce
| the odds of potentially looking stupid_
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4
| [deleted]
| lbriner wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is the same thing but insecure people like
| me find the lack of affirmation of others troubling sometimes.
| How many of us get upset/offended if what we think is a high-
| quality comment on HN gets voted down by a load of people?
|
| We should be confident enough that we stand by comments even if
| we expect some of them to be misunderstood/unpopular. There are
| always people who will agree and always some who will agree. Once
| we can judge ourselves fairly, we won't care what other people
| think - we can be judged by our outcomes.
| tankenmate wrote:
| In my experience this is what humility is; not making yourself
| out to be more than you are, as well as not putting yourself
| down (deprecating humour aside - which is more about
| connection).
|
| "You don't need more control over everything, you need more
| courage". In a lot of ways that dovetails with Dan's comments.
| WA wrote:
| > _Going into an Apple store and asking for (and buying) the
| computer that comes in the smallest box, which I had a good
| reason to want at the time_
|
| This is such an odd example. Because OP makes an uncommon
| request, the sales person can't _parse_ what this request is
| about, and neither can I for that matter, and OP doesn 't give a
| reason.
|
| So the sales person thinks: _What an odd request_ , which in turn
| is parsed by the OP as _sales person thinks I 'm stupid for
| asking something that the sales person doesn't understand_. In
| the end, OP might want to feel superior by asking stupid-looking
| questions on purpose and feeling above the sales person for not
| being able to get to why this question is asked.
|
| Maybe just explain WHY you ask this or that and nobody thinks
| you're stupid anymore.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| I know nothing about the products involved, but I assume it was
| along the lines of "I want a Mac Foo 342, which happens to come
| in the smallest box, so you can't miss it".
| rossvor wrote:
| But surely the "I want a Mac Foo 342" is sufficient? The
| latter part of sentence just adds unnecessary confusion. I
| worked selling laptops before, and I honestly wouldn't
| remember which one came in the smallest box (and they usually
| came in very similar sized boxes anyway, so likely there
| would be several different models matching "smallest box"
| criteria). I think Apple employee was fully justified in
| their bafflement at the request.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| I think we are in agreement.
|
| Author was just trying to be clever at the expense of
| retail employees.
|
| Generally trying to be clever is ordinary life is not a
| good idea.
| strken wrote:
| You don't even need to explain why. Just say "I need the
| computer that comes in the smallest box. I know this is weird,
| right? I need it for reasons that would take a long time to
| explain, but I promise they make sense." A bit of empathy for
| the baffled Apple store employee on the other side of the
| conversation and nobody has to waste time or feel stupid.
|
| Maybe there's additional context we're missing.
| sethammons wrote:
| Key word: empathy. I'm not seeing it in the examples in the
| post.
| frumiousirc wrote:
| Perhaps this example is intentionally ambiguous in order to
| illicit an informal survey of how internet conversations deal
| with ambiguous tales of social interactions.
|
| Taking OP's thesis about the origin of "stupid questions" at
| face value, this small meta lift seems fitting.
| WA wrote:
| Ok, if we want to have a meta discussion, let me ask two
| stupid questions:
|
| Why did OP not tell the store clerk why a small box mattered?
|
| Why did OP not tell the reader why he didn't tell the clerk?
| Zababa wrote:
| Why would the clerk need to know that, and why would the
| reader need to know that? Do you need a justification for
| buying something from a store? I think that's the lesson
| here. If you think he needed to give justification, you may
| still consider him stupid in a way.
| ritchiea wrote:
| Why does the reader need to read this blog post?
|
| We don't but we think we might learn something or be
| entertained. Withholding a piece of information that lots
| of readers are naturally curious about is odd. I like the
| post & Dan Luu's writing in general but I'm dying to know
| the why behind the computer in the smallest box request.
| WA wrote:
| > Why would the clerk need to know that
|
| Because most average users ask for one thing, but
| actually need something else and it is the job of a
| service person to get down to what the customer actually
| wants. Disclosing intent of unusual requests helps to
| find a solution in a faster way. It's also respectful to
| the clerk. Furthermore, people are more willing to
| cooperate if they know a reason.
|
| > why would the reader need to know that?
|
| Because it stands out as an odd story and it is quite
| important to establish context if the reader wants to
| evaluate if OP asks objectively stupid questions, has a
| way of phrasing questions in a stupid way, or if the
| person asked truly thinks OP is stupid.
|
| That's what this post is about with a strong tendency
| that OP wants the reader to think that everybody judging
| him is stupid. In a way, the post is a humble-brag.
|
| > Do you need a justification for buying something from a
| store?
|
| No, but if I make people run around for me, I'd rather
| give them a reason.
|
| > I think that's the lesson here. If you think he needed
| to give justification, you may still consider him stupid
| in a way.
|
| I don't think he's stupid, but I think if someone is
| being judged as stupid all the time, it might not always
| be the other people (what OP makes us want to believe),
| but the way how OP interacts with his environment.
| Zababa wrote:
| > Because most average users ask for one thing, but
| actually need something else and it is the job of a
| service person to get down to what the customer actually
| wants. Disclosing intent of unusual requests helps to
| find a solution in a faster way.
|
| As I said elsewhere, I think it's an instance of the XY
| problem and we agree here, but I think the response of
| the clerk could have been something like "I have a lot of
| clients that ask for X when they need Y. If I give them
| X, they may come back and complain, and it will be a
| mistake on my part. So I'm sorry if I'm being too
| insistent with it, but I really need to be sure that you
| want X and not Y, especially since your request sounds a
| lot like what people say when they want Y", to which you
| could reply "Oh I perfectly understand, I work in
| software and we have this all the time with clients, I
| would do the same thing in your place. I assure you, I
| really need X and not Y." or something.
|
| > It's also respectful to the clerk.
|
| It may be more respectful than what happened the way the
| thing was narrated, but I think there is nothing
| "respectful" about disclosing information you may not
| want to disclose, which seem to be the case here (or the
| author is being obtuse).
|
| > That's what this post is about with a strong tendency
| that OP wants the reader to think that everybody judging
| him is stupid.
|
| I don't agree about the intentions of the author here. My
| interpretation is that he found something cool,
| efficient, somewhat counterintuive and want to share it.
| That seems to be in line with his other posts.
|
| > I don't think he's stupid, but I think if someone is
| being judged as stupid all the time, it might not always
| be the other people (what OP makes us want to believe),
| but the way how OP interacts with his environment.
|
| That's very true too. We only have his version so that's
| a possibility.
| bena wrote:
| > > Why would the clerk need to know that
|
| > Because most average users ask for one thing, but
| actually need something else and it is the job of a
| service person to get down to what the customer actually
| wants. Disclosing intent of unusual requests helps to
| find a solution in a faster way. It's also respectful to
| the clerk. Furthermore, people are more willing to
| cooperate if they know a reason.
|
| Which is hilarious because as software developers, we run
| into this all the time. People who request things or ask
| how to do things and it turns out what they needed was
| something else entirely.
|
| Why _wouldn 't_ this apply to other areas.
| [deleted]
| baby wrote:
| I have thousands of these stories. The only reason why I
| understand so many things today is because I dare asking stupid
| questions, and I do it a lot.
|
| During my master, one of the students laughed out loud after I
| asked a question during class. I told him "there are no stupid
| questions" and he replied "your question was stupid though".
| Guess who ended up with the better job.
|
| In my previous job some guy berated me publicly (on slack) for
| asking too many questions.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| > In particular, it's often the case that there's a seemingly
| obvious but actually incorrect reason something is true, a
| slightly less obvious reason the thing seems untrue, and then a
| subtle and complex reason that the thing is actually true
|
| It would be fun to have a list of these ideas. Anyone have any
| examples beyond the footnote in the article? (why wider tires
| have better grip)
| q-base wrote:
| No question that most of us needs to have the ego take a backseat
| more often.
|
| But I cannot help but compare this to negotiation. It is a lot
| easier when you negotiate from a place of abundance. Negotiating
| salary is easier when you do not need the job. Negotiating a
| house is easier when you do not need to buy that house.
|
| I feel like the same applies here. Willingness to look stupid is
| a lot easier in situations where you have confidence and nothing
| to lose.
| Grustaf wrote:
| > No question that most of us needs to have the ego take a
| backseat more often.
|
| Nothing says ego in the backseat like an iamsosmart blog post.
| Bonus points if the website looks like it's from 2005 and if
| you write it in a tone as if you just invented penicillin.
| caned wrote:
| At the risk of looking stupid, how would mentioning that he
| designs CPUs establish any kind of authority?
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Wow, tell me you're on the spectrum without telling me you're on
| the spectrum
| [deleted]
| m3kw9 wrote:
| By assuming a question is stupid, you throw yourself into a
| situation where you decide if you should risk reputation by
| asking, or by keeping your perceived reputation by not talking.
| Assumption upon assumptions, ultimately pointless waste of
| opportunities to move yourself or others forward who has the same
| questions and afraid to ask.
| greggman3 wrote:
| The masks and air filters make me wonder if my refusal to
| patronize restaurants that require paying via their website and
| signing up for an account with email and phone number, both
| verified by codes. It puts my friends out who just wanted to eat
| but I'm not eating if they require an account (which always says
| "we will use your info for marketing").
|
| Maybe it's not the same thing, masks and air filters have more
| obvious benefits than avoiding accounts at restaurants.
| thom wrote:
| There's a bit of a disconnect between the the purported theme of
| this article, being okay looking stupid, and the actual contents,
| which is just a catalogue of times other people were stupid,
| posted on the internet so everyone knows the author is clever.
|
| Being willing to look stupid involves actually being able to deal
| with mistakes and failure, with actually _feeling_ stupid
| sometimes. Just listing a bunch of great decisions you made that
| other people thought were stupid seems less life-changing to me.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Thanks you said this much better than I did a bit further up.
| The whole post smacks a bit of arrogance to me, even though the
| advice is good.
| barrenko wrote:
| Why is it arrogant?
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| "People think I'm stupid but it is actually they who are
| stupid and unable to comprehend my genius intellect"
| focus2020 wrote:
| Probably this is true but how to say this without being
| judged as arrogant.
| melenaboija wrote:
| "listing a bunch of great decisions you made that other
| people thought were stupid"
| runeks wrote:
| But the article is specifically about _looking_ stupid. The
| point being, as I understand it, that you should avoid _being_
| stupid but not _looking_ stupid.
| thom wrote:
| The title is about looking stupid, but that's not what the
| author is communicating, to me or many others in the comments
| here. At no point did the author ever risk any ego, because
| they knew they were right every time, and no morons were
| going to convince them otherwise. Willingness to look stupid
| isn't just about ignoring other people's opinions, it's about
| actually being willing to find out you _are_ stupid
| sometimes. Nobody can avoid being stupid their whole lives,
| whatever cherry picked lists we might publish on our blogs.
| You are either willing to suffer the risk of people seeing
| that, and learning something, or you can hide from that risk.
| The author clearly has a good track record of hiding from
| that risk, because everything they've ever done has turned
| out to be correct. But that seems deeply uninteresting as a
| life lesson. Much more important is what happens when you try
| something, and the people telling you you're stupid are
| _right_. How you and your ego handle that is an important
| part of your character.
|
| Maybe that's a subtle distinction, but I think it's
| important.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| That feels unfair. Part of the point of the article is that
| though looking stupid has a cost, it's sometimes worth it, for
| example, to ask an important question or to share an
| interesting idea, but maybe not just to prove that you're okay
| with looking stupid.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > Friends have been chiding about this for years and strangers,
| dates, and acquaintances, will sometimes tell me, with varying
| levels of bluntness, that I'm being paranoid and stupid
|
| There is way to much of this bullshit all over the place (e.g.
| PPE use) and I'm quick to judge people who do it, because I find
| it a truly moronic attitude.
| germandiago wrote:
| I have also heard this. Even the other day I asked my own
| sister about data about her own profession. She genuinely
| thinks I am asking too much/bothering her so she just replies
| "just let it go" or "you think too much".
|
| Well, if I think too much, probably I think more than you about
| your own profession, so, I do not want to say this, but you are
| not the best possible professional, because sometimes I had the
| feeling that she just follows the trend instead of getting
| genuine opinions about some of the topics in the discipline.
| lbayes wrote:
| This is my not-so-secret weapon and I highly recommend it.
|
| I spent some years at a FAANG, some of them in management, and it
| was shocking how many meetings could be unlocked by one person
| willing to risk sounding stupid.
|
| I was also shocked by how many people would approach me after to
| say they were wondering the same things.
|
| The flip side to this, was that I would also occasionally step on
| someone's favorite baby, which they usually didn't like much.
| 19h wrote:
| I consider this the to be the opposite -- smart people that ask
| questions straight away when they don't understand something is
| the opposite of looking stupid, and it's the first thing I ask
| new hires to do. I don't want employees that say "yes" but rather
| ask "why?", and I most definitely don't want employees to answer
| questions if they don't know what they mean to begin with just to
| save their face.
|
| There's a difference between not saying anything and asking "What
| are you referring to right now specifically?", "What does DMA
| mean in the context of the server?" and "Sorry, I'm very
| experienced with X. How hard would you say is it to do Y with it
| compared to doing it with Z, which I have worked with in the
| past?".
|
| Not only does it show that a person is listening, but it also
| improves the ability of everyone in the team to express and
| elaborate on details that are relevant to the topic being
| discussed.
| justinator wrote:
| The article does give the impression that the author has a
| superiority complex, and that many people are judging him often,
| where most likely people just don't care all that much either
| way. Perhaps what they're describing is being defensive over low
| self-confidence? They don't seem to be all that easy to work
| with. "I'm not stupid, you're stupid" is the vibe I'm getting.
| LTaoist wrote:
| A honest man would not "Willingness to Look Stupid" if he is not
| stupid.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Honesty and transparency aren't the same thing. Dan Luu has a
| non-transparent process, but that doesn't mean he wishes to
| _deceive_ you. Most people aren 't transparent.
| yanis_t wrote:
| Unpopular opinion here.
|
| I sometime find myself deliberately avoiding looking stupid
| because it could possibly damage my career. And that's because
| the people who make decisions are not some divine being who see
| through you, they are just humans like the rest of us.
| AQuantized wrote:
| I had this happen to me at a company recently. They were
| initially impressed with my linux knowledge and how I could port
| many of the processes they were previously confined to windows
| with. However, they had an unusual server setup, and when I asked
| a few very basic questions about it they totally reversed their
| opinion of me.
|
| When my ability to actually implement functionality was
| incommensurate with their perception of my level of
| understanding, they would still privilege their perception as
| colored by me asking very basic questions (which despite
| appearances can often yield surprisingly useful/surprising
| information).
|
| Despite being aware of what was 'going on', and generally having
| high confidence, this still impacts my self perception on some
| level. I find when I optimize for being perceived as intelligent
| instead of actually trying to understand things effectively I get
| much better reviews. It's difficult to know which is appropriate
| if you want to advance your career.
| AdamN wrote:
| Stupid questions are a great way to tease out when people seem to
| be saying similar things but they're not actually saying the same
| thing.
| jl6 wrote:
| You surely need a fair measure of confidence and security to
| absorb the downside risk.
|
| It's a lot easier when you are established in a
| career/network/relationship and have erected a safe space around
| yourself. You can unmuzzle your inner confusion without threat to
| your status or ego, as you know you're not _really_ stupid.
|
| Not so easy as an outsider, or as a junior where you secretly
| worry that you _might_ be stupid.
| jollygoodshow wrote:
| I think there's a very big difference between asking simple
| questions (especially when gaining an understanding of a
| situation) and asking actually stupid questions (unrelated to the
| topic or questions that have already been answered). This article
| is claiming the former as the latter and saying "Even when I'm
| stupid I'm so smart"
| known wrote:
| "Understanding is more important than memorization! Schools
| should teach the students how to understand, think, doubt, and
| question. They should be made open to imagination and creativity"
| --Feynman
| akath20 wrote:
| Asking for the computer in the smallest box ruined the rest of
| the article for me... that isn't the same as asking a silly
| question when trying to learn, that's just making things
| unnecessarily difficult. There were otherwise good points though
| such as willingness to ask what a question means, but that first
| example really threw off the rest of it for me.
| andrewzah wrote:
| I think Dan is on point here with asking questions for true
| understanding and not being afraid to do that. Our society,
| unfortunately, for the most part rewards those who are confident
| and act like they know everything instead of those who admit they
| don't know something. And being willing to look dumb/bad is
| crucial to learning a language, instrument, or new hobby well...
|
| ---
|
| But he lost me with the examples of the Apple computer box.
| Employees aren't little robots- they're actual humans that
| (mostly) are trying to be helpful. It would've taken Dan
| -significantly- less time and effort to just say WHY he was
| looking for a smaller box. Probably the same deal with the auto
| insurance agent- he could've just explained WHY he wanted such an
| unusual request, and the agent likely wouldn't have incredulously
| asked him 3 times.
|
| In my experience people are straightforward and respectful with
| you when you're straightforward and respectful with them.
| Waltzing in and going "give me the thing in the smallest box"
| makes absolutely zero sense and it's like Dan was just
| purposefully playing a game of being obtuse towards random help
| staff... People aren't intelligent or stupid because they get
| confused when someone comes in with very unusual requests that
| they refuse to elaborate on.
|
| ---
|
| Also, I truly don't get the box thing. Technology-wise it makes
| no sense. Why doesn't Dan explain the reason in this post either?
|
| ---
|
| Last edit: I had an unusual situation once in Seoul at this one
| cafe that I visited a lot. There were two registers, and for some
| reason my credit card just wouldn't work on the left register. So
| a few times I just asked "Hey, this is an unusual request, but
| could we use the machine on the right? My card works on that one,
| but not this one." And guess what? The employees went "oh, ok" or
| "sure".
|
| It took slightly more effort on my part than saying "hey, use the
| machine on the right". But then nobody was confused. It had
| nothing to do with the employees being intelligent or stupid or
| being perceived as such.
| cratermoon wrote:
| All the talk in the comments on this post about how smart people
| ask stupid questions and how great it is to ask 'why' and explore
| assumptions kind of feels a bit off, and I think I know why.
|
| Over on another danluu post thread about productivity, I kept
| asking why it was assumed that one had to maximize productivity
| and go fast as a prerequisite for having leisure time. But no
| matter how I asked why it was asserted that leisure is dependent
| on productivity and why relaxing is predicated on first clearing
| some bar of an acceptable amount of work, nobody really wanted to
| examine that. It was just taken as a given. One response even
| shut down further discussion with "this isn't a philosophical
| discussion".
|
| So it seems to me that it's really only considered ok to ask
| stupid questions and look stupid _within a framework of what 's
| acceptably 'stupid'_. But probing into the underlying assumptions
| themselves is not an acceptable kind of stupid.
|
| Which leads to my stupid question: who determines, and how, what
| the acceptable limits of "stupid" are? And how are those norms
| communicated and enforced?
| terabytest wrote:
| I guess the "stupid question" I'd ask of this article is: why
| don't you reveal your goals or thought process when challenged
| after asking a question that might be perceived as stupid? Take
| the Apple Store example: why not explain the reason why you were
| asking for a product by the size of its box when they responded
| by saying that size of the box does not map to size of the
| product? Being open about your goal would've probably made it
| easier and less antagonistic as a process, right?
| politelemon wrote:
| It was antagonistic and condescending. But it's being framed in
| an /r/iamverysmart "ironic" way.
|
| Extrapolating from this article, this individual is likely a
| nightmare to work with due to their closed nature and
| unwillingness to share thoughts or decision making points.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I particularly liked the juxtaposition of their behaviour in
| the Apple situation with their later comment ...
|
| > I try to be careful to avoid this failure mode when
| onboarding interns and junior folks and have generally been
| sucessful, but it's taken me up to six weeks to convince
| people that it's ok for them to ask questions
|
| I kind of get the impression that asking the author questions
| is actually a very painful process.
| [deleted]
| rd11235 wrote:
| Agree. To put it in the context of the article, if the author
| looked at getting desired outcomes as a video game, then this
| article is just a rant, and time would have been better spent
| analyzing the situations for how to improve. The recurring
| failure mode is ineffective communication.
| afarrell wrote:
| Because the answer might take 10 minutes to explain.
| bradlys wrote:
| Are you really that smart if it takes 10 minutes to justify
| buying the computer with the smallest box?
|
| Probably not.
| moises_silva wrote:
| You can always explain in a few words why, even without
| stating your actual underlying reasons. The clerk doesn't
| need all the details. This person clearly struggled more than
| he had to if he would have just provided a reason the clerk
| could understand. I bet his lack of social skills and
| perceived "stubbornness" were a much higher contribution
| factor to the clerk being puzzled and may be even thinking he
| was being stupid.
| max_ wrote:
| >why don't you reveal your goals or thought process when
| challenged after asking a question that might be perceived as
| stupid?
|
| People are shallow and often don't spend a lot of time trying
| to understand other people.
|
| You won't always have the luxury to explain yourself.
| moises_silva wrote:
| I truly do not understand this attitude and I can only guess
| comes from repeated exposure to an unfriendly environment.
| We're not talking here about exposing your soul to the world,
| a few words to explain why you want the smaller box would
| actually save a bunch of time and misunderstandings. Given
| how society works today, it's just easier.
| threatofrain wrote:
| But Dan Luu isn't obviously motivated by a desire to antagonize
| the Apple employee, and neither is he socially or morally
| obligated in the slightest to explain his consumer intentions
| during a purchase at the Apple store.
|
| And was the encounter really antagonistic? Dan Luu is the one
| who left looking stupid.
| entropyie wrote:
| Consider that the shop is unlikely to have the laptops stored
| or annotated by box size.
|
| Dan was asking the employee to expend considerable additional
| effort to find the smallest laptop box when he potentially
| knew the model number, or least had a reason that would
| justify the extra work. I would have just said "I'm really
| tight on carry-on space", not to avoid looking stupid, but to
| assure the employee I wasn't breaking their balls for no
| reason.
| genewitch wrote:
| So you'd lie to the employee?
|
| He touches on this later in the article after comparing
| thoughts to another person (who is block quoted) who seems
| to wonder the same things as a lot of commenters here...
| entropyie wrote:
| I would have synthesised a brief approximation of the
| real reason. Transport being one real possibility.
|
| The point is that this is a two way transaction with a
| real person, who has their own hidden state, goals and
| limits that are not always apparent to a consumer.
|
| E.g. company policy on deducing what the customer really
| needs.
|
| How was the employee to know Dan was the _one_ person who
| actually knew what they needed, out of 100 over confident
| buffoon 's that came to the shop that week.
|
| This is why I don't hassle the support person fixing my
| internet when they run through support script.
|
| I don't say "skip this, I have an honours degree blah
| blah", cause they have enough constraints to deal with as
| is... And once in a 100 times, I _will_ learn something I
| didn 't know...
| threatofrain wrote:
| IMO, falsehoods do not constitute dishonesty anymore than
| truths constitute honesty. Honesty is about the sharing
| of clarity, and sometimes teachers Lie To Children1 and
| other times people confuse or obscure with facts. What
| matters is a sensitive understanding of what clarity
| means to others.
|
| Anyways, if you tell a store person "oh, I'm getting this
| for my husband" when it's a gift for yourself, that's
| more honesty than dishonesty, because to the store
| person, "clarity" with a customer is very goal oriented.
| Dan Luu wasn't trying to screw with the store person, and
| in the end they all got what they wanted, even if Dan Luu
| walked away "looking stupid".
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children
| verve_rat wrote:
| I disagree. He might not be morally obligated, but his is
| certainly socially obligated. Customers ask for the wrong
| thing all the time. A problem solver, as any good retail
| sales person should be, will ask questions to help the
| customer understand their own needs and the available
| solutions. That story just shows that Dan Luu doesn't
| understand the social process that happens in the retail
| environment.
|
| That he doesn't care if he looks stupid is besides the point
| here. He looked stupid to the retail worker not because he
| didn't explain his underlying reasons for wanting a small
| box. He looked stupid because he didn't understand the retail
| sales process. That is to say, he was stupid, about that one
| thing, and that is why he looked stupid.
| gizmo wrote:
| But why can't you just ask for what you want without people
| automatically assuming you're stupid? If you care that
| strangers think you're dumb you have to adjust your behavior a
| lot and some people would rather just be genuine. Besides, the
| easiest way to not look stupid is to make up a reason that
| sounds reasonable (i.e. lying) to get what you want. This is
| what many (most?) people do. If they want the Apple computer
| that comes in the smallest package they'll make up a BS reason
| (i.e. flight luggage restrictions) in order to seem reasonable
| to the stranger who works at Apple.
|
| The question is really what kind of person do you want to be?
| Do you want a person who habitually lies about unimportant
| stuff in order to accomplish goals? Do you want to be a person
| who is genuine but gets unfairly judged by strangers? Or do you
| want to be a person who justifies themselves to strangers in
| order to avoid getting judged?
|
| If you think lying is wrong and seeking the approval of
| strangers is a bad habit only one option remains.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The writer conflates "the person at the Apple Store was
| trying to be helpful" with "the person at the Apple Store
| thought I was stupid".
|
| Part of the job of someone working in a customer-facing,
| sales job is to understand what the customer wants. A sales
| associate at an Apple Store probably has dozens of
| interactions every day where they're able to help people
| understand the products better and enable them to make a more
| informed decision. That is their job.
|
| Saying "I just want the one that's in the smallest box" makes
| you look like a customer that's in need of guidance and help,
| and someone who's probably going to have a bad experience
| with the product if they don't get it.
|
| Getting irritated by a response that is trying to help just
| shows a lack of empathy. People are not robots and there is a
| really good reason that the "white lie" is a thing.
| tester34 wrote:
| >But why can't you just ask for what you want without people
| automatically assuming you're stupid?
|
| I guess the reality is that huge majority of customers in
| those shops aren't proficient at technology at all,
|
| so it's incredibly good bet that customer has no idea what
| s/he's doing.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Yeah, the "smallest box" story comes to me very wrong. It
| basically shows him as really stupid -- as he is simply failing
| the "describe the goal, not the step" rule in most "how to ask
| questions" guides -- e.g., http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-
| questions.html#goal .
|
| Not only that, but he is also implying that people "who design
| processors" must also know our way around shopping for
| computers. This couldn't be farther from the truth.
|
| So this story does not come off as an example of "I don't mind
| being seen as stupid", it comes off as a very strong example of
| "I'm holier than you"-attitude which is the entire opposite
| than the article author's is trying to make.
| lukeholder wrote:
| >So this story does not come off as an example of "I don't
| mind being seen as stupid", it comes off as a very strong
| example of "I'm holier than you"-attitude which is the entire
| opposite than the article author's is trying to make.
|
| Exactly my thoughts.
|
| Even the way the story is told to the reader with: "which I
| had a good reason to want at the time", has the same
| sentiment towards us.
|
| "My reasoning is even above explaining to you, my reader."
| nonford150 wrote:
| I also have issues with blood draw. I always tell them I have
| "squirrely" veins. Always thanked for the info; often they just
| use a butterfly.
| rcthompson wrote:
| Apparently I have a talent for asking basic questions in a way
| that doesn't make me look stupid, because I ask a _lot_ of
| questions, especially when learning new things, and I don 't
| think I've _ever_ been called stupid because of it.
| luthfur wrote:
| Reminds me of Josh Waitzkin's concept of "investment in loss".
| Such a great and rewarding approach if you are able to suspend
| your ego and practice it.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| I think there is wisdom in this, but I also think there is value
| in some circumstances to making efforts toward behaving in a way
| that gets respect from others, because then they take you
| seriously. This can come down to manner of dress and tone of
| voice. It likely doesn't matter most of the time, but I feel that
| making an effort to not appear stupid in order to get the person
| drawing your blood to take you seriously is not a waste of time.
|
| It's true that I often care way too much about looking stupid and
| this post is really useful for reexamining that mindset and
| seeing how it's a mistake. Setting my ego aside and doing the
| best action regardless of how it makes me look would benefit me
| 99% of the time. BUT, I've had people in charge of some thing I
| care about dismiss my thoughts or contributions because it
| appears to them that it's not worth their time to pay attention
| to me. If I am collaborating on something that I know or care a
| lot about, I want my questions answered well and I want my
| contributions taken seriously. Sometimes that means I need to go
| out of my way to get the respect of this person. Being
| professional, making efforts to let someone know WHY I am asking
| a question, and asking revealing questions that benefit others'
| understanding, are not always a waste of time.
| diskzero wrote:
| My variation on this theme has been "Willingness to be Curious".
| codingclaws wrote:
| I like to look stupid too, it's just original if anything. For
| instance I named my HN clone Peaches 'n' Stink and everyone
| thinks it's just such a dumb name.
| [deleted]
| legohead wrote:
| This resonates pretty well with me, re: asking questions
|
| I noticed in classes that people were afraid to ask questions,
| and when they did, everyone else was happy they did so since we
| all had the same question in mind, usually. So at some point I
| decided I'm just going to ask any question that pops into my head
| and stop caring what others think.
|
| It worked out great, but now that I'm married, it annoys my wife
| to no end, especially with an engineer mindset. Like the old joke
| "go to the store and get milk, if there are eggs, get a dozen",
| and the husband brings home a dozen milks. I ask these seemingly
| subtle, stupid, clarifying questions all the time (ie: "a dozen
| eggs, right?"), and it makes my wife angry -- still after 10
| years of marriage.
| bityard wrote:
| Hah! I can relate. My wife and I have conversations like this
| all the time. I've been trained to take an engineering mindset
| towards things because, frankly, it's how I earn a living and
| rarely lets me down.
|
| Earlier in our marriage, she would make a vague request or
| statement as a prompt for me to do something. Instead of asking
| for clarification, I would do what I _guessed_ she wanted. And
| I would often get it wrong and be met with the response of,
| "You knew what I meant!" No, clearly I didn't, or I wouldn't
| have done the wrong thing.
|
| These days she is getting better at being clearer about her
| needs and I am (maybe?) getting more diligent about asking for
| clarification.
| keeptrying wrote:
| There's a difference between willingness to look stupid and
| intentionally trying to flip the bozo-bit on others to figure out
| their boundaries.
|
| You can actually make this a habit and it becomes hard to fix!
|
| If you ever want to start a company, you have to make it a habit
| to look impressive.
| raman162 wrote:
| After reading, I don't think the author is willing to look
| stupid, I think they don't care at all if they look stupid, an
| attribute that I still think is remarkable. I wish I had the
| self-confidence to not care so much about what others think.
| Something I'm still slowly working on.
| lend000 wrote:
| This is something I'm working on. It's a lifelong process,
| especially when you get into the mindset of thinking you're smart
| (a problem for most folks on HN, and not necessarily because
| they're wrong).
|
| Nobody knows everything, and even if you're a hyper-conformist
| who always tows the line and parrots experts instead of
| evaluating ideas from first principles, you ought to find peace
| in the fact that 500 years from now (and perhaps even some in our
| lifetimes), people will look back at many of our most
| fundamental, passionate, and obviously true opinions with a mix
| of disdain, pity, and fascination.
| afarrell wrote:
| If you have ever read a supreme court transcript and thought "why
| did one of our justices ask this really obvious question", this
| is half of the reason.
|
| The other half is ensuring that certain things get into the
| official judicial record.
| Benlights wrote:
| This article starts with a nice premise but then devolves to one
| long humblebrag.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| yeah. that stupidity is important..
|
| https://journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/121/11/1771/3003...
| eng3n33r wrote:
| There are many skills where to acquire them you need to power
| through a phase of looking very stupid to make any initial
| headway at all. Getting through this is the difference between
| success and failure.
|
| Recently, I've been learning to sing better, with a focus on my
| higher register. One of the reasons most people cannot sing high
| notes well is that you inevitably have to go though a phase of
| singing high notes badly (and very loudly) first. Being a 'bad
| singer' (especially thanks to TV talent shows) is often seen as a
| paragon of looking like a dumb, shameful, naive idiot who
| overestimates their ability and lacks talent. This is despite the
| fact that every good singer was once a bad one.
|
| I've noticed this same pattern in varying degrees of extremity
| across many sills I've picked up over the years. It is when you
| are in the 'stupid' phase, regardless of what is is you are
| learning, you're unlikely to get any sympathy positive
| reinforcement from the world, before then hitting an inflection
| point where you get loads. Knowing that you need to push through
| this to succeed is golden.
| vjust wrote:
| I think he's almost flaunting it - but there's real value in the
| concept. One thing I have realized is that "was I stupid to do
| this" feeling has something to it. Like being laughed at by my
| colleagues because I was carrying a "Programming Python" book in
| ~2008, when Java was the rage. Like buying that odd exercise
| equipment on eBay, which felt really stupid, and then it's been
| my desk-side companion over the last 18 pandemic months. Stupid
| is sticking your neck out, stepping out of the herd and being
| alone. Like me leaving an established metro and buying a house
| online in a smaller town (never having seen in person) - and it
| turning into an amazing home, a cheaper, popular destination in
| the covid-migration, getting amazing neighbors - leaving some
| friends behind, and maybe paying covid-prices (those still feel a
| bit stupid).
|
| Being in that 'good stupid' state makes you initially acutely
| uncomfortable (once the decision sinks in), but later on it
| proves to be not so stupid, in fact the best thing you could have
| done. 'Ignorance is bliss' may be related. Lots of 'stupid'
| simple minded people have come out well in life.
|
| But often times stupid is real stupid and lands you in trouble -
| we all know that side of the equation - now maybe even that has a
| reward to it - in terms of the lesson learnt.
| claytn wrote:
| I have to remind myself of this all the time. The older I get the
| worse I am about asking questions on topics I don't know. "Ugh I
| should know that by now", is a pretty common thought that goes
| through my head. Definitely trying to unlearn this habit by being
| willing to jump in Discord groups and asking dumb questions.
| Never a bad experience so far!
|
| Great read!
| vagab0nd wrote:
| I think willing to look stupid is easy, because you already
| figured it out. So you know you are not stupid and you are kind
| of showing off in a weird way.
|
| The one step forward is willing to _be_ stupid. That is you know
| you are stupid but still not try to hide it. And most of the time
| it 'll just be that: you are stupid. But once in a while you
| discover something deep.
| ncmncm wrote:
| The problem with looking stupid is that actually stupid people
| (i.e., people who do actually stupid things) are dangerous both
| to themselves and others. So, seeming to be stupid leads people
| to distance themselves from you, to avoid being caught up in
| expected consequences of stupid actions.
|
| Donald Rumsfeld was both actively intelligent and very actively
| stupid. Staying away from him was smart.
|
| He could have just asked the Apple droid to bring out one of each
| laptop in its box, and picked one without saying why he was
| picking that one. The whole transaction would have gone quicker.
| So, making himself look stupid produced a predictably suboptimal
| result in that case.
| stared wrote:
| Once I've heard "never let your ego stand in the way to your
| goals". It does marvels, both in personal and business life.
| cbg0 wrote:
| Some of the things mentioned in the article make me think the
| opposite of what the article is titled. The lack of transparency
| into the thought process of the individual shows that there is a
| willingness to _not_ look stupid by giving away reasons which
| might seem silly, otherwise they 'd be more direct in the way
| they ask questions so as to also reveal their thought process.
|
| If you care about what people think of you, perhaps you should
| first ask if there's anything you can change instead of expecting
| more from others.
| krumbie wrote:
| I've experienced it many times how intimidating it can be to ask
| about things in a new workplace that seem to be commonplace
| there. Especially in the US, where abbreviations are used for a
| ridiculous number of things. You just can't break through this
| barrier if you don't ask what people mean, and it gets worse over
| time if you avoid it for fear of seeming dumb.
| amelius wrote:
| "The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute; the man who
| does not ask is a fool for life."
|
| -- Confucius
| jaygray0919 wrote:
| My variation on this is based on years of management. My quip: +
| I only hire people who are smarter than I am. + I am the dumbest
| bloke in the business. Everyone is smarter than I am.
|
| Like "Willingness ..." it's a tool to remove your ego from and
| look-for/work-with 'talent' thru a (slightly more) objective
| lens.
|
| As an individual contributor, it opens you to alternative ideas
| (learning from others). As a manager, it allows your team to
| build confidence and be open with you about problems and
| potentially radical alternatives.
|
| A variation on this idea: + the only things I know I learned from
| other folks.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| huh. i just realized a lot of people probably think i'm stupid.
| halotrope wrote:
| Joe Rogan seemed to have exploited this concept to great success.
| He does not seem to have any more than very superficial or
| anecdotal knowledge about most topics, just vaguely remembers
| some bits. Always needs to have things explained from the very
| start and listens with an open mouth. In the and he is always
| amazed by what he has learned. Might be common in interview
| settings but seems to be extraordinarily effective for these
| long-form podcasts. I remember he got called out for being
| actually very smart by Jordan Peterson once.
| devnull255 wrote:
| Is this post about being willing to look stupid or about not
| being afraid to ask questions? In my own experience, I was more
| afraid of asking questions because I was afraid it would expose
| me as not paying attention in class or not being prepared. I was
| afraid of being embarrassed by the question. I suppose one could
| say this might also be read as afraid of looking stupid, but
| stupidity itself is ironically not as simple as some might
| believe.
|
| I remember the first time I heard the statement: The only stupid
| question is the question you don't ask. This statement bewildered
| me, because I thought I might be the one that asked "that"
| question. If this sounds confusing, I most likely read that
| statement as "the only stupid question is the the one you
| shouldn't ask and if you don't know what makes a question stupid,
| you're probably too stupid to know."
|
| This fear of asking stupid questions made me unwilling to take
| math courses beyond Geometry. I ended up getting further math
| education when I started my IT career in 1990. I overcame my fear
| of asking questions in the course of doing my student teaching
| assignment before that.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Heh.
|
| My standard classroom experience is that I ask "dumb" questions
| all the time, often eliciting guffaws.
|
| By the end of the class, though, everyone is asking me for help
| (even the guffaw people).
|
| For me, _really understanding_ the material is critical. I can't
| deal with rote.
| PatronBernard wrote:
| I'd be nice if the author would provide some answers for the
| "stupid" questions that the readers will inevitably ask
| themselves when they read about laptops and the size of the boxes
| they come in. Or how else will they acquire a better
| understanding of the point the author is trying to make?
| [deleted]
| codedeadlock wrote:
| Not asking stupid questions is not a function of age but
| conditioning. I have seen children asking all type of questions.
|
| For adults, looking smart is more important and if asking dumb
| questions hinders that capability, then we tend to avoid it.
|
| https://binaryho.me/journal/dumb-questions/
| bruce343434 wrote:
| Makes me wonder what his reason was for wanting the computer that
| came in the smallest box.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| In grad school, there was a certain well-known, extremely-senior-
| in-the-field professor who would show up to seminars and ask
| pointedly basic and naive-sounding questions (some might call
| them stupid). A lot of these questions were actually somewhat
| penetrating, and had an occasionally entertaining effect on the
| speaker. I learned much from this professor.
| tester34 wrote:
| >The benefit from asking a stupid sounding question is small in
| most particular instances, but the compounding benefit over time
| is quite large and I've observed that people who are willing to
| ask dumb questions and think "stupid thoughts" end up
| understanding things much more deeply over time. Conversely, when
| I look at people who have a very deep understanding of topics,
| many of them frequently ask naive sounding questions and continue
| to apply one of the techniques that got them a deep understanding
| in the first place.
|
| Just be like this girl :P
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q89tdSjE-0
|
| >Learning a sport or video game: I try things out to understand
| what happens when you do them, which often results in other
| people thinking that I'm a complete idiot when the thing is looks
| stupid, but being willing to look stupid helps me improve
| relatively quickly
|
| Overall author came up with this concept of "looks stupid", yet
| it does already exist as "failure teaches more" or just
| "curiosity" in my opinion.
|
| Overall2:
|
| Maybe
|
| Why Is It So Hard to Be Rational?
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/23/why-is-it-so-h...
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| The first step to knowing is acknowledging not knowing.
| nate wrote:
| This reminds me of something I stumbled onto in grade school.
|
| In 7th grade, a teacher upset me for some reason I can't even
| remember. But being a brat, I went through this phase where I
| decided to waste her time and constantly pepper her with just
| tons and tons of questions about what we were learning. Some just
| "stupid" questions I already could surmise but wanted her to have
| to frustratingly retread over. And some legitimate things too
| where I just wanted her to go deeper into something.
|
| I would love to apologize to that teacher of course. I was
| definitely being a spiteful jerk.
|
| But incidentally, I noticed my grades were getting better.
|
| It dawned on me: the more time I spent coming up with questions,
| even ones that students would groan over how stupid they were,
| the better I'd do. Admittedly some of my questions probably
| didn't even need to be asked, but I decided to stop filtering
| myself on what's a good question. If there was any doubt at all
| in my head, from something a teacher would say, my hand would
| shoot up.
|
| And so I just kept doing that through high school and college and
| noticed when I was vigilent at this, my grades were great. I
| think some of this behavior has stuck with me, maybe not
| perfectly though. I think getting older and being seen as an
| "expert" in some fields now, has probably biased me to stop
| asking as many questions unfortunately. But ruminating on this
| experience and the OPs is a great reminder of that bias, and
| maybe something I can keep improving in myself.
| asimjalis wrote:
| An important factor here is that sometimes when people ask stupid
| questions they just haven't done the homework. "Instead of doing
| a Google search let me blast an email to everyone at work." It's
| useful to give an indicator that you are asking at a deeper
| level. For example, briefly mention some of what you have found
| and why it is unsatisfactory.
| rStar wrote:
| the dating example is stupid. when you assume you make an ass out
| of you and me.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Which example?
| davidcollantes wrote:
| I think OP is referring to this:
|
| > For example, if a date thinks I'm stupid because I ask them
| what a word means, so much so that they show it in their
| facial expression and/or tone of voice, I think it's pretty
| unlikely that we're compatible, so I view finding that out
| sooner rather than later as upside and not downside.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| this is anti-dating advice.
| emodendroket wrote:
| There are many good insights in this piece but I'm dying to know
| what was going on with the small-box Mac.
| seancoleman wrote:
| 10 years ago in my mid 20s, I was a product manager at a tech
| BigCo (not FAANG). Just after starting, I was in a casual in-
| person meeting with my boss, my boss's boss, and a couple other
| executives (closer to a meet 'n greet than formal meeting). I
| don't remember much of what happened in the meeting, but I
| distinctly remember the feedback my boss gave me shortly after
| the meeting: "I think it'd help you if you don't ask obvious
| questions because it makes you look dumb" (I remember it being
| delivered more compassionately, but that was the essence).
|
| At the time, I was young, insecure, and fraught with imposter
| syndrome (viewing virtually everyone as smarter than me) so I
| took it personally. That feedback gave me a visceral "that has
| got to be the worst feedback ever" reaction.
|
| Fast forward 10 years, I've reached the point where I don't think
| twice about asking questions in any setting. I'm secure and
| confident in what I know, understand the vastness of what I don't
| know, and try to be vulnerable about this truth. I'm no longer
| worried about looking dumb. Maybe some people still think "well
| that's a dumb question, he should know that" but I'd rather have
| this experience, while retaining my adaptability "superpower" of
| being able to dig to the root of a problem, quickly learn
| context, and rapidly provide solutions.
|
| I think about that feedback a lot.
| darkmatterrat wrote:
| This whole post just reads as a shallow attempt to justify odd
| behaviour and poor communication and try to disguise it as some
| argument against vanity (while ironically being quite vain as his
| tone comes off as high handed).
|
| I wonder how many times he thought he knew better and it bite him
| in the arse? He did allude to it, but I suspect it far more often
| than he would be willing to admit.
|
| > Car insurance: the last time I bought car insurance, I had to
| confirm three times that I only wanted coverage for damage I do
| to others with no coverage for damage to my own vehicle if I'm at
| fault. The insurance agent was unable to refrain from looking at
| me like I'm an idiot and was more incredulous each time they
| asked if I was really sure
|
| This is typically more expensive as people that get third party
| insurance are usually newer (and younger drivers) so the
| insurance company will charge you more because their algorithm
| for determining cost will factor that in. So I don't doubt he was
| getting strange looks because it likely cost him more money and
| you don't get the obvious benefit of full comprehensive.
|
| This and the laptop situation screams of "I made a strange
| request and didn't explain my motivations and then I wondered why
| I got strange looks".
|
| It is just him communication poorly. Which isn't anything to brag
| about.
|
| > On the flip side, the person I was living with at the time
| didn't want to wear the mask I got her since she found it too
| embarrassing to wear a mask when no one else was and become one
| of the early bay area covid cases, which gave her a case of long
| covid that floored her for months
|
| The whole mask effectiveness isn't as straight forward as he
| thinks it is. His flatmate after the mixed messaging from the
| media probably thought it was a wash and decided to just fit in
| with everyone else and was unlucky as a result.
|
| I have no idea why this guy is so popular. Whenever I read
| anything from him he seems completely unlikeable.
|
| EDIT: Rephrasing.
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| This reads like this flip side of Paul Graham's essay, "Why Nerds
| are Unpopular" http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html Spoiler
| alert: he thinks it's because whereas most people try really hard
| to be popular, nerds focus on other things. Like understanding
| the root cause of an issue, even if it involves making yourself
| appear stupid.
|
| I can't say it's news: I'm like that myself. It has it's
| downsides though. I focus so much on the real world, things like
| spending hours on personal grooming to impress others just don't
| happen. My wife thinks I'm a slob. I'm a very tidy & clean slob,
| but it's true.
| drited wrote:
| Dude cares so little about looking stupid that he writes an essay
| to explain that he really wasn't actually stupid all the times he
| looked stupid.
| josephg wrote:
| After a terrible breakup years ago I took a trapeze class. Before
| we got up on the trapeze bar, I spent most of the class telling
| everyone how bad I was going to be at it. When I got home I lay
| in bed confused. Why did I do that? This article is spot on. I
| was afraid of being seen to be bad at something.
|
| Have you noticed? We spend almost our entire adult lives doing
| things we're good at. Anything we do that we're bad at, we either
| stop doing or we get good at it. So all roads lead us away from
| the experience of being a beginner. For me, it had been too long.
| And I'd accidentally forgotten how to do it.
|
| So I took up dancing (which I'm bad at). That was really
| terrifying. And trampolining. And more recently improv. At the
| moment I'm learning to draw - which I spent most of my life
| wanting to do. But I never stuck with it because I hate drawing
| badly. But that's just what it feels like to be a beginner. The
| trick is letting that go, because it doesn't matter. You don't
| get to be good at anything without first being bad at it. And
| being comfortably, visibly bad at something gives everyone else
| permission to play.
| stavros wrote:
| I don't know, I generally like being bad at things. Not because
| of the state of being bad itself, but because if I'm not doing
| something new, it's boring, and to be doing something new is to
| be doing something you're bad at. So I'm basically trying stuff
| and asking everyone for help _all the time_. I don 't care what
| others think of me, I like learning.
|
| I don't even think they think I'm stupid, I'm sure they
| appreciate the fact that I've made every mistake before when
| they come to _me_ for help later. I enjoy doing stuff more than
| I enjoy looking like an expert.
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _For me, it had been too long._
|
| I have a 5 year old and a 2.5 year old, and hang out with lots
| of small children. Fear of looking stupid as a beginner is
| something that most people have right from the start: I have
| watched kids be afraid of incompetence (to the point of not
| wanting to try) at riding a bike, running, swinging across
| monkey bars, drawing, singing, reading, learning a new
| language, ...
| aynyc wrote:
| Similar situation here. One of the things I found useful for
| skill-based activities is to take video. I took my kid's swim
| lesson from 3-6, the improvement is obviously drastic. Now,
| my oldest is starting to understand that while she's not good
| at something right now, she just need more practice. It's a
| huge mental change for her.
| fjfaase wrote:
| This might be culturally dependent, as in some cultures there
| is much more emphesize on competition than in others. Have
| you reflected on your behaviour towards your children with
| respect to this?
| jacobolus wrote:
| I think there is a significant (inherent or deeply
| ingrained) personality component to people's initial
| outlook. E.g. there was a pair of fraternal twins who we
| used to play with at the playground, and one of the pair
| was much more willing to try things while the other was
| much more afraid of being judged. More generally I have
| regularly seen substantial differences between siblings
| despite a lack of obvious differential treatment from their
| parents or any change of cultural values/norms.
|
| Kids of 2-4 years old seem to have similar range of
| behaviors across substantially different cultural groups,
| e.g. comparing kids raised by tolerant non-confrontational
| hippies vs. strict immigrant professionals.
|
| I imagine that learning to be comfortable as a beginner is
| something that can be trained / practiced. Some people
| certainly improve at it as they get older.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| > _Fear of looking stupid as a beginner is something that
| most people have right from the start_
|
| I'm a parent of a 5yo and surprised this is your experience.
| If anything, I'd say child behavior is the perfect _anti-
| example_ of fear of trying new things.
|
| Take one of the examples you provide: language. Young
| children ages don't care about using incorrect grammar or
| using the wrong words. This is why they're so good at
| progressing so quickly. Kids are way less afraid of failure
| than adults.
|
| I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a significant
| environmental impact to children's behavior as well; in most
| ways, they're blank canvases when it comes to skill-based
| behavior. Personality...not so much.
| jacobolus wrote:
| Kids don't mind listening to someone speaking a new
| language or reading them a story they can't understand, and
| they don't mind trying to communicate, but if you put them
| on the spot by asking them to do some kind of formal
| lesson, they freak out just like anyone else.
|
| The most important thing I have found when trying to teach
| kids [and probably most other people too] is (1) break
| tasks into very small steps, (2) make the lesson as low-
| pressure and fun as possible.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| I view performance anxiety and fear of looking stupid as
| a beginner as completely separate things.
|
| When you put the average adult learning a new language in
| a foreign country, they'll pause before new words, think
| before conjugating a verb, etc. Kids don't do that; they
| just talk. They don't worry about making a mistake, but
| adults (on average!) do.
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _performance anxiety and fear of looking stupid as a
| beginner as completely separate things_
|
| The same kid will happily try riding a bike if you just
| leave one sitting around where they can find it, but will
| balk if you ask them to try in front of their friends who
| already know how. I think a huge part (the majority) of
| people's fear of learning new skills is a kind of
| performance anxiety. Both fear of looking bad in front of
| others, and to some extent fear of looking bad to
| themselves. The other significant problem is an inability
| to break the new skill down into small enough pieces to
| manageably tackle independently.
|
| Speaking a language is always and inevitably a
| performance. But kids are typically given much more time
| and space to just listen without trying to speak, and are
| judged less when they do try. Some kids who move to a new
| country will just quietly listen for months before ever
| trying to say something in the new language; adults
| rarely have that luxury.
|
| But in any event, there are plenty of adults who are
| willing to try speaking foreign languages imperfectly,
| and studies have shown children and adults have
| comparable ability to learn a second language (indeed
| adults often improve faster at the start).
| matwood wrote:
| Exactly! We should practice being a beginner for our entire
| lives. It's a constant reminder to have that beginner mindset
| even where you _think_ you are an expert.
|
| I took up Jiu-Jitsu at age 40. Talk about humbling. I also
| catch myself occasionally doing what you did and mention how
| terrible I am/will be as a defensive mechanism.
|
| But, the more comfortable I got at being a beginner led to even
| faster learning. This attitude has spread through other parts
| of my life, even areas where I'm not a beginner, and has led to
| improvement across the board.
| darthrupert wrote:
| Martial arts are a hobby where I think this happens often.
| You could practice your whole life, but then you change
| disciplines or face a new teacher and suddenly you're doing
| everything wrong.
| memling wrote:
| > But, the more comfortable I got at being a beginner led to
| even faster learning. This attitude has spread through other
| parts of my life, even areas where I'm not a beginner, and
| has led to improvement across the board.
|
| I think there's a ton of wisdom in this. You learn to learn
| by, surprise surprise, being a beginner at something.
| Exposing yourself to broad areas in which you're a total newb
| can teach patience (I've yet to learn basic carpentry because
| I am one of those people who hasn't got the patience to
| measure twice), too.
|
| This is really insightful: being a beginner is going to teach
| you how to learn things, and that's a hugely transferable
| skill. (Besides, it's also really enjoyable.)
| Rayhem wrote:
| As the great Shug Emery[1] says, "You only get to be new at
| something once, so enjoy it!"
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/user/shugemery
| sam_goody wrote:
| There is a pretty well known speaker who wrote about his first
| public speech. He was to record himself, and it would listened
| to by some 5,000 people. He spent hours and hours re-recording
| himself, until a older friend stopped by and laughed at him, as
| follows:
|
| "You are being nervous because you think that you might not be
| perfect, and doubt creates a feeling of nervousness and
| unsurety.
|
| Well, I can dispel the doubt. You won't be perfect. In fact,
| you will be pretty lousy, because it is your first time, and it
| it is in front of a relatively large crowd.
|
| So two pieces of good news. You needn't be nervous. And its not
| so bad that it will go lousy. Because everyone knows it is your
| first time, anyway, and they are expecting you to mess up. And
| this way, in the future, you will actually be great!"
|
| A lot of wisdom there, IMHO
| onekorg wrote:
| I am starting to teach at my local University and this was
| just the thing I needed to read. Thanks a lot Sam.
| [deleted]
| criddell wrote:
| Can you tell me more about how you are learning to draw?
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm a natural at looking stupid. I'm always thinking outside the
| box and don't conform to most groupthink. My experience is that
| it doesnt help.
|
| The only way to get power and money is to have people with power
| and money want to give it to you. For that to happen, you have to
| share a majority of thought process, opinion, etc.
| jb3689 wrote:
| Majoring in math in college, I felt like this came up all of the
| time. Statistics is a prime example of a subject filled with
| subtle complexity and fairly wild/groundbreaking
| assumptions/insights that most people just accept as obvious fact
| for some reason
| rsp1984 wrote:
| After reading the first couple paragraphs it felt like Dan was
| telling stories about _my_ life, not his, down to the detail it
| 's almost creepy. Specifically this paragraph stood out:
|
| _Back in college, there was one group of folks that, for
| whatever reason, stood out to me as people who really didn 't
| understand the class material. When they talked, they said things
| that didn't make any sense, they were struggling in the classes
| and barely passing, etc. I don't remember any direct interactions
| but, one day, a friend of mine who also knew them remarked to me,
| "did you know [that group] thinks you're really dumb?". I found
| that really delightful and asked why. It turned out the reason
| was that I asked really stupid sounding questions._
|
| And that group of people, when they failed tests or scored badly,
| it was always the test that was "unfair".
|
| I wanted to write a blog post about this very topic for a long
| time, but it has now become obsolete because there's no way I
| could do a better job than Dan. Outstanding.
| kaydub wrote:
| This title spoke to me. I work with some very talented engineers.
| I often feel like I'm asking stupid questions. A couple coworkers
| treat me like I'm an idiot. But I don't really care. I'd rather
| know than have an ego.
| createunderrate wrote:
| Epictetus said something similar almost 2000 years ago: "If you
| want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with
| regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know
| anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to
| others, distrust yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your
| faculty of choice in a state conformable to nature, and at the
| same time acquire external things. But while you are careful
| about the one, you must of necessity neglect the other."
| germandiago wrote:
| Sometimes I was even scolded for asking too much from other
| people that knew me on the basis that if I did it it did not look
| good, it would look like I blabla... all stupid things about how
| you look to others.
|
| I never stopped doing it. I will never stop. I do not care. At
| the end, what I want, is to know new stuff.
| softwarebeware wrote:
| Kahneman's Thinking fast and thinking slow explains all of this.
| The fast-thinking part of our brain (the sub-conscious) tells us
| the "obvious" answer all the time. And it is WRONG. It's only by
| asking "stupid" questions that we start to engage our slow-
| thinking conscious brain and find out the truth.
|
| Idiots.
| bambax wrote:
| > _I added more air filtration capacity when I moved to a
| wildfire risk area_
|
| Well, okay, but maybe the non-stupid thing is to not move to a
| wildfire risk area.
|
| In general the list of circumstances where the author was willing
| to "look stupid" to strangers because he was, in fact, clever and
| seeing into the future, is mildly irritating.
|
| Feynman's first wife put it better: "what do you care what other
| people think?"
| AtreidesTyrant wrote:
| works with comedy too--some of those who are willing to ham up
| the stupidity do so because they understand that others 'like' to
| feel superior
| m3kw9 wrote:
| The problem is that there is really a stupid question, people
| often can't tell since they are a bit clueless to begin with.
| Example is if you are a newly hired subject matter
| expert(Security for example) and you question something like what
| is a buffer overflow in a meeting, that could mess you up. It's a
| extreme example, but anywhere in between, it could be hard to
| tell if this is the one question that could undo me.
| boxfoxdox wrote:
| If there is one thing I learned is that what makes you being
| pervecived as stupid is the way you are asking the qestion,
| rather than the thing you dont know.
|
| For example for some bizzare reason I am percieved as strange bu
| very inteligent and yet when I ask the questions they are rarely
| percieved stupid.
|
| Why I am not going out of my own way to sound smart or anything I
| display depth of knowledge at certain areas and the way I'm
| asking questions is in an honest inquisitive matter of fact way.
|
| The other side of this is the way one perceives the reactions,
| for example they might not reacted as if one was stupid as much
| as they are confused at disparity between the question asked and
| the knowledge one has showcased before that question.
| bob_neumann wrote:
| True story:. I'm a techie and a nerd and I've always been near
| the top of my class. One of the things that I enjoy is it really
| dry humor. And one of the ways I can get a laugh out of people is
| by stating something that is obvious as though I just figured it
| out. Or intentionally making massive understatements. Like if I
| just broke my arm and I would say something like, "I have found
| that breaking your arm is unpleasant."
|
| When you say it around people who are generally quick witted, it
| takes a second for them to grok what you're saying and then they
| figure out that you're cracking a joke and then they smile,
| usually laugh.
|
| But years ago I found myself working as an aircraft mechanic. And
| my cohorts whom I rode around with were very blue collar in
| language and culture, and several of them had been chosen as
| "mechanic" because they hadn't performed that well on an aptitude
| test.
|
| So one day I made one of my famous observe-the-obvious funny
| statements, and one member of the group whom I'm pretty sure was
| one of the low aptitude scorers, looked at me with obvious
| disgust and said, "You must be one of the dumbest people I've
| ever met."
|
| He didn't understand why I started howling with laughter.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| dan if you are around why did you want the smallest box?!
| degrews wrote:
| I've searched the whole thread for an answer to this. I'm so
| curious now...
| fossuser wrote:
| When you ask questions you learn faster.
|
| I think there's some stuff here where he could have done a better
| job explaining why he was curious about something (the smaller
| computer box).
|
| Generally people are afraid to ask questions when they're afraid
| to look stupid. This creates a harmful feedback loop.
|
| Part of the reason for this fear is cultural.
|
| I try to go out of my way to encourage new hires to push through
| this fear: https://zalberico.com/essay/2017/02/21/asking-
| questions.html
| t0mmyb0y wrote:
| It is great to have others think you are stupid, which I am. They
| don't ask for anything.
| soheil wrote:
| This ties closely to plausible deniability. I seriously think
| this field is under developed and more people need to learn from
| an early age how the most plausible sounding explanation is not
| always, and maybe in certain fields even _often_ , not the right
| answer. It's easy for engineers to intuitively grasp this since
| we see so many oddball failure modes in software development.
| joethrow29292 wrote:
| >> I see that most people would choose to do the wrong thing to
| avoid potentially looking stupid to people who are incompetent.
|
| This post could be called "Unwillingness to appear human"
| k__ wrote:
| You can spin this endlessly.
|
| You look stulid and are stupid.
|
| You look stupid but aren't.
|
| You look smart but aren't.
|
| You look smart and are smart, but people think you're just virtue
| signaling. But you know that virture signaling actually saves you
| time discussing why your aren't stupid while still looking so.
|
| etc. pp.
|
| In my opinion, real gain in looking stupid is when you actually
| are and then know how to accept valid critique, or at least try
| to understand where it comes from before you know it's valid.
|
| Because then you actually learn something that could improve your
| situation.
| [deleted]
| zcw100 wrote:
| I used to work with a kid who while very smart and energetic but
| would start every conversation as though he had started it 10
| minutes ago in his head and just let it come out of his mouth
| when he saw you. Everything would be pronouns and it would cause
| an amazing amount of cognitive dissonance listening to him trying
| to figure out what "it" was.
|
| The best part was how condescending he would be when you asked
| him to explain himself. You could tell he thought you were a dope
| because you couldn't follow him because in his head he was a
| genius.
| sumanthvepa wrote:
| Lesson learnt from the blog post.: Avoid Jane Street. Hostile
| interviews are a red flag. It's okay for the interviewer to be
| unconvinced. But active hostility in a setting like this with a
| stranger indicates serious problems with the organisation's
| culture.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| I learnt a long time ago by a director (CEO) of a large UK
| company on how to assess people, their technical abilities and
| personality
|
| and that is to act stupid/ daft - not just one question, but for
| periods of time. and see how they respond to you
|
| a very effective technique when dealing or interacting with so
| called Subject Matter Experts. If they're an expert they should
| be able to explain complex stuff at a High/ medium/ low levels or
| just say they do not know.
|
| If they're not really an expert then they cover up their lack of
| knowledge
| spzb wrote:
| If they're not really an expert then they cover up their lack
| of knowledge and then get promoted into a management position
| telling the actual subject matter experts how to do their jobs.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| 'Fuck up, move up'
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| You need innner confidence in your intelligence to be able to
| bear outer stupidity.
|
| I think that's why many comedians are extraordinarily smart. Not
| because comedy requires intellugence, but because it requires
| looking stupid.
| rob_c wrote:
| Come back to academia, I keep along stupid questions all the
| time. Granted, my defence is I'm no longer paid to do science so
| don't mind looking stupid in that regard infront of the boss. I
| just build things for them to use.
|
| It's remarkable how many of the "stupid questions" ends up
| sounding like the synonymous "reviewer 1". And how many end up
| catching out high level problems which are lost in the detail in
| something new and exiting. Such as "OK we build and install it
| there and calibrate it, but what about networking and power in
| year 2 after the upgrade?"...
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| > Going into an Apple store and asking for (and buying) the
| computer that comes in the smallest box, which I had a good
| reason to want at the time
|
| > The person who helped me, despite being very polite, also
| clearly thought I was a bozo and kept explaining things like "the
| size of the box and the size of the computer aren't the same". Of
| course I knew that, but I didn't want to say something like "I
| design CPUs. I understand the difference between the size of the
| box the computer comes and in the size of the computer and I
| really want the one that comes in the smallest box", but just
| saying the last bit without establishing any kind of authority
| didn't convince the person
|
| > I eventually asked them to humor me and just bring out the
| boxes for the various laptop models so I could see the boxes,
| which they did, despite clearly thinking that my decision making
| process made no sense
|
| Oh c'mon, that's not fair. You have to tell us what the goal was.
| :) I'm super curious what a CPU designer wanted with the "laptop
| that came in the smallest box."
|
| Perhaps smallest box = smallest laptop = they wanted to study the
| form factor. But does the smallest laptop really come in the
| smallest box? And did the results of this experiment influence
| your future CPU design decisions? I feel like this arc deserves
| its own page.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| The funny thing is that "I design CPUs" has nothing to do with
| being able to pick the best possible laptop for one's needs.
|
| It's like saying "I know exactly which car I would like to
| drive every day because I designed the engine of a Ferrari".
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The funny thing is that "I design CPUs" has nothing to do
| with being able to pick the best possible laptop for one's
| needs_
|
| No, but it heavily points to that you know basic things, like
| box-size != laptop size, or what CPUs do, and how to compare
| them, which is all the author claims.
| bambax wrote:
| What would be funny would be if in some alternate universe the
| small box contained the biggest, bulkiest, most powerful
| computer.
| supermatt wrote:
| ive done exactly this and it was a gift that i needed to fit in
| cabin bag on a flight. you cant check-in items with lithium
| batteries.
| jbjohns wrote:
| It's amusing how many people are literally offended that they
| didn't explain why. But the answer we have is: because they
| wanted the smaller box. They are paying for it, no further
| explanation is required to the employee or anyone else. The
| employee should get the smallest box as requested and then they
| can try something like "may I know why you want the smallest
| box? I might be able to provide better help".
| jcheng wrote:
| It sounds like they politely tried to clarify. Dan was amused
| that they thought he might be stupid. But asking for a laptop
| based on such bizarre criteria without attempting to set any
| context for the human person who deals with _not CPU
| designers_ 99.9999% of the time, and then smugly calling out
| said human person for not immediately giving him the benefit
| of the doubt, _then blogging about the exchange_ in a self-
| glorifying post... I mean, I'm not personally offended, but I
| can see why people would be bothered.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| I'll try my best to alleviate you bewilderment. I think
| people are offended because there is a certain "contract" to
| social interactions that people are expected to comply with,
| and this behavior broke that unwritten contract. Furthermore,
| it's not apparent to readers what could be gained from
| breaking the contract like that, so it seems like breaking
| the contract for no reason.
| jbjohns wrote:
| I'm not even sure the actual behaviour broke any contract.
| What people are complaining about is a short entry in a
| list of short entries.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Studying thermals?
| dTal wrote:
| They're clearly talking about the packaging, not the computer
| case.
|
| Without any kind of prior on this person's intelligence, I
| too would, in the position of the Apple employees, gravitate
| towards the "moron" theory.
| spzb wrote:
| Or certainly the "eccentric" theory.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| If someone gives me a weird, unusual input that is often
| wrong, they know is often wrong, I know is often wrong
| and they don't even try to explain why on this case the
| input is valid, I'll definitely roll with "they're a
| moron".
|
| Not explaining is just playing games at that point...
| Like morons do.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Maybe. But now I can't get it out of my head -- is it true
| that the smallest box contains the smallest laptops in
| general?
|
| It raises even more (admittedly pointless) questions, like
| "Is that true for Apple laptops, or all laptops? I bet Dell
| packs their tiny laptops with a bunch of peripherals or
| padding. A larger box might get sold more frequently."
|
| And even for Apple, are the boxes physically smaller between
| different models? I unpacked an M1 MBP the other day and was
| surprised how large the box was compared to the laptop. I
| think there's a 13 inch and a 15 inch, and it almost seemed
| like the box was designed for the 15 inch.
|
| Hmm... This calls for an empirical study. Too bad I don't
| live across the street from an Apple store anymore, or I'd
| just go look.
|
| But "How could any of this possibly matter to a CPU
| designer?" won't be so easily resolved. E.g. even if it's
| true that the smallest laptop comes in the smallest box, why
| didn't they ask for the smallest laptop? The salesperson
| would've been like "Of course, it's right over here." It
| sounds like he compared the actual sizes of boxes, which is
| fascinating.
| theelous3 wrote:
| Fascinating? Come on.
|
| It's clear OP _wants_ to illicit this feeling of
| superiority from others, as even after the fact - and with
| unlimited time and space - they do not state the actual
| reason.
|
| Hypothetical time:
|
| Let's say we have some reason to want to buy the laptop
| with the smallest box. We'll say it's some reason so
| incredibly intellectual we could never explain it to anyone
| else because everyone else is so much dumber than we are.
|
| So, the best we can do while remaining perfectly honest is
| simply state we have this desire. Actually explaining it
| will either not work or cause the apple employee to turn in
| to a black hole.
|
| So, we stand around asking them like an idiot for the
| laptop with the smallest box, which we know is easily
| misinterpreted, but for no reason at all we feel like we
| must remain perfectly honest. This creates a back and forth
| as the employee - predictably (especially so to someone of
| our amazing intellect) - tries desperately to help us see
| our error in thinking.
|
| The whole process takes much longer and has been unpleasant
| for all involved.
|
| But hey... at least we got to feel really smart?
|
| Rubbish. The actually smart thing to do is to come up with
| a plausible reason for the stupid request. It's not even
| hard.
|
| "This is a vanity gift for my rich employers spoiled kid,
| to unwrap in some stupid status showcase. None of them
| understand computers. I know the request is stupid, but
| let's just get it over with. Can you show me the smallest
| packaged laptops please?"
|
| There. Nobody's time is wasted.
|
| There is a difference between a willingness to look stupid
| in order to achieve your goal, and a desire to look stupid
| while enjoying being a conceited "smart" person at the
| expense of achieving your goal.
| skybrian wrote:
| Or at least, if you don't want to say why, it could be smoothed
| over with "I know this is going to sound like a bizarre
| request, but I want the one that comes in the smallest box. I
| have my reasons."
|
| Acknowledging that you know your request is unusual makes it
| sound a lot less stupid.
| anotheryou wrote:
| You can also take out all the awkwardness with a disclaimer:
| "This may sound stupid, but I really care just about the
| packaging here: Would it be possible to show me... "
| simonswords82 wrote:
| My guess was that he needed a small box in order to fit it in
| his bag to take home?
| coldtea wrote:
| Because when paying $1000+ for a computer the criterium is
| the box it comes in fits in your bag?
| blntechie wrote:
| Might be a factor if taking in a plane or traveling
| overseas etc. taking it unopened.
| lukeholder wrote:
| Yeah but if that is true, why cause so much trouble and just
| said why you want the smallest box.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Totally agree - there's a difference between being willing
| to look stupid and going out of your way to look stupid!
| dangerface wrote:
| I think the sales person was causing the trouble tbh, if a
| customer knows what they want take the sale don't waste
| their time with 20 questions at the end of the day we both
| know the sales person was just trying to upsell the
| customer something they clearly didn't want. Its the sales
| persons job to take the hint and just make the sale tbh.
| Grustaf wrote:
| There is no indication at all that the clerk was causing
| any trouble, and Apple retail employees never try to
| upsell, whatever else you could accuse them of.
| medstrom wrote:
| It's my understanding that when a customer appears this
| confused, they'll come back with loud complaints and bad
| reviews if you just sell them what they asked for. And
| the Apple Store doesn't want to look like they do bad
| service, regardless of what happened.
| dangerface wrote:
| Thats fair enough if its a wee old granny trying to buy a
| laptop box I would question it, but if I work at a
| computer store and some one comes in and asks me for a
| specific one of the computers we sell I would just sell
| them that computer.
|
| I work at an advertising agency if we buy something for a
| giveaway we care a lot about the box it comes in, not
| whats inside it as we will never open it. The person
| buying the laptop is probably a currier that knows
| nothing more than to buy a laptop. If the currier is
| getting interrogated by a 16 year old sales clerk thats
| costing us money and more importantly time.
|
| I get they are just trying to be helpfull maybe even
| trying to save us money, but we only ever use retail
| because shipping takes to long. For example we have 20
| laptops being shipped but need to take a picture of the
| box for promo material, we will happily pay for a new
| laptop and curriers simply so we can get a box in front
| of a camera so we can meet our dead lines.
|
| If we spend PS2k on a new laptop and curriers just for a
| picture thats money well spent if we meet our dead lines.
| If we miss our dead lines because some kid was trying to
| save us PS100 its going to cost us a fortune / client.
| babelfish wrote:
| There are dozens of configuration options for Macbooks
| that all come in the same size box. The size of the box
| is not enough information to select a laptop. The author
| was being intentionally difficult under the guise of
| superiority, and the Apple store employee was just doing
| their job.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Yes, because every low level Apple retail employee wants
| to have the following conversation with their boss:
|
| "The customer asked for the smallest box so I assumed
| they knew what they were doing and sold them that."
|
| "No, I didn't ask any further questions, I wouldn't want
| to assume they were stupid. That would be wrong in this
| narrative."
|
| "No, I don't know how exactly how much $$ Apple is going
| to lose on this return."
| dangerface wrote:
| I don't know what you are on about, I assume you haven't
| worked in sales, but I have and I have done this pleanty
| and the conversation goes like this:
|
| Boss: did you make a sale?
|
| Me: Yes
|
| Boss: good job
|
| Im sorry but if you work in sales and your boss gets
| upset at returns your boss is new to sales.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I'm having a hard time believing that you have a history
| in retail computer sales AND thought the Apple sales rep
| was the trouble maker in this scenario.
| amluto wrote:
| Here's a hypothesis: Dan needed to transport the laptop before
| opening it. It could have been a gift and the goal was for it
| to fit, wrapped, in a small suitcase. Or for some reason he
| needed a shrink-wrapped unopened laptop somewhere (as evidence
| that it hadn't been tampered with) and the quality of the
| laptop made no difference whatsoever.
|
| Even if this is wrong, I bet telling the salesperson that it
| was a gift and he wanted the smallest package would have
| avoided funny looks.
| tremon wrote:
| I'm going to guess it's about luggage size restrictions for
| (air) travel.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| We keep coming back around to why didn't the author say:
|
| "I want the one in the smallest box for <reason>"
|
| Instead of providing no reason and being smug in their
| assumption that they are both very clever and the barely over
| minimum wage employee assumes they are "stupid".
| sbierwagen wrote:
| It's also funny that he didn't even put it in the post. I'm
| not sure it's because of length restrictions, since the
| post is 4,495 words long. Maybe he wanted to keep under
| 4,500.
|
| Also perplexing: footnote 2 mentions the car tire paradox.
| (Traction is determined by weight and coefficient of
| traction, and those two things only. So why do high
| performance cars have wider tires, which shouldn't make a
| difference? Because softer and stickier tires are
| mechanically weaker and tolerate heat less well, so you
| need to spread the force out over a larger area.) But it
| doesn't actually mention the answer besides noting many
| other people are wrong, and also is _separately_ incorrect
| and says contact area doesn 't change based on tire width?
|
| Like, there's no clever counterintuitive Boyle's
| law/hydraulics effect where at the same air pressure a tire
| twice as big deforms half as much or whatever. Just the
| very obvious intuitive case that wider tires have bigger
| contact patches, which you can calculate yourself by
| plugging numbers into this tire calculator: http://bndtechs
| ource.ucoz.com/index/tire_data_calculator/0-2... and the
| BMW i3 electric car has a crazy thin tire to have a smaller
| contact patch and less rolling resistance:
| https://www.bmwblog.com/2015/04/24/bmw-i3s-tires-more-
| import...
|
| And the css thing... notoriously, everything on danluu.com
| has been completely unstyled for years. So every time one
| of his posts is on HN, someone comments about the
| unreadably wide lines, which could be fixed with a single
| `body{max-width:600px}` CSS rule.
|
| But the _reason_ everything is unstyled is because Dan
| installed octopress seven years ago, which had a braindead
| default theme that used custom fonts for everything,
| causing a glacial 15 second time to first paint:
| https://danluu.com/octopress-speedup/ Irritated, Dan ripped
| out all the CSS entirely, and the site loads in a flash.
| But now he has a trapped prior,[1] and any time someone
| says "CSS" to him he thinks, "ugh, that awful garbage which
| ruined my site" and refuses to touch it.
|
| 1: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/trapped-priors-as-
| a-ba...
| cxr wrote:
| > now he has a trapped prior,[1] and any time someone
| says "CSS" to him he thinks, "ugh, that awful garbage
| which ruined my site" and refuses to touch it.
|
| Do you know that's true? Are you extrapolating his mental
| activity from a limited set of facts?
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Yes.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Presumably you would throw the box away before air travel,
| and according to the article box size != laptop size.
| genewitch wrote:
| TSA might not ask you to turn on an unopened laptop,
| perhaps; but it had to do with the CPU above all else, I
| don't understand it but I don't understand half the stuff
| on that website. Still like reading it, though.
| sethammons wrote:
| I'm thinking the reason why people think the author is "stupid"
| is because each is working with a different set of base
| assumptions. The worker can't imagine a case where the box
| dimensions would be material as that box is likely to be in the
| trash can in n minutes. The author wouldn't hit so many cases
| of being looked at crossly if they worked to bridge
| understanding with the other person. All of the cases presented
| suggest to me person may have some emotional intelligence to
| develop.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Also needs to state what he means by "smallest". Volume? Width?
| Height?
| lolc wrote:
| I wondered about that story and concluded that the author knew
| which computer they wanted. They also knew that this computer
| came in the smallest box. So they only had to give that second
| bit of information to get what they wanted.
|
| It is a bit condescending in my view to withhold that
| information from the clerk. But then again, I'm only making
| assumptions. Also, I've done similar things where I refused to
| let on my internal reasoning for various reasons. Sometimes
| just to mess with people. And clearly, many people thought me a
| fool for it. If I'd actually told them my reasoning? In many
| instances that would not have improved their opinion of me. So
| no loss.
|
| There are also many instances where I could have benefited
| immensely from sharing my reasoning, because people could have
| corrected my mistaken assumptions. Can't say I've got it
| figured out when to keep shut and when to share.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| I agree it's condescending, especially as the clerk obviously
| wanted to find out why he wants the smallest box to better
| help him. If your experience from working at a computer store
| is that 50% of the customers ask for thing A but really want
| thing B because they have little knowledge about computers,
| it's correct to assume that the customer that wants the
| machine in the smallest box also has a weird idea of what
| that means, and probably really needs a different selection
| criterion.
|
| Saying "It's a gift so I don't care about the model but it
| needs to fit in my carry-on bag" (or whatever the reason)
| would have explained it, and nobody would have thought the
| other was stupid. So in this case he's actively inviting that
| judgement.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| _If it happened_ , he purposefully chose a request that he
| knew would generate confusion and discomfort in a situation
| with someone he has power over. It reminds me of the high
| school bully who fake-punches you, knowing you'll react, and
| then punishing you for how you react.
|
| At best he purposefully made things more difficult than they
| had to be. She was absolutely right to think that he was a
| "bozo." I generally strive to make things as easy and
| painless as possible for service workers I deal with, because
| I've been a service worker. It wouldn't surprise me if he has
| never spent a day in his adult life working a service job.
|
| Regarding whether this actually happened or not: did any
| notice that "small box" item is one of the few he doesn't
| actually explain and he's withholding information from us
| just like he did from the salesperson? It feels like a "look
| at me, I'm so very smart, watch me manipulate my audience"
| move.
|
| His disdain for his readers is pretty obvious from the fact
| that he puts zero effort into readability; there isn't an
| drop of formatting, it's just a massive wall of text from
| edge to edge of the browser window.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| I think he confused his trip to the Apple store with a
| riddle at a Google interview. I'll second that that made
| him sound like a complete dumbass.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| He did say he's willing to look stupid.
| soneca wrote:
| I don't share your assumption that he purposefully made
| things more difficult.
|
| My assumption is that he really didn't know which computer
| came in the smaller box (since, computer size, which is the
| public info about the product, doesn't exactly correlate
| with the box size).
|
| My guess is that he wanted to know which, if any, impact a
| small box would potentially have on computer components
| (like different impact absorption on transportation) that
| would require some CPU design adaptation. Like (speculation
| here, as I am nowhere near a CPU specialist): is a second
| memory clip more susceptible to be affected by
| transportation impact? So the box size is correlated with
| cheaper computers. Which tend to be larger computers, but
| can come in a smaller box because they don't have that
| second memory clip?
|
| Idk, but I am assuming good intent and reasoning behind the
| anecdote.
| ajuc wrote:
| "Hi, I'm doing research on $WHATEVER_IT_WAS, could you
| show me the computer you sell in the smallest boxes?"
| would prevent the confusion and awkwardness. It seems he
| gets out of his way to encounter these situations which
| is kinda rude.
|
| I still liked the article, I certainly have a problem
| with trying to avoid looking stupid too hard, at least in
| certain contexts.
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, exactly. I build weird machines, and I need parts
| that aren't designed for the weird machines (because
| nobody has built them before), so I usually go to
| unrelated shops.
|
| Last time this happened, I needed steel wire, and I went
| to a guitar shop to buy guitar strings. I told the
| employee "this is going to be a bit weird but I want a
| string that is 0.3mm in diameter for a machine I'm
| building, do you have any?" instead of letting him be
| puzzled why I would want a "0.3mm string" rather than a
| "C string".
|
| Usually people even ask and talk about about what I'm
| building, which is nice, but if it will take a long time
| to explain I say something like "it's not very easy to
| explain what it does because it's for a specialized
| purpose, but essentially it does <whatever general
| thing>".
|
| I've never had anyone think I'm stupid, but not for lack
| of asking stupid questions, I think. I just take a little
| more care to spend two seconds explaining why I'm asking
| the thing.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| There is nothing like the joy that lights up the face of
| a bored Home Depot employee when you say "looking for
| <weird thing>; it's for a kids costume". You can get
| several of them happily brainstorming alternatives and
| running around the store
| Zababa wrote:
| > His disdain for his readers is pretty obvious from the
| fact that he puts zero effort into readability; there isn't
| an drop of formatting, it's just a massive wall of text
| from edge to edge of the browser window.
|
| You can see this as disdain, or as respect: I'm free to
| bring my own CSS to this page, and have things look exactly
| how I want them too.
| beecafe wrote:
| Also, it works great in portrait mode e.g on a phone.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| I notice he doesn't afford his victim any generous
| assumptions.
|
| He's like; fuck you for thinking the guy basing his $2000
| computer purchase on cardboard is an idiot - I'm actually a
| secret genius CPU designer don't you know??
|
| Well yeah like, maybe she's got a Master's degree in
| Packaging Design and knows that the smallest box, in fact,
| has weak cornering or cannot be reclosed because it has to
| be ripped open or something.
|
| Is his request even well defined? There might be different,
| shortest, thinnest, shallowest boxes. Does it need to fit
| through a letterbox? Oh, ok, you don't care about depth
| then...
|
| Not to mention the double meaning that "box" has in
| computing...
|
| I noped out of the article at that point which is a shame
| because I do agree with the general idea.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| I like the formatting, FWIW.
| bena wrote:
| Yeah, I went buy a tablet and I wanted a specific form
| factor. So when the retail worker asked me what I wanted, I
| told them the specific product. They mentioned other models
| that were newer, faster, better, etc. And I simply told them
| that I was looking for one I could fit in my hand by
| basically palming it. (Being in person, I could just hold up
| my hand and say "hold it like this").
|
| Once I explained that, I was able to get what I wanted with
| no more questions. Now that they knew why I wanted what I
| wanted, they also knew what information was relevant to me.
| And I had already chosen the best model they had in that form
| factor.
|
| Communication should be simple, direct, and complete. That's
| where I don't care if I "look stupid". I'll go over basics if
| there's a chance someone doesn't know the basics. Because you
| can say, "Oh I'm aware of X", but if you aren't and I assume
| you are, you may be too embarrassed to bring that up because
| you're afraid I think you're stupid if you don't know it.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| I'll venture a guess why they asked for the computer that comes
| in the smallest box. They were buying a computer as a present,
| and they needed to pack it for travel before unboxing.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I have to say, this example did make me switch my view of the
| author from some one who wasn't afraid to ask the "stupid"
| questions to being either a deliberately "just asking
| questions" asshole who likes to fuck with people or, to be more
| charitable, someone with a bit of a spectrum disorder.
| MrQuincle wrote:
| I think it's better to be a bit more charitable here indeed.
|
| I also found it striking how the post is emphasizing how
| important transparency in asking questions is which might or
| might not reveal the intelectual qualities of the person
| asking, but then failing to be that transparent towards both
| the clerk and the reader of the blog post about the internal
| thought process.
|
| If one would like people to learn, enlighten them. :-)
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I have encountered both, I'm sort of leaning towards being
| charitable since the "just asking questions" crowd tends
| not to write articles about their behaviour!
|
| That lack of transparency seems to be a theme. I have
| difficulty with blood draws as well and I have never
| encountered a health care professional that didn't
| immediately switch to "ok, which arm is usually best" mode.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I've seen people getting a blood draw that the nurse
| wasn't willing to listen to. They'd tell them what
| usually happens, and how it goes best, and the nurse
| would ignore them.
|
| In the end, _every single one of the patients was
| correct_. Anyone who typically had problems with blood
| draws knew their problems well.
|
| Yes, most nurses listen. But there are enough out there
| that don't that I've seen it multiple times.
|
| I've said nurses, but I don't actually know their
| professions.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > I've seen people getting a blood draw that the nurse
| wasn't willing to listen to. They'd tell them what
| usually happens, and how it goes best, and the nurse
| would ignore them.
|
| Fair, it could just be my experience as a middle aged,
| white male coming into play here.
| nzealand wrote:
| Curiously, the best way I found to get past mental
| roadblocks, is to simply ask questions.
|
| I ended up with hundreds of parking tickets, for all
| different makes and models of cars.
|
| I quickly learned you get nowhere telling someone over
| the phone the ticket isn't yours because it's for a
| completely different make and model.
|
| I simply asked questions.
|
| What is the make and model on the ticket?
|
| What is the make and model of my registered car?
|
| Oh, they are different, why do you think that is?
|
| Questions are sneaky.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| >someone with a bit of a spectrum disorder.
|
| I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to see someone
| suggesting this, since it seems extremely obvious to me that
| this is part of the case. It's becoming fairly well-
| documented that one of the primary differences in people on
| the spectrum is _a difference in communication style_ , which
| anecdotally seems to be more direct and less apologetic or
| prone to "superfluous" verbal (/nonverbal) contextualizing.
|
| With the prevalence of people on the spectrum in STEM, it's
| no surprise that you'd see it here, and indeed looking at the
| comments you can see quite a few people talking past each
| other about what OP "should" say with what is clearly a
| mismatch in communication style.
| NumberCruncher wrote:
| >> someone with a bit of a spectrum disorder.
|
| > I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to see someone
| suggesting this, since it seems extremely obvious to me
| that this is part of the case.
|
| The whole thread has currently 1471 points and 681
| comments. I seem the be the 4th person realising, that the
| whole discussion is about "communication advices given by
| someone fighting the spectrum disorder". I don't know wat
| to say.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I think the problem is that there are really three people
| this behaviour would apply to:
|
| 1. Someone with a spectrum disorder.
|
| 2. Someone who enjoys dicking around with people.
|
| 3. Someone with a spectrum disorder who enjoys dicking
| around with people.
|
| I'm trying to figure out if the person is in group 1 or 3.
| If you encounter a few people in Group 3, it's then harder
| to see people in Group 2 in a good light.
| rmetzler wrote:
| I think that this is unfair to the poor Apple Store employee.
| There is no reason to not state the motivation, why you ask for
| the smallest box.
|
| Other than that, I also try to employ the naive question and to
| some people these might sound stupid. But they are really
| useful because they can clear up lots of implicit implications
| and misunderstandings.
| dade_ wrote:
| Did the Apple store employee ask why he wanted a computer
| that comes in the smallest box, or did he just assume the
| customer is stupid or ignorant? He doesn't say either way,
| but most people will make an assumption instead of asking.
| The downside to this approach in retail is that it invites a
| long story...
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I expect Apple store employees to deal with both "I want
| the 15 inch MacBook Pro in Gun Metal Gray with 16GB ram and
| 1TB drive" and "I'm looking for a good laptop for my
| daughter for university but I don't know anything about
| computers"
|
| Making any kind of judgments about their reaction to "I
| want the one that comes in the smallest box" is ludicrous;
| the behaviour itself is mildly sociopathic.
| mywittyname wrote:
| When you work with the general public long enough, you
| kind of learn to spot when people are fucking with you
| and to just leave them be. This is _especially_ true when
| working with technical stuff like computers.
|
| Good customer service is all about figuring out what
| people mean when they say ask for things. Sometimes they
| need genuine assistance, sometimes they just want to
| prove they are smart than you.
|
| If one was truly not afraid to ask stupid questions, they
| would have humored the sales person. Just recently I got
| a discount on some laptop parts, entirely because I asked
| the sales guy questions about upgrading ram in a laptop I
| was buying, even though I already knew the answers, I
| just wanted someone to double check my assumption. So I
| asked if he could help me pick it out.
|
| Turns out, he remembered that someone ordered, then
| cancelled the exact ram I was looking for, so he went to
| the upgrade center and got me a brand new stick of memory
| for the price of an "open box return."
|
| Be nice to sales people, even if you build the things
| they are selling.
| rmetzler wrote:
| Oh, yes, I also know a lot of people who don't try to find
| out and understand the motivation behind a request and
| instead just jump to conclusions.
| InsomniacL wrote:
| Only half plausible reason I can think of is for a 'Pass The
| Parcel' prize. Anything else, surly the smallest laptop would
| be preferable and you could repackage it.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I have to say this part (and quite a few other parts of the
| post) come across as quite arrogant. I mean if he really wants
| the computer with the smallest box, why can't he explain why.
|
| I agree with the general gist of the post: don't be afraid to
| ask stupid questions. However, the post has an underlying
| "feeling" of "my questions are not really stupid, I'm just so
| smart that others don't realise". I know that I ask plenty of
| stupid questions when I ask questions, I often realise how
| stupid they were just after the answer.
| kevinmgranger wrote:
| I think this interaction is an example of what "the customer
| is always right" is supposed to mean. Sure, the salesperson
| should verify that the person isn't using mistaken
| terminology, but past that, why not just help them? Or why
| didn't the salesperson take the initiative to ask them for
| the reason, instead of continuing to insist they were
| mistaken?
| mbauman wrote:
| But they did help him. I don't see this as a huge
| indictment on the rep here -- they _do_ deal with people
| who are very ignorant of tech everyday. Maybe it took a
| while to convince them, but I think that's just as likely a
| failing of communication.
|
| > I eventually asked them to humor me and just bring out
| the boxes for the various laptop models so I could see the
| boxes, which they did, despite clearly thinking that my
| decision making process made no sense
| seoulmetro wrote:
| >"my questions are not really stupid, I'm just so smart that
| others don't realise"
|
| Sounds like this was the point of the blog post. He also
| drops that he was "very good" at Overwatch and "#1 in the
| world". Usually the people who want to tell others about this
| in public are not very good.
|
| The ones who are very good are the ones who only tell you
| after you've tried teaching them. Since bad players in games
| often can't tell what good players look like, or how they
| play.
| jszymborski wrote:
| I frankly had the same impression. It felt it was less about
| the willingness to look to stupid, but rather the stupidity
| of people who surrounded him and their inability to see this
| individual's brilliance.
|
| Perhaps this is an unkind reading, but particularly the
| laptop scenario felt telling that this person might feel
| above explaining why they might prefer a laptop which comes
| in a smaller box.
|
| On the surface that is very much a ridiculous request,
| regardless of how sensible it might actually be. Surely that
| shouldn't stop you from making the request, but you must
| understand that someone is merely doing their job to make
| sure that you understand what you're asking for.
|
| If I go to a tuba shop and ask how many litres of ranch
| dressing it holds, I'm not going to scoff when the
| salesperson reminds me that it isn't a fancy brass bowl.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| On the other hand, if I was in a situation where I wanted
| the computer with the smallest box for whatever reason, I
| would find it really difficult to ask for that because I
| would be embarrassed by how it doesn't fit the expected
| pattern of what I should be looking for. I will often wimp
| out and not be clear about my preferences in situations
| like these because I'm afraid of awkwardness. So I do
| admire the willingness to speak up about unusual
| preferences.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Yeah, this looks like a typical case of the "XY problem"
| where it's really hard to tell if the person making the
| request is framing that request wrongly/with unnecessary
| constraints to satisfy what they actually want.
| myohmy wrote:
| This is why I look for sales training in my hires. Its
| clear that the Apple rep was asking probing questions
| trying to wrestle him into a decision funnel. I've sold
| laptops to a bunch of grandmas who've given me questions
| like that, and never to a "CPU designer".
|
| ...come to think of it, maybe one of the grandmas was a
| CPU designer all a long!!
| davidivadavid wrote:
| She's probably fuming right now that you dared ask her a
| concrete question about what she wanted.
| genewitch wrote:
| What could possibly be more concrete than "bring me the
| computer what comes in the smallest box"?
| [deleted]
| NiceWayToDoIT wrote:
| I think it is measure of time, for author it looks simple to
| put everything in few words instead of having long
| explanation, I find this typical in IT, where my coworkers
| all the time trying to compress explanation in fewest words
| possible. Maybe laziness or type of optimization, but usually
| back fires as other people ask you multiple questions,
| arising from their own point of view.
| b3morales wrote:
| That doesn't sound like backfiring to me. The hardest part
| of explaining something complex is matching it to the
| recipient's existing frame of reference. Letting them lead
| the explanation by asking questions can be an effective way
| for them to fit the new information into their current
| understanding.
| NiceWayToDoIT wrote:
| > The hardest part of explaining something complex is
| matching it to the recipient's existing frame of
| reference.
|
| Nicely said, I was trying to say that significant number
| of us is quite bad at it. And on the other hand, if
| frames are completely different, first compressed
| explanation looks like "noise noise word noise noise
| ...". On the other hand, often I see people struggling to
| start explaining as they know they will loose 30 min of
| time just to get to basics, so saying "I need computer in
| smallest box" - can be translated to "I want you to trust
| me and not bore me with you daily sale's pitch script you
| have learned by cart, I do not have time explain, I just
| need what I want not what you want to recommend me,
| unlike other customers I do not need your assistance I
| just need you to give me what I want. If customer is
| always right, just give me what I want, and I will make a
| purchase and you can move to the next customer."
|
| Sometimes I think that this inpatient arose from search
| engines, where you type at most 3 words and you get your
| 10 results you were searching for. So, I assume it is
| reflected how we communicate with other fellow humans,
| demanding immediate results instead of 2 way
| communication.
|
| We can argue it is rude, but for person who built his
| strong will over years in a hard way, attempt of
| manipulation and selling is also rude and intruding.
|
| I do not have you ever been to Turkey or Greece where you
| have these shop owners who are literally trying to drag
| you in to the shop so you can buy something. For them it
| is like a ritual or the game, but if you do not want to
| be part of that theater show, you will find it very
| annoying.
|
| In many Balkan countries they will ask you multiple times
| to eat or drink, and polite answer is "I cannot" but if
| you give that answer it is basically conversation starter
| for "Why? Are you ok? Is there something wrong...", it is
| part of social game to continue conversation. If you
| answer "I don't want to" although it is technically most
| correct, you will be showered with responses as "that is
| rude", "we will not poison you", "why is something wrong
| with my food", "why are you angry at me" ... and all you
| wanted to say is "I do not need any food or drink at this
| time as my body does not needed it, and I am perfectly
| content with my energy and liquid levels" :)
|
| So, for many technical persons, who live most of their
| live in their own head, trying to juggle multiple ideas
| and resolve who knows what, small talk can be a major
| annoyance.
|
| And I do not want to start with "this is secret project
| idea I am working on, I should not share it with anyone,
| someone may steal my idea ..." and everything along those
| lines...
| dangerface wrote:
| I try to give short simple examples because when I try to
| tell people the truth their eyes glaze over and their brain
| turns off while the nerd talks his techno jumble.
|
| Non technical people only have the patience to learn /
| listen to very basic concepts.
|
| > but usually back fires as other people ask you multiple
| questions, arising from their own point of view.
|
| I don't think this is back firing its just giving the non
| technical person the time to take in whats been said and
| then they ask follow up questions to confirm their
| understanding. I have had people get frustrated that I was
| talking down to them, when that happens I stop and talk to
| them as if they have my knowledge and they immediately
| regret that and ask me to go back to explaining like they
| are a child. Its not me trying to fluff my ego by talking
| down, I just legitimately know more about the topic than
| them, thats why they are paying me, I guess some times they
| just need reminded of that.
| joeberon wrote:
| > Non technical people only have the patience to learn /
| listen to very basic concepts.
|
| What a stupidly arrogant comment. Have you not heard of
| philosophy, for example?
| amusedcyclist wrote:
| Yeah but we generally don't work with philosophers, we
| work with sales people and marketers. I respect their
| skill but they generally aren't the types to be
| interested in learning new things
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Or any non-STEM field...
| karmelapple wrote:
| > Non technical people only have the patience to learn /
| listen to very basic concepts.
|
| I know many people who would consider themselves non-
| technical, yet who certainly take the time to learn
| complex concepts. Some of those are indeed technological
| concepts.
|
| > I try to give short simple examples because when I try
| to tell people the truth their eyes glaze over and their
| brain turns off while the nerd talks his techno jumble.
|
| The short simple examples you give are also truthful,
| correct?
|
| Perhaps the additional information you'd like to explain
| simply isn't needed for the other person's goal.
|
| A great way to have both technical and non-technical
| people's eyes glaze over is detailing all kinds of minute
| details before describing some of the high-level goals or
| giving context as to why you're getting so deep into the
| details. As you mention, simple examples can get a lot
| across, and can be a springboard to more questions being
| asked, to allow the other person to decide what depth of
| knowledge they would like to know.
|
| The non-technical person you're talking to may very well
| have the patience to learn the deep technical truth you'd
| like to explain, but they may have no reason to know it.
| In the scenario you're thinking of, you're doing the
| technical work, not them, correct? So why would they need
| to know deep technical details? A basic outline, with
| some corner cases pointed out, is likely all they need.
| Not because they don't have patience to learn what you're
| explaining, but because they have other things that are
| more important to their or your organization's success.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Our genuine joy and excitement about the minute details
| of subnetting or data compression or whatever; during
| those explanations often doesn't help either.
|
| I scare people when im enthused about something. Its a
| bitch.
| kakuri wrote:
| I failed a technical interview at a large financial institution
| and I'm sure the interviewers thought I was stupid. As I gazed at
| the atrocious code they wanted me to make changes to and listened
| to them misuse programming terms as they tried in vain to
| communicate what changes they wanted me to make I'm sure my
| bewilderment was all over my face. Everything else about the
| company was great, but all my enthusiasm died when I saw into the
| engineering side of the business.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| A problem with asking stupid questions is that if the person
| you're asking is not smart, you're gonna get stupid answers.
| Sometimes you have to ask it in a "smart way", or you'll be
| sitting there going back and forth for an hour while the other
| person keeps giving you stupid answers, because they couldn't see
| why you were asking a stupid question.
|
| The opposite also happens. You ask a stupid question, and people
| try to give you "smart" answers that aren't actually answering
| your first question, because they assume you're stupid / "doing
| it wrong".
| kace91 wrote:
| I get the appeal of minimalism in the format, but at the very
| least some margins or a max line length would be welcome. Having
| to read this with lines extending all across the screen is
| ridiculous.
| joeberon wrote:
| Unfortunately common among many technical users, they have no
| sense of page design whatsoever, and instead go for the "raw
| data" approach. It is bizarre
| hoseja wrote:
| What's the screen for, then?
| kace91 wrote:
| to visualize content in the best possible way?
|
| 4k screens can easily support ridiculously small font sizes,
| but you wouldn't decide to use that just because it's there.
| Similarly, you would not want 15 inches long lines of text
| completely breaking the concept of paragraphs just because
| your screen can reach that width.
| dottedmag wrote:
| Try making the browser window narrower.
| kace91 wrote:
| I mean sure, I can, but it's kind of silly having to put the
| effort to make the content more readable. I think that should
| be on the presenter rather than the receiver.
| andrewla wrote:
| This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get
| pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on
| because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have
| apparently been stalling out.
|
| I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's
| time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I
| just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to
| walk through all the super-obvious stuff to satisfy the one guy
| who didn't do his homework.
|
| So I start asking questions, and slowly begin to realize that
| nobody in the room has any idea what they are talking about. That
| there are fundamental misunderstandings and misconceptions about
| existing systems. And, naturally, it turns out that the questions
| I have are questions that other people have.
|
| This has happened to me so often now that you would think the
| sinking feeling I get before I brace myself to look stupid would
| go away, but it never does.
| simonw wrote:
| A lesson I've learned over time is that it's incredibly common
| for people within a company to have very different mental
| models of what different terms mean - especially if they work
| in different teams or departments, but sometimes even people
| the same team.
|
| My favourite examples are things like "what is a user?" - the
| marketing department may be counting leads generated, engineers
| are thinking about records in a database table, some other team
| may think of users as company or group accounts.
|
| This holds true for all kinds of other things too. You might
| have a project called "the login optimization project" and find
| that some people think it's about page load performance while
| others think it's about increased conversions.
|
| For this reason, I'm always ready to ask the stupid questions.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| > "what is a user?"
|
| I have spent _far_ more time than should be necessary
| aligning on terms like "customer" and "user."
| lcrmorin wrote:
| I work for the government so really know this feeling. I have a
| funny exemple in mind. Months ago I got pulled into a meeting
| because 'I know data'. The phrasing alone was a red flag. Lots
| of high level people in the meeting. Like 10 people, each one
| payed at least twice as much as me. The goal is to transfer
| data that is too big for our 'standard pipelines'. They are
| discussing building a whole new pipeline, contractors would be
| involved and all. I asked 'stupid questions': "- How big is the
| data we are discussing ? - '200 Go' - is it recurring ? - No -
| is it sensitive ? - No - Why don't we buy a 50$ 1to hard drive
| and transfer the data manually ?"
|
| Last question was followed by the longest silence I ever heard
| in a meeting... I wasn't invited the next meetings. I heard it
| took them more than 5 other meetings to reconsider my solution.
| An intern has finally been sent to buy the hard drive last
| week.
| cutemonster wrote:
| I wonder if they felt that your idea made _them_ look stupid
| / incompetent. (Which it seems they were)
|
| Maybe then they didn't want you in the meetings?
|
| (Whilst the idea was good so that's what they did in the end)
|
| (200 Go = GB I suppose)
| cjalmeida wrote:
| The problem was throwing the solution at their faces like
| that. The key to looking stupid is not making others look
| stupid.
|
| There are ways to create roundabouts so that the solution
| looks "elegant" but only after "hard thought".
|
| There's also the risk that the simple solution has some real
| limitation (eg. some regulatory issue) then you'll will
| indeed look stupid
| bedobi wrote:
| This is me all the time haha sometimes I really am just
| "stupid" and the only one in the room without a clue, but many
| many times my stupidity has revealed no one really has any idea
| what they or the others are talking about.
|
| I'm grateful to my parents or whatever it was that enabled me
| to not take myself too seriously and not care too much about
| people thinking I'm stupid, even at work, and even though it
| may cost me dearly in terms of career progression. (because I
| do think not all but many people who get ahead do so by very
| successfully avoiding being perceived as stupid, even if they
| are)
| mywittyname wrote:
| One of the best people I've ever worked with used this
| approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so
| I'm understanding the problem, <here's my interpretation of
| what you just said>." were two phrases she used _all the time_.
|
| I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her
| technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is
| one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is
| knowing what obvious questions to ask. Most of the time when I
| ask obvious questions, the replies are yes/no. She knew how to
| ask them in such a way that gets the person talking in greater
| detail.
|
| It's kind of like being a great interviewer, there's a
| technique to asking questions in a manner which gets someone
| talking.
| mnsc wrote:
| For me, I think it's about your speed of thinking. If you ask
| a probing stupid question and get a "yes". If you are quick
| to reassemble your very low level of understanding into a
| (wrong) model, you can ask question about this model. "So
| that means that x goes into y to do z?" which makes you
| indeed look stupid but it also triggers the person explaining
| into "ok, this is a full out idiot, I need to go slow and
| explain in extreme detail". But then I interrupt when it goes
| to slow with a new pieced-together temporary model from some
| fact they let out and ask a new maybe less stupid question
| that makes the explainer go "ok, maybe they understand a bit
| more" and goes faster/skips details. And then it's like that
| back and forth until I understand it all and my questions
| goes into the territory of "yeah, that bit I don't understand
| either..." which leads us to go on a joint adventure into
| even greater understanding. A fellowship of the stupid.
| datameta wrote:
| My own issue with this method is trying to avoid sounding
| like I'm vying for brownie points by demonstrating
| knowledge after asking (what to them might be) a
| rudimentary question, especially so if my "update" is
| partially incorrect. It is to the point where I won't show
| someone I am aware of something simple they have just
| pointed out to me. Which either is something the author of
| the blog would condone or I have misconstrued in which
| instance it is useful to look like you have less
| understanding than you really do.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Most of the time when I ask obvious questions, the replies
| are yes/no. She knew how to ask them in such a way that gets
| the person talking in greater detail.
|
| Dumb question here, but is it as simple as starting your
| question with "how" or "what" rather than "does"? The former
| invite explanation and the later looks for a yes/no.
|
| My big thing lately is to not ask rhetorical questions (which
| can be sarcasm in disguise) as they either cause people to be
| defensive or simply agree. Either way they do not speak
| directly about the "obvious" problem.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| > Dumb question here, but is it as simple as starting your
| question with "how" or "what" rather than "does"?
|
| I really appreciate that you used the technique that people
| were discussing and it still seemed to work here, at least
| it worked on me. I found myself thinking, "No no, that's
| not a dumb question at all and I feel grateful that you
| asked it!"
|
| So, thank you for that meta experience :-)
| marttt wrote:
| > Dumb question here, but is it as simple as starting your
| question with "how" or "what" rather than "does"? The
| former invite explanation and the later looks for a yes/no.
|
| Yes, this is the 101 of basic interviewing in journalism.
| Inexperienced reporters often ask too many "does" questions
| and are puzzled afterwards as to why the interviewee didn't
| talk much.
|
| "Does" is also used when the journalist aims or pushes for
| a straightforward, yes-or-no answer. For example to
| interfere to a politician who is trying to avoid direct
| answers by trolling the interviewer with some off-topic
| agenda.
|
| See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws
|
| Also, this is a funny proposal with regard to the Five Ws:
| https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/additions-to-
| th...
| cutemonster wrote:
| & "(can you) describe (how) ..." is supposedly helpful
| too
| LegitShady wrote:
| I do this all the time. I'm a non computer engineer who gets
| pulled into all sorts of computer related things as the
| contact point with the actual business. Having a good BA and
| someone who asks stupid questions make such meetings end in
| positive results much more often.
|
| I also preface with saying I'm going to ask stupid questions
| and if anyone holds it against me I'm ok with it. If I'm
| asking a question it's usually because I don't understand a
| consequent of something someone said that everyone seems to
| just nod their heads and agree with, and that gives everyone
| an opportunity to reconsider the fundamentals.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| The top Business Analysts always posses this skill, too.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| One thing you learn in sales is the value of open-ended
| questions. Until you consciously look at it, it's hard to
| realize how bad the questions we tend to ask are.
|
| Yes/no questions are the worst. But even questions like "What
| did you do?" aren't great because the answers can often be
| rather short.
|
| A better question is often posed like "Tell me about X" or
| "Describe how you did Y".
|
| Of course this isn't universally true, there is value in
| binary answers.
|
| But often you may find yourself, let's say in a sales
| context, asking something like "What tool are you using for
| project management?"
|
| The answer will then be something like, "I'm using Jira".
|
| Instead, if you ask, "Tell me about what you're doing for
| project management on your team", the answer may be much more
| detailed.
|
| "We follow the agile methodology and use Jira for our task
| management. We've got a dedicated project manager on the team
| who..."
|
| Getting good at asking the right questions is worth the
| effort.
| Zababa wrote:
| That depends. Yes/no questions are great when you want to
| quickly validate something. Open-ended questions are great
| when you want to get a lot of information. Yes/no are for
| confirmation, open-ended for exploration. Different goals.
| indymike wrote:
| Hmm. Often times, an open ended question results in a
| much more accurate answer. Humans tend to approximate or
| even lie to force an answer to fit a limited choice
| question. Example: you want to know if water is falling
| out the sky. You ask: Is it raining? Response is no. You
| walk out the door and are rendered unconscious by golf-
| ball size hail.
|
| Better to have asked, "what's it like outside?" or,
| "what's the weather right now?"
| Zababa wrote:
| Again, I think that depends on where you are in the
| exploration/confirmation spectrum. I don't really think
| about it when doing it, but usually I use open ended
| questions for stuff I don't know, and yes/no questions to
| link things to my existing mental model.
|
| That also depends on the person. With some people open
| ended questions are great, with others yes/no are better.
|
| I'll also add that yes/no questions are often faster if
| you get the response you expect.
| cutemonster wrote:
| Maybe appending "... Or something else?" to a limited
| choices question can avoid the problem GP @indymike
| mentioned, whilst still generally be quick
|
| Is it raining or something else outdoors?
|
| Do you like Vi or Emacs or something else?
|
| Do you want to hang out for a coffee or something else?
| Zababa wrote:
| Usually I don't think it's necessary. My yes/no questions
| are something like "Okay, so we need to put some more
| info into that file since that's what exported to the
| billing database, is that correct?". When I don't know
| something, I try yes/no questions at first. If I get
| "yes", then it's resolved. If I get a no, I will ask
| open-ended questions to explore the subect. Once I think
| I have a correct mental model ready, I will ask yes/no
| questions to validate it. If I get a no, then it's the
| cycle again.
|
| For the "Is it raining outside", I honestly don't know
| anyone that would just tell me "no" when there's hail
| outside. For the "Do you like Vi or Emacs or something
| else?", it would be "What text editor/IDE do you use?
| Why?". "Do you like Vi or Emacs" by itself is not a
| yes/no question, it's a "what box are you in" question.
| For "Do you want to hang out for a coffee or something
| else?", that would be something like "Do you want to hang
| out at <TIME>?".
|
| An important part for me is that in yes/no questions, no
| are supposed to be the exception. In my mind, when I ask
| them, it's not a 50/50 chance. It's more of a 80/20. If
| it was a 50/50 chance, that means my mental model is not
| precise enough.
| reidjs wrote:
| I think his response meant in situations where you just
| need to figure out which project management tool they use
| so you can log in for the first time, binary questions
| are the right tool for the job (information gathering).
| But I mostly agree that, in the big picture, the broad
| questions are more helpful for solving the complex
| problem you're facing.
|
| and nobody is going to say it's not raining when it's
| hailing outside... but I understand if that was just a
| metaphor. You're probably asking that question to figure
| out what kind of clothes to wear, and they would probably
| infer that. It's so contextual though.
| [deleted]
| leoc wrote:
| A similar technique is demonstrated in the old Video Arts
| _So You Want To Be A Success at Selling?_ video series
| starring John Cleese, in the Part 2 video ( "The
| Presentation") iirc, in a scene where a salesman uses the
| Five Whys (or what is effectively that, though the term
| isn't used) to prevent the loss of a customer account.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| "Is Jira replete with nonsensical statuses, tedious UI, and
| obscure query architecture?"
|
| Yes.
| gremloni wrote:
| Same.
|
| "Just making sure I understand this correctly... stop me if
| I'm wrong" has worked wonders for my ability to contribute to
| a meeting.
| clairity wrote:
| this is also part of a coterie of non-threatening
| communication most women implicitly learn while growing up,
| to realize desired outcomes without negative pushback.
| ree-san wrote:
| Am woman, hard agree!
| dharmab wrote:
| On my last team I coined the hashtag
| #StupidQuestionsEncouraged and used my role as a lead to both
| ask stupid questions and encourage others to do the same.
| fatnoah wrote:
| > "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm
| understanding the problem, <here's my interpretation of what
| you just said>." were two phrases she used all the time.
|
| This is my approach when getting pulled into something. If I
| have no idea, I want to get that idea. I'll also use "this
| may sound stupid, but..."
|
| One of the smartest people I've ever met in business was also
| this way. He also never nodded his head in agreement unless
| he actually understood and agreed. If he wasn't sure, he'd
| pause for a minute and work it out, even if it meant pausing
| the flow of the meetings. Some people interpreted it has him
| being "slow" but it really meant he actually understand all
| of the things he was nodding to.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Reminds me of something from decades ago in India, there was
| only television channel and it was state run. Early evenings
| were dedicated to rural areas and farmers there.
|
| Most of them were illiterate and did not understand what
| plant scientists or professors were talking about re inputs
| or seeds or Tractors etc needed to modernize Ag.
|
| So the format would be an interview in the middle of a
| coconut grove or a farm. The interviewer(usually female)
| would ask a question and the expert would answer. After he
| finishes answering, she'd turn towards the camera and go like
| "what you are basically saying is.." or "what he is
| saying.."..and she'd give the wrong details. Then the expert
| would interrupt her and explain it again with the correct
| answer. There were a lot of English words he'd use and she'd
| break them down in the vernacular and also in the same order
| as his sentence.
|
| These wrong things repeated by her were obvious
| misunderstandings anyone unfamiliar with fertilizer
| application would make...it was probably scripted so that the
| answer can be 'corrected' multiple times and also probably
| reflected mistaken notions by the viewer. Never once was the
| viewer(here, it was the illiterate non English speaking
| village farmer) made to feel dumb but always as though they
| are learning something valuable and special.
|
| It was like Sesame Street for farming adults. It was awesome
| and kept me glued to the television screen. I would memorize
| all the IRRI rice hybrids and probably was the only one in
| school who knew IR20, IR64 and IR8...and urea application
| rates for them.
|
| Ask anyone of a certain age who their favourite Sesame Street
| character is ...and you would have cracked effective
| communication technique for that time period.
| splatzone wrote:
| This is brilliant. I sometimes produce educational videos
| to teach kids programming. A recurring challenge we have is
| pitching the information at a level that's interesting but
| not confusing for beginners and kids who are less literate.
| This format I'd like to try out
| mandeepj wrote:
| > Most of the time when I ask obvious questions, the replies
| are yes/no.
|
| I guess you might be asking straight up binary questions like
| - is it happening due to xyz? Maybe, changing the question
| format to something like - what do you think could be the
| cause behind _fill the situation here___? Just my humble
| opinion.
| genghisjahn wrote:
| Whenever new people join the team, I always say, "Please ask
| stupid questions. I mean questions so stupid that you might
| think we would question why we hired you, because you think
| we think you should already know. Ask those types of really
| stupid basic questions. It will educated you, make us think,
| and I'm certain at least one other person already on the team
| doesn't know either."
| ryantgtg wrote:
| I usually say, "please ask stupid questions, because if you
| don't then you'll run off in the wrong direction and work
| on the wrong thing for a week before the next review, and
| you'll have wasted a lot of project budget."
|
| At my work, there's a bad combo of senior folks who whip
| off vague instructions in a single sentence, and junior
| folks who are afraid to ask questions. I'm in the middle,
| and I try hard to demonstrate that it's fine to badger the
| senior folks with questions, and to check in with them
| constantly. The senior folks like it because it gives them
| confidence that you're working it out. But some of our
| straight outta school colleagues just don't do this
| ("Gotcha. Sounds good!" is a very common email reply from
| them) and it leads to confusion down the road. After giving
| them the "ask questions" talk two times, I usually give up
| on them.
|
| Also, in my position, I often have to review and edit
| reports that are largely written by electrical engineers
| and architects, and they all probably think I'm super dumb.
| I read the reports as the target audience (often non-
| subject matter experts), and so my comments are things
| like, "What do you mean by this [basic EE concept]?" I
| don't preface it with, "I know what this means, but the
| client might not, please elaborate..."
| cmorgan31 wrote:
| Please, please keep doing this and encouraging this
| behavior. The more senior on the ic track you get the
| harder it is to find time to mentor. The reality is that
| is a core tenet of our position and we may be staying
| silent to not smother the room. If you need help and you
| have a competent senior they should encourage your
| questions or delegate to an appropriate senior if they
| are too busy.
| Kinrany wrote:
| > I usually say, "please ask stupid questions, because if
| you don't then you'll run off in the wrong direction and
| work on the wrong thing for a week before the next
| review, and you'll have wasted a lot of project budget."
|
| Does it help?
|
| This sounds like they are expected not to waste time, so
| it might get even harder to ask a stupid question a
| minute too late, and especially to ask something
| tomorrow.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| So far it completely depends on the person.
|
| But you're right that it might not be the best technique.
| I understand the hesitancy to ask questions after a
| certain amount of time has passed.
|
| I work as a consultant and our time has to be billed to
| projects. The onboarding stinks, so the new hires often
| have no concept of billability/utilization nor project
| budgets. So I'm trying to drill in those concepts, too.
|
| One of the additional lessons here is "the boss doesn't
| always know what they're talking about." And that's
| another hard one for them to accept. Question authority!
| If the instructions aren't clear, then they might be
| nonsense. Have the guts to challenge the boss. And
| sometimes the challenge can come in the form of a million
| stupid questions.
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| > The onboarding stinks, so the new hires often have no
| concept of billability/utilization nor project budgets.
|
| As an aside, do you think there is a business opportunity
| in teaching companies better onboarding? Growing
| headcount seems like an afterthought most places, and
| it's a colossal waste.
|
| The worst example I've seen is one company hiring some
| very expensive onshore consultants to build the basic
| structure of the application and then quickly hand it off
| to cheap offshore ones.
|
| What really happened is that the onshore guys created a
| horrendous mess of untested and undocumented code full of
| bugs that the offshore ones had no hope of making sense
| of. And being remote and from a culture of high power
| distance further exacerbated the problem. It certainly
| worked out well for the onshore guys who got to bleed the
| client out of a whole other year's worth of expensive
| hours.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| The company I work for has 60k employees. I think during
| the pandemic - which started before I joined - we let go
| of a ton of office managers and the in-house IT team. So
| now there is one office manager for each local office,
| and she had no capacity or skill to answer my semi-
| technical questions when I joined ("how does the software
| licensing work?" etc).
|
| So, maybe. It's risky, like you've demonstrated.
| cutemonster wrote:
| > But you're right that it might not be the best
| technique. I understand the hesitancy to ask questions
| after a certain amount of time has passed.
|
| Something like this maybe: go to the new person, in the
| beginning every day, then once a week, then once a month,
| and say:
|
| "Can you please ask three (3) basic questions about
| things you're slightly struggling with, and that you
| think everyone expects you to know, but that you don't?"
| serial_dev wrote:
| I don't like to say "I'm going to ask a stupid question".
| First of all, it feels disingenuous to me, people who say
| that never actually think that their questions will be
| stupid. And the second reason is that I think I might even
| convince myself that my questions are stupid... I know it
| sounds silly to some but little things like how you talk
| about yourself (and your questions) is important.
|
| I often ask these "stupid" questions, though. I usually start
| with: "it might have been said in other meetings, but just to
| be sure, what is...", "I might be a bit slow, could you
| explain X once again just to make sure I understand it", "So
| just to paraphrase what we've been discussing, X is Y, is
| that correct?", and sometimes I just ask "what does $acronym
| stand for and why is it important for us now".
|
| I, too, often find that nobody knows the answers to very
| basic questions and we are in a meeting of 6-12 people...
| gitgud wrote:
| In my view, admitting that you "might have a stupid
| question" is not disingenuous, it's a form of self-
| depreciation that disarms people and relaxes the room.
|
| It's important to treat yourself with respect, but people
| also respect when you admit that you don't know something
| simple.
| perl4ever wrote:
| It's "self deprecation", depreciation is something
| different.
|
| I'm not sure what kind of audience you think it works on.
|
| I tend to get (particularly from people under 40) one of
| two inappropriate reactions to reflexive self deprecation
| - either exaggerated sympathy for my plight, or treating
| it as an exposed weakness to attack.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| It's all about reading the room. If you're talking to a
| hostile crowd you're not going to expose weakness. I
| _hope_ that most of these internal alignment meetings are
| not hostile, and are instead conducted with the intent to
| best deliver value to the business. In these instances, I
| have found comments like "I'm sorry to ask a basic
| question here..." work well to explain that I probably
| don't have as much domain experience as the others in the
| room; that I'm not trying to school them on their domain;
| and that I'm simply trying to gain understanding so that
| I can contribute.
| perl4ever wrote:
| "I'm sorry to ask a basic question here..."
|
| Sure...but I think that an insight that I've gained is
| that this is an example of a _formula_ which doesn 't
| really communicate or explain all the things you mention.
| You aren't sorry, you don't know that your question is
| basic, and you don't think you're wasting peoples' time.
|
| In effect, it's a "pointer" to a bunch of things, so it
| only works with people that are conditioned to such
| things and have them in their memory. One of the things
| you mention, "not trying to school them" sounds to me
| like deference, and I don't think deference can be
| quickly established without a formula. Like a salute, you
| have to do something arbitrary in a mutually understood
| way.
| cutemonster wrote:
| "Basic questions" sounds nice :-) more nice than "stupid
| questions" I think.
|
| (Probably the questions aren't literally stupid, or the
| person maybe would never have been hired in the first
| place)
| gmac wrote:
| I think some of this might be cultural. For example, I
| think self-deprecation may be in general more widely
| appreciated in the UK than the US (though perhaps this is
| gradually changing).
|
| I'm reminded of Arthur Dent (British) in the Hitchhiker's
| Guide telling Zaphod, modestly, "oh, it was nothing"
| about something great he did, and Zaphod responding along
| the lines of "oh, it was nothing? In that case forget it
| then", which was not at all what Arthur intended.
| perl4ever wrote:
| Well, I'm American, and there were definitely bits in
| that book that totally failed to translate for me. For
| instance, "Ford Prefect" seemed like a perfectly normal
| name - IMO the American edition should've changed it to
| "Ford Escort".
|
| But being self-deprecating was not one of them. I feel
| like I'm surrounded by Zaphods, or something, and I'm not
| sure when it happened.
| gitgud wrote:
| Whoops, yes I meant self-deprecation (I added an 'i' by
| accident)
|
| Yes, some people will pity you, or treat it as a
| weakness. But having the courage to admit when you don't
| know something is a valuable trait that most people (in
| my experience) respect.
|
| Also if you demonstrate your knowledge in other areas and
| contribute value to the meeting, people tend to forgive a
| few stupid questions in another area.
| perl4ever wrote:
| But "courage" is exactly the sort of response that bugs
| me. It's not courage, or passive-aggressiveness, it's
| etiquette. Responding with praise, or pity, or a put-
| down, it's all a failure to appreciate the formula for
| what I consider basic etiquette.
|
| It's like when I'm having a meeting with my manager and I
| want to talk, so I start, they stop, I apologize for
| interrupting, and they say no, no, go on.
|
| I _assume_ there is no _emotional drama_ going on. If
| they _really_ want to continue talking, they can do so.
| That 's why I apologize and pause. I'm not _sorry_ , but
| I need to show appropriate deference.
|
| It would be unfortunate if someone was building up
| resentment because they're not on the same wavelength
| about appropriate behavior. The purpose of etiquette
| seems to me to provide a formula to negotiate common
| situations _without_ having to navigate emotional
| complexities.
|
| But when different people have different rules, there's
| not much that can be resolved.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > ...it feels disingenuous to me, people who say that never
| actually think that their questions will be stupid.
|
| I ask questions that have a decent chance of making me look
| stupid all the time. Even when the rational part of my
| brain says "if you have this question, it's likely that
| other people do too," there's a big part of me that
| worries, "nah, I'm the odd one out here."
| icelancer wrote:
| >> First of all, it feels disingenuous to me, people who
| say that never actually think that their questions will be
| stupid.
|
| I preface some of my statements with this, and I fully
| expect them to be stupid. In fact, many of the questions I
| ask that I don't preface with the above disclaimer are in
| fact quite stupid.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > First of all, it feels disingenuous to me, people who say
| that never actually think that their questions will be
| stupid.
|
| No, I often legitimately think that my question might (!)
| be stupid, because I'm aware that I'm coming into the
| discussion with less domain knowledge and experience than
| the other people in the room. I still think it's good for
| everyone (ie, not just me) to explain. (Sometimes it's
| clear that everything is just out of my league, in which
| case I shut up and let the meeting go on.)
| pksebben wrote:
| It's this very awareness of one's own limitations that
| allows folks to _overcome_ those limitations. If I might
| add my own (personal, biased, narrow) understanding; the
| whole concept of "stupid" is like a cognitive filtration
| mechanism. We filter ideas that others have by calling
| them "stupid" and then we attempt to avoid being filtered
| in that way, but that filter is kind of stupid. Unless
| you already know everything (protip: you don't) you run
| the risk of filtering based on an incorrect assumption.
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| I prefer using "basic" over "stupid". A basic question is
| literally about the basics or fundamentals, while a stupid
| question implies something is wrong with the asker to even
| need to pose it.
| saeranv wrote:
| Yeah I feel the same way. I never understood the "This may
| be a stupid question..." framing.
|
| Asking fundamental questions in order to build up to a more
| complex understanding is the most effective way to learn, I
| have no hesitation about asking such questions.
| not2b wrote:
| One reason for the framing (when used by a senior person
| or someone in authority) is to give permission to more
| junior people who may be holding back on their own
| questions because they are afraid of looking bad.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| It can easily backfire. Some one who has an urgent but
| basic question might refrain from speaking up if,
| beforehand, a senior prefaces their pointed probing
| question with "this is a stupid question...".
|
| It's better to just kick things off with naive questions
| or even use a bit of humor to disarm people, so they
| don't feel like they have to be "advanced" all the time.
| bonzini wrote:
| You don't say this _is_. You say "this may be" a stupid
| question.
|
| The point is not that anyone with the same question
| should feel stupid; it's that I don't care if anyone
| thinks I am.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| Depending on who is asking, the intention behind such
| framing is different. For someone in a leadership
| position, the point is to open up dialog and make folks
| comfortable enough to ask questions without them feeling
| they're at risk of humiliation or judgement. For others
| it may be to signal politeness and deference to the
| speaker.
|
| Whatever the case, there are more effective, more genuine
| phrasings to use than to literally invoke "stupidity".
| cutemonster wrote:
| > more effective, more genuine phrasings
|
| Examples please?
|
| I was thinking about:
|
| "I'd like to ask some things that might be obvious to
| many of you: ..."
| GordonS wrote:
| Yeah, I like this tactic, but I don't think phrasing it
| with the word "stupid" is helpful.
|
| I prefer to say things like "I'm not fully up to speed on
| this, so let's go back to basics/fundamentals for a
| moment", or "sometimes we're so focused on the details that
| we can't see the wood for the trees - let's take a step
| back and just run through it at a high level again".
| mattmanser wrote:
| That just sounds like corpratese though, the stupid
| question is much better in my opinion.
|
| With yours it's to easy for someone to switch off and not
| hear what you said because they think you're talking
| bullshit.
|
| In two sentences you managed to cram in 5 idioms/phrases
| that are basically corporate babble.
| ziml77 wrote:
| They sound like someone avoiding directly admitting that
| they don't understand something. Unwillingness to look
| stupid.
| cutemonster wrote:
| Gareth321 here
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28955167 mentioned
| "basic" instead of "stupid"
| crispyambulance wrote:
| Yeah, to pretend to be "stupid" and basically dismiss your
| own question is kind of cloying or may be seen as
| disingenuous or even passive aggressive.
|
| Folks who are good at communicating can always keep
| everyone feeling engaged and comfortable, while still
| getting to nitty-gritty WITHOUT resorting to saying stuff
| like "... this is stupid question, but...".
| ziml77 wrote:
| They're not pretending to be stupid. It's that they think
| their question might be stemming from not understanding
| something fundamental that everyone else in the room
| already knows.
|
| If you think they're being disingenuous because you think
| they do understand what's going on, then it actually
| supports why they feel the need to preface their question
| with that phrase. You expect that they know it, so they
| make questions around it less jarring by admitting that
| they probably don't know enough.
| [deleted]
| mcphage wrote:
| > people who say that never actually think that their
| questions will be stupid
|
| I use it all the time. Oftentimes they _are_ stupid
| questions. Sometimes they 're not, but generally that's
| when I'm not sure if it's a stupid question or not. And
| that's okay--the point is, it's fine to ask stupid
| questions.
| tombert wrote:
| I've stolen a similar technique from one of my favorite
| coworkers ever, which is to preface my questions but "This
| might be a silly question, but...".
|
| I like this because I feel like it kind of de-stigmatizes
| asking "obvious" questions. If you acknowledge that the the
| question might be redundant, but ask it anyway, I think it
| makes the dialog more approachable.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I think the biggest effect it has is that it stops people
| from thinking "is he stupid?" and getting annoyed at the
| question.
| nimbius wrote:
| the problem with this approach is that it makes building
| trust very difficult, as trust is based on a combination of
| character and competence.
|
| inquisitiveness during problem solving is admirable and good,
| but in the article many of the applications of 'looking
| stupid' only serve to render the author untrustworthy.
| pksebben wrote:
| I know this might come off as adversarial, but might that
| say more about your metrics for trustworthiness than the
| party at question? Which bullets from the article would you
| consider untrustworthy?
| jorgeleo wrote:
| https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-
| development/acti...
|
| When you active listen, even if the question might feel
| stupid, the feeling gets lost in the fact hat the other
| person is receiving your attention. This technique is also
| teach for other contexts like counseling, or debating using
| the Socratic method.
| technobabble wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestions. I'm commenting on this thread so
| I can save it for future reference.
| aroberge wrote:
| Perhaps a better approach is to click on "favorite" at the
| top. I personally find it easier than trying to go through
| my comments history.
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's embarrassing how long it took me to find that
| button.
| pjot wrote:
| Additionally, if you click the timestamp of a comment,
| you can "favorite" the individual comment!
| sharkweek wrote:
| VP in my org does this, and it really disarms the room.
|
| She's big on that exact phrase of "this could be a really
| stupid question, but..."
|
| She's also really good about making sure other people are
| rewarded for doing the same by reassuring someone asking what
| might be a dumb question as, "that's a a great question and
| I'm sure others were wondering the same..." before
| responding.
|
| Great leadership, IMO.
| nzealand wrote:
| An EVP of Ops of a fortune 500 did this to an entire room
| of functional experts.
|
| We were there to discuss a technical implementation.
|
| She kicked it off by saying "Let me start by asking a
| simple question, why do we do this function?"
|
| I am now considered a domain expert. I love this question.
| It surprises me at how few people start with the why, or
| even can articulate the why.
|
| The room of experts, were assembled to roll out a new
| product in their area of functional expertise. None of us
| had an articulate answer as to the why. She kept on asking.
| She gently challenged bad answers with a follow up why.
| Then when everyone gave up, she gave her answer as to the
| why. It was brilliant.
|
| Always start with the why. Then ask why again. Keep on
| asking until you understand why.
| beaner wrote:
| If it was just a setup to eventually providing an answer
| she already had in her pocket, is that the same thing
| really that's being discussed? Willingness to look stupid
| and earnestness to _find_ an answer?
| nzealand wrote:
| I like to assume everyone has a positive intent, until
| proven otherwise.
|
| I always ask people why, because I sometimes learn
| something new, I often learn about the knowledge level of
| the other participants, and it anchors everyone to the
| fundamental problem we are trying to solve.
| ValentineC wrote:
| Sounds a bit like the Socratic method [1], just used for
| making sure everyone is aligned with the fundamental
| goals.
|
| As someone who's recently been put in a position to make
| sure everyone's aligned (and failing quite a bit at it),
| it sounds like genius, in my opinion.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method
| perl4ever wrote:
| It doesn't seem like the same thing as asking dumb
| questions to uncover the truth that nobody has yet
| synthesized.
|
| When you already (think you) know the answer, then it's a
| pedagogical technique. That's ok unless you happen to be
| wrong about the answer.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The Socratic method is where they eventually realize the
| answer, not one where you make them all feel frustrated
| before finally revealing it.
| sitkack wrote:
| Wielded w/o skill, the Socratic Method comes of
| patronizing and trite.
|
| To stay respectful, it is polite to negotiate with all
| participants in its use.
| catach wrote:
| I assume frustration levels for both come down to the
| soft skills used to run the process.
| daveguy wrote:
| It may be that along the course of asking why 10
| different times from different people she was able to
| identify the answer. It sounds like she got quite a few
| fragments of answers first.
| didntknowya wrote:
| sometimes I go straight into technicalities for the sake
| of time (to colleagues at the same level) and wonder if
| they actually understood what i said.
|
| I like it when they ask basic questions. at least then I
| can then explain the basics to them without having to
| feel like I'm patronizing.
| indymike wrote:
| There is an interrogation technique called Five Whys. I
| believe it was created by S. Toyoda, and was and very is
| effective in root cause analysis. The basic idea was to
| ask a question and follow up with "Why?" until an answer
| contained an alterable behavior... that answer would
| usually come with the fifth why. Once in a while I use it
| in a business meetings, and as long as the person who is
| being questioned doesn't get defensive or hostile, it is
| surprisingly effective.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| 5 Whys is great for getting depth into one causal
| subtree, but based on a paper I once read, answers can
| lack breadth when there is more than one cause (which is
| often the case). It said that "Why" is often best
| answered with a directed acyclic graph of causal
| relationships.
|
| (Though when I tried to use a causal DAG for root cause
| analysis of an incident at my current company, I was told
| that I was wasting time and no one cares. But I thought
| the data I found was pretty interesting and worth
| exploring.)
| wheelinsupial wrote:
| Regarding the lack of breadth of a 5 whys analysis, there
| is a fishbone diagram that can be used before the 5 whys
| to ensure more breadth.
|
| In manufacturing there is usually 4 big topics (person,
| machine, material, method), but there are many variations
| that can be used.
|
| Trees or other visual depictions can be used too.
|
| The point is to have some sort of structure and adapt it
| to your needs.
| lowercased wrote:
| Similar here. Was pumped in an RCA with "why?" multiple
| times. The 'root cause' was I fucked up and missed
| something. But that was because "prod was broken right
| then, fix ASAP!" and no one else understands the problem,
| and we're understaffed, and people 'reviewed' the code
| without understanding what it was doing (or why) and one
| 'fix' led to another problem, and that 'fix' led to a
| third, and trying to explain this in an 'RCA' meeting
| confused the heck out of everyone because there were 3
| different days/times people saw the problem, and could
| not understand it was one original thing that triggered,
| with cascading problems in the 'fixes', etc.
|
| You keep asking "why?" and only want _one_ 'thing' to be
| 'actionable'... you will raise my frustration level. The
| root cause is an emergent property of understaffing, poor
| communication practices and a belief that everything can
| be reduced to a jira card providing sufficient context
| and understanding for a diverse audience with different
| skills and needs.
| indymike wrote:
| > The 'root cause' was I fucked up and missed something.
|
| It's really hard to do RCA when people are blaming
| themselves. It had to suck to be in that meeting. A
| really good RCA isn't about finding a single actionable
| thing, it's about finding our what the root cause of the
| problem is... which in this case, might have been
| whatever originally broke production and caused an
| emergency fix that failed three times.
| sswastioyono18 wrote:
| In a japanese company that I worked at previously,
| answering RCA must be clear and in detail way. I got used
| to it so when I explain something to people, I want them
| to NOT ask any further question again because I compiled
| all the information they needed, including prevention.
| Their next response should be "got it understood" or
| clarifying their action. Other than that, I think I
| failed to explain things in a very basic way
| [deleted]
| danieldk wrote:
| In the group where I did my PhD, one of the professors
| would do this (but without pre-announcing). He would start
| with really basic questions and gradually build up to more
| complex questions.
|
| This was great for two reasons: 1. it builds up large
| common ground for understanding; 2. if someone in a
| leadership position does this, others will not feel ashamed
| of asking questions that they think may be basic.
| yummypaint wrote:
| My PhD advisor was great at doing this. Just having him
| in attendance at colloquium made the talks more
| informative.
| [deleted]
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I love these examples, they helped me realize that I'll
| often preface "this could be a really stupid question" and
| then ask the question--even though I'm quite confident I
| already know the answer--because I had sensed that other
| people in the room might have been feeling lost. I actually
| do this quite often, even when I'm hearing two people talk
| with each other but actually talking past each other.
|
| Also, I just took a training and observed the trainer hear
| a participant say that she felt frustrated with the
| process, and then the trainer immediately asked the room
| something like, "How many other people are feeling
| frustrated as well?" And of course, numerous hands went up,
| and it seemed to help show the person she wasn't alone.
| makeset wrote:
| Yes, thank you, this is very important. Whenever someone
| says they might be asking a stupid question, I make sure to
| interrupt and remind that there are no stupid questions,
| only stupid people asking questions.
| shaldjfb wrote:
| I would honestly take a hefty payout to work for this
| person.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Long time CTO here. I brazenly and declaratively ask stupid
| questions and suggest stupid ideas. It usually leads to a
| break in a logjam, and I recognize that people in the room
| don't always feel as free as me to be naive or uninformed.
| It's the nature of my job and the coverage I need to manage
| across the org... devs aren't as inclined to go this route,
| but this is also why some of my personality driven PMs are
| often so successful in a similar vein... they're not
| invested in being or looking right, or even smart.
| rStar wrote:
| fuck that it's salesmanship, and salesmen make poor
| leaders.
| bad_good_guy wrote:
| I've had PMs always lead questions like that, using "this is
| probably a stupid question..." and alternatives and I came to
| dread discussions with them, as I knew this meeting would
| involve loads of wasted time constantly 'excusing' their
| question instead of just asking it.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Just how long do they draw it out? Phrasing "So, stupid
| question: [insert question" really shouldn't add that much
| time, right? Or is the problem that the questions really
| are stupid?
|
| I have a weird job title but my position is probably closer
| to your PM, and I also use this strategy, so I'd like to
| know how to not annoy people!
| cutemonster wrote:
| Sounds as if you're doing it in a good way :-) (I'm not
| GP)
| daddylongstroke wrote:
| Yes, these are two great phrases and methods to vastly
| improve your communication skills! Many people seem to be OK
| with leaving a conversation with assumptions instead of
| assurances.
| protonimitate wrote:
| Huh, interesting. I've done this pretty much my whole
| (programming) career. As a non-traditional, I always felt it
| was a weakness to be "that guy", but it's good to know that
| it's a common tactic.
|
| Luckily, I've always been around coworkers that never put me
| down for asking those questions.
| namibj wrote:
| I think I possess this skill (at least partially), and the
| trick of "knowing what to ask" is to train yourself
| heuristics that guide you towards questions that reveal
| outstandingly large amounts of new information. Of course you
| have limited information, so those determinations about how
| much information a question's answer would yield are plagued
| by that. Hence the heuristics.
|
| This is not easy to learn, and great understanding ability is
| a prerequisite.
| [deleted]
| kfarr wrote:
| Yes and it feels like the older I get the more I have to be the
| one that plays this role to ask these basic questions as
| younger professionals are fearful to look dumb in front of
| others
| cbtacy wrote:
| The fear of looking stupid is a profound motivator in many
| professions. If you want to understand why so many of the
| stories posted about people using this technique are of more
| senior folks or people with more authority (bosses, mentors,
| professors, etc), this is why. Being willing to potentially
| "look stupid" requires enormous self-confidence.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| And it may very well be that consequences for looking
| stupid are worse when you are junior. So it could be a
| natural progression.
| mmarq wrote:
| This is feasible as long as your expertise is recognised in the
| organisation or you are in a position of power or your
| organisation is open to this kind of behaviour (quite often it
| isn't the case). A junior asking this kind of questions in the
| wrong organisation may help fixing the problem at hand,
| assuming they are taken seriously, but they are likely to
| hinder their career progress if they repeat this behaviour too
| often. In many many many organisations looking smart is way
| more important than being smart.
|
| (I'm not saying it's a good thing)
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| Happens to me all the time.
| coralreef wrote:
| > That there are fundamental misunderstandings and
| misconceptions about existing systems.
|
| This is debugging 101. You have assumptions about how a system
| works, but the output isn't matching those assumptions. You
| walk backwards over your assumptions and test them to see if
| they are true. Eventually you get to the precise place where
| your assumption is wildly different than the output, and there
| is your bug.
|
| The more systems (or people) involved, the longer it takes, the
| more complexity.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Yep, eventually you're asking things like, "does the variable
| called 'username' contain the username?" Not too long ago I
| found that 'username', in fact, did _not_ contain the
| username.
| coralreef wrote:
| I once had a co-worker at a small company (2 developers, me
| and him).
|
| In the spirit of doing less work, he proposed to me
| changing the meaning of "someProperty" to mean something
| different, without changing the name of that property.
|
| Also, it was a boolean; so he wanted true values to
| actually represent false, and vice versa.
|
| I politely pushed back on that one.
| tomxor wrote:
| > So I start asking questions, and slowly begin to realize that
| nobody in the room has any idea what they are talking about.
| That there are fundamental misunderstandings and misconceptions
| about existing systems. And, naturally, it turns out that the
| questions I have are questions that other people have.
|
| I've had similar situations, it feels analogous to group based
| "rubber ducking"... having someone ask the questions perceived
| to be known or obvious by the existing groups can be extremely
| beneficial for all kinds of reasons, in the same way that a
| rubber duck (real or imagined) will get you to re-evaluate all
| of your assumptions and usually get you to find the assumption
| that's incorrect or problematic.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| I do this all the time too and have observed the same results!
| I ask a lot of dumb questions like "what does XYZ stand for?"
| and "what was the original problem you were trying to solve by
| taking this course of action?". Even though I always have that
| same sinking feeling, usually by the 4th or 5th question I have
| a very clear idea of what's going on.
| dragonsky wrote:
| This is my life at the moment. Even when I think I may know
| what is being discussed, experience has shown that a lot of
| people will try and fake it and being the idiot who doesn't
| have a clue and needs it explained is useful for everyone.
|
| I don't know what it is about the IT trade, but so many people
| seem to find it difficult to admit that knowing everything is
| impossible.
| dennis_jeeves wrote:
| >That there are fundamental misunderstandings and
| misconceptions about existing systems.
|
| Wait till you see the fundamental misunderstandings and
| misconceptions of established 'science'. It will pale in
| comparison with anything you have seen before.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Being able to say I don't know and I don't understand is
| incredibly powerful.
| lugged wrote:
| This happened to me recently,
|
| A team I work with sometimes was blocked on a couple of PRs for
| about a week. I needed one of the team members for something
| and their lead wasn't doing much to help remove his roadblocks
| to helping me so I stepped in asking my really basic questions
| about what they were trying to achieve.
|
| Within about 30 minutes we released one PR and deleted the
| other. The one we deleted was blocking the other but there
| wasn't actally a need for it due to some spec change that
| happened earlier, just nobody could figure out why it was
| needed or what needed to be finished before it could ship.
| anm89 wrote:
| This is such an eye opening experience, especially when you are
| new to the corporate world.
|
| It's amazing how frequently fancily dressed, well speaking,
| high paid people sit in rooms and essentially role play being
| adults while just having absolutely no clue what is going on.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Just to provide additional context...
|
| This works and should be encouraged if you are indeed very
| smart and very quick, typically introverted and are actually
| going to be rolling up your sleeves to pitch in.
|
| This approach is painful for everyone else and should be
| discouraged if you are a very extroverted and very non-
| technical person with no plan on actually helping out
| whatsoever with the actual execution on solving the problem at
| hand and really are only contributing to look smart in front of
| any leadership who happens to be in the room.
|
| Definitely be aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect - which is a
| cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task
| overestimate their own ability, and that people with high
| ability at a task underestimate their own ability.
| sharadov wrote:
| Early in my career, I was conscious of asking these questions,
| so as to not appear like a fool, I thought I was expected to
| know the answers. I took a remote job a while back and realized
| that the only way to be successful in my role was to keep
| asking questions, learning about systems and the product. I did
| not care if my questions seemed stupid. I just asked away. And,
| it helped..immensely!
| Narann wrote:
| Such behavior can be a good thing, but you could fall in your
| own bias thinking you know the problem better than them, to
| finally realize the problem outpace your scope and you are just
| impacted as anyone in the room.
|
| It happen for me once, and this was an humility lesson.
|
| Now I keep in mind I can feel I understand the problem then
| realize later I was all wrong too.
| saeranv wrote:
| Yes, and I would argue this is one of the goals of asking
| basic questions. Specifically, when asking foundational
| questions, one of the objectives I keep in mind is to figure
| out the scope and my ability to understand the scope of the
| problem. Understand where that boundary exists is useful
| information.
|
| Personally, I don't really care about this second-order
| effect that asking such questions might identify others that
| don't understand the problem correctly. I think it's, as you
| say, creating its own bias that pollutes your thinking. I've
| worked with enough experts outside of my own domain
| expertise, that this is not something that happens often.
| andrewla wrote:
| For sure! Another comment noted that this might be a sign of
| a dysfunctional organization, and I think there's a lot of
| truth there -- where systems have grown to such complexity
| that people involved in a larger project can't keep the whole
| thing in their head, and you get groups of people sort of
| faking it, assuming other people can fill in the details, and
| not wanting to appear ignorant about areas outside of your
| expertise.
|
| I've been in other organizations (and even within this one)
| where my stupid questions revealed nothing new except that I
| had to go back and do some studying before I could usefully
| contribute.
|
| I remember when I took a course in General Relativity as an
| undergraduate; I was much more math/CS focused than most
| people in the class, who were mostly physics people. And we
| would get together in study groups, and although I was
| respected for my general intelligence, it became clear that
| the questions I was asking were simply not the right ones --
| that a physical/geometric intuition was something I did not
| have. In other words, I was actually the stupid one.
|
| Much later I took a course in differential geometry, and
| eventually started seeing how it made sense mathematically,
| but I could never really connect it back to physical
| intuition. I think the problem that broke me was talking
| about the behavior of a point mass, and I had literally no
| idea how to attack that with the tools we had.
| singlow wrote:
| I identify with this situation but my feelings about it are a
| bit different, although not intentionally. This mirrors my
| general disconnect with the article.
|
| In this situation I feel some anxiety or hesitation about
| asking these questions, but I don't feel it as a fear of
| appearing stupid. Instead the anxiety seems to come from
| worrying that I am annoying or offending everyone with
| questions about things that are obvious.
|
| I have no way of knowing which question is going to reveal the
| problem, so I will need to shotgun questions. I know that some
| people that I work with get this completely and will cooperate.
| Others will get defensive or tune out, so I need to find a
| balance or tone to try to avoid that.
|
| It is similar to when I did tech support as a teenager and
| someone would call with a problem, wanting a tech sent to their
| house. I would start asking questions about the problem and
| they would not want to spend 5 minutes going through a few
| steps to try to solve it over the phone. I never felt that they
| thought I was stupid, I just felt they were impatient. Maybe
| they did think I was stupid, but I was so sure that I could
| find the answer that I never considered that.
| codazoda wrote:
| I did support when I was in my late teens and I ALWAYS
| started at the very bottom, with the questions that seemed
| obvious, and worked my way up. Most callers thought it was
| annoying, so I would often prepare them for the silly simple
| stuff I was about to ask and ask them to humor me. It was
| especially painful if I was the 3rd person they had talked
| to.
|
| I guess I still work this way although I've fallen out of the
| habit of warning people and asking them to humor me.
| genewitch wrote:
| The "humor me" tier 2 or 3 tech support people are the
| best. By the time I've called in I've already done the
| usual stuff, that's why I called, at least they crack me up
| "what color is the light on the left side" or whatever, not
| just silence and clacking and background yelling of tier 1
| while they "wait for me to power cycle".
|
| Turns out I absolutely cannot do tier 3 support, but I can
| do 1 and 2 for friends and family and I'm the "whiz" or
| whatever. Tier three, for me, was basically me in a bad
| mood talking to me in a bad mood, in order to gatekeep the
| poor dev/DBA/NOC that had to actually fix things. No thx!
| [deleted]
| khalilravanna wrote:
| IMO this is the hallmark of a good engineer. One of my absolute
| favorite engineers/mentors did this. Having just one of these
| people in the room can be a huge differentiator in problem
| solving in a group setting.
| ravenstine wrote:
| This is a useful skill to employ, though at the same time the
| frequent need of it is a sign of a dysfunctional system. Not
| always, but a lot of the time, I think. For one, many of these
| issues would be avoided if, for example, engineers were
| included in meetings with decision makers and designers during
| early phases of development, rather than introduce engineers to
| effectively tell them what to do now that all the decisions
| have been made absent any shared knowledge of how things can
| work under the hood. Not only could this result in reduced time
| spent, but it could result in less time performing re-
| iterations once engineering concludes that a request/feature is
| impractical. Impracticalities or better alternatives should be
| discovered as early in the process as possible, not later,
| because inevitably wasted time will be made up for via
| shortcuts and duct tape. Unless a company really cares about
| good craftsmanship and not releasing something until it's in an
| adequate state, quality will almost certainly be sacrificed.
|
| Playing dumb, if you will, has served me well, yet it is also
| odd to me just how often it needs to be employed in the field
| of software.
| ativzzz wrote:
| You call it dysfunctional but I think it's just a
| communication technique to accelerate learning, like the
| author describes, that can be used in a plethora of
| situations and not just business meetings.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Oh, I definitely agree. My point, and maybe you still
| wouldn't agree, is that it can be a good technique to use
| under ideal or adequate circumstances yet also be a sign of
| functional weakness if it needs to be used too frequently.
|
| Plenty of otherwise good things can be signs of
| dysfunction. An example could be a workplace where people
| are free to chill, do what they want, ride scooters, play
| games, etc., which can be really healthy and good for
| creativity, but also may be a sign of weak leadership and
| nothing actually getting done (wasting time and
| jeopardizing the future of teams). Having process is
| usually better than no process at all, but process can also
| waste time and be counterproductive.
|
| In other words, nothing is necessarily to be viewed as good
| or bad.
| dominotw wrote:
| > I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise,
| and the discussions have apparently been stalling out.
|
| > I brace myself to be the idiot.
|
| I don't think not knowing something makes one an idiot. Having
| hard time understanding something does. I don't think your
| example applies here.
| atulatul wrote:
| ->nobody in the room has any idea what they are talking about
|
| I have seen a few people unwilling to admit that they don't
| know...when they're supposed to know. The easiest way out they
| come up with is 'we will discuss this offline'.
| alexashka wrote:
| Imagine your comment being made in a meeting I got pulled into.
|
| I brace myself. I'm going to waste your time. This is super
| obvious.
|
| Here it goes: so uh, why do you continue to work with
| incompetent idiots instead of finding a workplace where people
| know what they are talking about instead?
| zamfi wrote:
| Poor communication does not imply everyone involved is
| incompetent idiots. It's unfortunate, and important to
| address, but if you quit any project every time there is
| inadequate communication, you'll never get anything done.
|
| Assumptions are inevitable. They get harder to question the
| longer they go unquestioned. Newcomers to a group can see
| them better.
|
| Perhaps cutting people some slack and helping them work
| better by asking basic questions is a skill we all need to
| learn.
| alexashka wrote:
| If you want to cut people slack, go cut them slack. Here's
| a question: look around you, you think cutting slack is
| what's needed?
|
| If you think so, alright then. I don't.
| zamfi wrote:
| I work with good people, and when they screw up, I cut
| them some slack.
|
| Everyone sometimes screws up. Some more than others. Some
| distractingly so, and some so often that it's not worth
| continuing the relationship. But the mere fact that
| someone at some point screws up does not make them
| irredeemable. So, yes, I think cutting people slack is
| important.
|
| This is totally orthogonal to being qualified for a job,
| or being good, or any other attributes people have that
| puts them out of their depth. If you work with a bunch of
| unqualified poseurs, then sure, slack isn't what's
| missing, and you should quit. But if you find yourself in
| that situation very often, I'd be asking different
| questions...
| touisteur wrote:
| And nobody can know and do every damn thing that's why we
| have team _s_ and an org. Sometimes you 're in the room
| with experts from different specialties that don't
| understand each other. Sometimes you're in a team with
| very disparate domain expertise... Not getting anywhere
| in meetings is not always the sign of a dysfunctional org
| or stupid colleagues. It's everyday, everywhere, with
| everyone.
|
| And. What if it's your customer in the room? Are you
| firing them for being 'stupid'?
|
| The superclever types that thing their colleagues are
| stupid are often the most dangerous, as they'll just 'go
| it alone' and then leave when they fuck up and suddenly
| everyone is stupid _and_ not grateful.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mlac wrote:
| If someone asks a simple question, it's great - because
| most likely executives will have the exact same question,
| but depending on your relationship with them, it could go
| a few ways (or more): 1) they just think you don't get it
| because they assume the answer to the basic question and
| it's not the assumption you're operating off of 2) they
| call you on it during the presentation and make it look
| like you have failed to explain the fundamentals 3) they
| wait until after the presentation to ask the question,
| and others in the room aren't really sure about it
| either, because you just assumed everyone knew.
|
| I think it's OK to ask dumb questions twice. If you don't
| get it by the third time (or fail to remember), then we
| might need to step back and revisit fundamentals, or your
| mental model might need adjustment so that the
| information makes sense in context.
| [deleted]
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| Probably because of status loss. Do they acknowledge your
| perceptiveness, intelligence and intellectual honesty after you
| demonstrate it each time? It would undermine their own status.
| Thorentis wrote:
| This is essentially the Socratic method. Arriving at a shared
| understanding through the asking of questions. I employ this
| technique regularly and it rarely fails me.
| hnarn wrote:
| > you would think the sinking feeling I get before I brace
| myself to look stupid would go away
|
| I can highly recommend reading, or listening to "Surely You're
| Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Asking "stupid" questions does not
| automatically make you intelligent, but it is a trait of highly
| intelligent people, exactly because of the reasons you
| describe.
|
| We all know the story about how Newton asked why an apple fell
| to the ground, surely a lot of people would have thought you're
| a total idiot for asking that, and yet at the same time no-one
| would have been able to explain why.
|
| The reason stupid questions are uncomfortable is that you're
| very likely to insinuate other people don't know the answer to
| a simple question, and we don't like making other people
| uncomfortable. Which is why you have to be humble when asking
| them.
| jturpin wrote:
| The fear of looking stupid cripples me in just about everything I
| do. Work, both professionally and personal projects, competitive
| videogames, even playing piano or guitar. Maybe I can take a hint
| from this post and embrace it rather than avoiding it.
|
| I think this post might be triggering a lot of people who feel it
| might be criticizing them. It takes a lot of emotional energy to
| _look_ stupid in front of people, in ways that I would guess most
| people here (including myself) don't.
| lazybreather wrote:
| Here is when I feel really stupid. There is a highly upvoted post
| on HN. Read the article and feel like you have learnt something
| really impactful. Largely agree with the content. Only to get to
| the comments section to see the article getting torn apart left
| right and centre. Thank you HN. You make me look and feel very
| very stupid. :)
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| One important point made is that leaders should build
| environments where people aren't afraid to look stupid. I worked
| at a place where a senior developer would laugh after "winning"
| an argument with me[1]. I have to say that's the only work
| environment where I wanted to punch a member of my team. It was
| also the environment least conducive to dialogue and learning.
| Even if you're right and the person is genuinely being stupid,
| you don't need to rub it in. Chances are they'll already feel
| stupid from their own judgement.
|
| [1]: A lot of our arguments boiled down to us debating stuff
| where neither of us knew what we were talking about, but I was
| the only one willing to admit that.
| Grustaf wrote:
| I don't know who this guy is but he certainly succeeded in
| looking stupid.
| drewg123 wrote:
| When I was onboarding at Google in 2013, one of the things that
| they said was "don't be afraid to ask questions in a meeting.
| Chances are most other people have the same question, but are
| afraid to look dumb by asking it"
| asdffdsa wrote:
| Ah, finally a post I identify with :)
|
| These are good points in the article; two other areas I'm willing
| to look stupid are:
|
| - asking a store employee where to find specific items (quicker
| than most men)
|
| - communicating in simple (almost childlike), direct rhetoric. As
| I get into more intellectual circles, I've found that my
| reputation does take a hit, but I still think the mental
| throughput/accuracy of expressing ideas simply is worth the
| reputational hit
| locallost wrote:
| I felt too insecure to ask (stupid) questions previously because,
| well, people around you are always confident. But with time I saw
| there's often not a lot behind this confidence, that someone who
| has a high opinion of himself is capable of really failing in a
| very basic way, and that most people are more or less the same.
| So I talk more freely now, and yes, some people are quick to
| judge. But whatever.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| (OT, but nice username. "I hate when I get locallost on the way
| to localhost's LAN party...")
|
| The judgmental people tend not to matter in the long run, by
| the way.
|
| Sort of. There are two types of judgmental people. One, the
| people building a team, or making a bet. Two, the people
| looking to talk about others.
|
| The latter don't matter. The former are quick to judge because
| they have to be. If they're wrong about their bets, it'll soon
| become obvious. Which means the optimal strategy is to make
| many bets, or to interview as many devs as possible, and then
| cull most of the candidates.
|
| It's not personal. http://www.paulgraham.com/judgement.html
| helped me care way less about rejection, which seems to
| decrease the odds of getting rejected.
| locallost wrote:
| Right, I don't care. It's my opinion now that I have to be
| open about what I think or feel because it's just how I am.
| So if I don't find a common language with someone, then so be
| it. There are 7 billion other people on the planet.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| By the way, consider throwing some contact info in your
| profile. It sounds like you have a lot of interesting
| ideas, and I've gotten a lot of random emails from HN
| people in the past.
|
| (I reached for your profile to email you the "nice
| username" thing, but there wasn't any way.)
| jcoq wrote:
| One of the most memorable experiences of my post-doc was working
| with the venerable Joachim Cuntz. It was often amusing to attend
| talks with him as he'd usually blast the speaker with a barrage
| of seemingly rudimentary questions.
|
| This trait is shared among almost all of the mathematicians I've
| respected deeply and it's always astounding how the most trivial
| lines of questioning can lead to deep, profound realizations.
| guhsnamih wrote:
| I think he also has a way of writing that makes him look like he
| doesn't know how to. Will look forward to that post. For now I'll
| just go back to the second or maybe third reading of his post.
| roenxi wrote:
| In my experience, there is a slight nuance in the frame here. It
| isn't just that Mr. Luu is "willing to look stupid", it is that
| he has confidence that his decision making process will on
| average turn out better decisions than the go-to default strategy
| that most people employ ("copy the crowd").
|
| Most people, if they rely on their own research and decision
| making, will do poorly. And even moderately clever people
| generally do better by copying the rare stray geniuses that float
| around in polite society. This manifests as an "unwillingness" to
| "look stupid". It is important to ask "what does stupid mean" and
| "how do I measure 'looking something'" when this sort of topic is
| bought up.
|
| I am - and I don't think this is that unusual - willing to go
| about a decade ignoring the opinions of others if I'm really
| confident that I have an objectively good idea. It is a high-risk
| high-reward strategy and not for everyone.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| > It is important to ask [...] "how do I measure 'looking
| something'" when this sort of topic is bought up.
|
| Why is that?
| roenxi wrote:
| "Looking stupid" is an assessment of what other people think.
| Eg, asking for the smallest box isn't stupid - Apple expects
| all the boxes to be good products. Even picking a product
| randomly isn't stupid and therefore shouldn't look it. The
| looking stupid part is an assessment of what the store clerk
| is thinking.
|
| That is a very subtle, fraught and complicated assessment.
| There is a lot going on to do with the audience, context,
| risk and the truth. There is a lot going on behind the term
| "looking stupid" and it undersells the complexity of the
| social interaction. There are two parties, multiple issues
| and a lot to think about.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Yeah, I get that, but why do we need to measure it? (in a
| context of accepting the possibility)
| barrenko wrote:
| Yes, but in general it's pretty noticeable when someone
| thinks you're stupid, because when people find a reason to
| place you "below" so to speak, all kinds of behaviour
| quickly come out.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| People are, generally, thinking about you a lot less than
| you perceive them to be thinking about you.
|
| So in general it may seem pretty noticeable, but in
| reality it's rarely so.
|
| > In particular, it's often the case that there's a
| seemingly obvious but actually incorrect reason something
| is true, a slightly less obvious reason the thing seems
| untrue, and then a subtle and complex reason that the
| thing is actually true.
|
| This is a good example of what's in the submission! It's
| "seemingly obvious" that people are judging you all the
| time, and slightly less obvious that people aren't
| actually thinking about you nearly as often as you think,
| but the few who _are_ thinking about you _might_ be
| indeed judging you to look stupid for asking "basic"
| questions.
| dusted wrote:
| I think this is a good observation about the impact that
| confidence can have on some (mine included) peoples ability to
| learn. In this way, low confidence can have both the direct
| effect of denying you access to information that would allow
| you to improve, but also more sinister, it can deny you the
| mental ability to actually learn something, even if the
| information was available to you, since the learning itself
| will mean that there's things you don't know. Being aware that
| you don't know or can't do something can feel very bad if you
| lack the confidence in your ability to get to know or do it,
| and we tend to avoid feeling bad, and so may abandon the
| endeavor.
| caned wrote:
| > Most people, if they rely on their own research and decision
| making, will do poorly.
|
| That's an interesting assertion. I would have guessed the
| opposite is true.
| genewitch wrote:
| Have you never seen a restaurant location that is always
| changing owners, names, etc? Or downtowns of smaller cities
| where there's tons of empty shops? Cheesegraters.com ?
|
| People are hilariously bad at induction, deduction, and
| making decisions based on their own research.
|
| We're biased because we're already on the internet, on this
| site, and nothing is on fire in our vicinity.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| This is true when it comes to actual decision making, but what
| about asking questions? Isn't being willing to look stupid
| clearly important here regardless of how smart you are? Even if
| you actually are stupid, you'll end up knowing more if you ask
| stupid questions, then you would have if you tried to hide your
| stupidity.
| mynegation wrote:
| > I would sometimes run into people who would verbally make fun
| me
|
| If one does that, they are part of the problem. Please leave
| other people alone. You do not know anything about their personal
| situation.
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| Wasnt this link posted not too long ago?
| hipjiveguy wrote:
| The problem is that there are always problems.
|
| Many look at a problem as a frustating situation, and wish it
| would go away.
|
| That's what "they think I'm stupid" is mostly about.
|
| Most people just want things to work, which is understandable and
| reasonable, but not rational. It's wishful thinking, that has no
| action or teeth.
|
| In reality, constant change and development will always bring
| about frustration.
|
| The true problem is accepting that you can't control everything.
|
| But after realizing that, pretend that you are in control.
|
| Be ok with the results, no matter what's the ultimate solution.
|
| ie. Ignore what you can't control, and BE YOURSELF.
|
| BUT, listen to your elders.
|
| Listen for at least 3 months. Think about it. If you're still
| willing to listen to their advice, but don't want to take it, go
| slowly forward, and live your life.
|
| The next generation is always unfathomable to their parents, but
| you need to respect, and listen, for they truly do know things
| you don't know, but the reverse is true as well.
| RattleyCooper wrote:
| This is also why a lot of people who are actually ignorant get
| really aggressive when someone points out a mistake. Because they
| care A LOT about appearances. They don't actually care about
| improving or actually being correct, so long as people think
| they're smart. Or really, as long as they think that other people
| think they're smart.
|
| I'm very much like the author, in that I just ask questions and
| don't worry about looking stupid (what a silly thing to worry
| about), but I think my friend is the polar opposite, and this
| article really helped me understand the dynamic between the 2 of
| us a little bit better. I always wondered why he would get super
| defensive if I correct him on anything, but it makes sense if he
| thinks I'm stupid and is getting corrected by the stupid guy lol
| pklausler wrote:
| One side benefit of being willing to say "I don't know" and to
| ask embarrassing questions, when one is in a position of being a
| supposed expert, is that this kind of humility lends you
| credibility when you _do_ claim to know something.
|
| (I'm talking about experts with/for whom I've worked, to be
| clear, not myself.)
| Aeolun wrote:
| > It's taken me up to six weeks to convince people that it's ok
| for them to ask questions and, until that happens, I have to
| constantly ask them how things are going to make sure they're not
| stuck.
|
| I never considered that this might be common. I guess I shouldn't
| take myself as an example.
| nkabbara wrote:
| The mental frame that I often use to help me be ok with looking
| (and feeling) stupid is: stupid now, smart later.
|
| You can train yourself to invoke it when the feeling comes up, if
| you didn't have the chance to preload it before the interaction.
|
| I think the only requirement for it to work though is that the
| intentions behind your questions are whole.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I feel like I could have written this post, even the trouble
| getting blood drawn, and the response from nurses when you tell
| them.
|
| Except for this part:
|
| _The person who helped me, despite being very polite, also
| clearly thought I was a bozo and kept explaining things like "the
| size of the box and the size of the computer aren't the same". Of
| course I knew that, but I didn't want to say something like "I
| design CPUs. I understand the difference between the size of the
| box the computer comes and in the size of the computer and I know
| it's very unusual to care about the size of the box, but I really
| want the one that comes in the smallest box". Just saying the
| last bit without establishing any kind of authority didn't
| convince the person_
|
| In that case I most certainly would have established that I knew
| what I was talking about, and also explained exactly why I cared
| about the box. Maybe the author never worked in retail or public
| facing tech support, but when you're in those jobs you learn to
| not believe anything the user/customer says. At least until they
| let you know they know what they're talking about.
|
| The asking questions part also reminded me of a story from when I
| was a junior network engineer in my mid 20s, working with two
| guys in their 50s who had each been doing the job for over 15
| years. A little bit after I started they gave me a task that
| required me to use a system they knew I didn't have access to.
| After about an hour I figured out that I would need it. I asked
| them how to use the xyz server, and they both started laughing.
| It was a test to see if I would ask for help. Apparently the last
| guy who had to do that task waited 3 days before asking for help,
| and didn't even figure out he needed to use the system in
| question. They decided to see how I would handle it, instead of
| just telling me outright.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Never did find a band widener, but did get to talk to everyone
| in the radio department...
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I expected a "don't be afraid to ask the stupid questions"
| article and this is sort of that.
|
| The first few paragraphs are meandering and, seemingly,
| deliberately obtuse. Many of the examples are examples of a kind
| of "I'm so much smarter than you, I can play the stupid"
| arrogance that is incredibly off putting in real life because it
| leads to a bunch of bad faith questions and interactions.
|
| I really get the impression that the author is an unreliable
| narrator and that they are always the hero of their story. It is
| pretty easy to read many of the examples as the person NOT
| thinking the author was stupid, but rather that the author was a
| arrogant, condescending ass (especially the Apple store employee,
| their insurance brokers and every medical professional they have
| seen).
| nikisweeting wrote:
| Hey, I wrote something similar along these lines a while back ;)
| https://docs.monadical.com/s/ask-stupid-questions
| sanderjd wrote:
| On the "learning new things" point: I have often thought it is a
| bit of a super power to _enjoy_ that feeling of being stupid and
| incompetent. It 's a necessary stage in learning new things, and
| learning new things often is the only way to avoid stagnation.
| Many people really dislike that initial stage. Lots of successful
| people are just good at pushing through it in order to get the
| useful new expertise. But actually being able to _enjoy_ that
| feeling of stupidity makes it far more likely that you 'll learn
| new things more often. My ability to do this ebbs and flows, but
| when I do have it, it's a wonderful feeling.
| jtlienwis wrote:
| One of the most intelligent people I went to college with just
| always seemed to ask the dumbest, most simple questions to the
| professor. I know now, that what he was doing was establishing
| the ground floor so to speak of his knowledge. The first
| principles. Once he had those in hand, he knew he could use logic
| and deduce most of the rest. Especially when grounded in the
| mathematical equations that went along with the first principles.
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| I'm willing, but I also have no choice in the matter, so it's
| hard to say whether it's benevolence or banality.
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