[HN Gopher] Willingness to look stupid ___________________________________________________________________ Willingness to look stupid Author : ZephyrBlu Score : 1258 points Date : 2021-10-21 09:25 UTC (13 hours 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" | 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?" | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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? | 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 | 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? | 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... | 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. | 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 | 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. | 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. | 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. ;) | 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? | 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. | 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. | 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). | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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] | 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] | 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. | 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. | 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" | melenaboija wrote: | "listing a bunch of great decisions you made that other | people thought were stupid" | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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] | afarrell wrote: | Because the answer might take 10 minutes to explain. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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! | 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. | 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... | 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. | 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 | [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. | 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' | 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. | 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. | It's not because of length restrictions, since it's 4,495 | words long. | baobabKoodaa wrote: | Presumably you would throw the box away before air travel, | and according to the article box size != laptop size. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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 | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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? | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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... | 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. | 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. | PostThisTooFast wrote: | "Is Jira replete with nonsensical statuses, tedious UI, and | obscure query architecture?" | | Yes. | 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. | 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 | 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. | 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. | 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.) | 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. | 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. | 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...". | [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. | 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. | 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. | [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] | shaldjfb wrote: | I would honestly take a hefty payout to work for this | person. | 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! | 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. | [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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | [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. | 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] | [deleted] | 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. | 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. | 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? | 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. | 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). | 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. | 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-21 23:00 UTC)