Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You can't tell people anything (2004)

habitatchronicles.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 201 posts

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#31

Post by hackerfake »

jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> leading off with the problems, and giving the students time to grapple with the problems without the answers

Sounds good, but how do you get them to grapple? You only turned "tell people the solution to a problem they don't have" to "tell people of a problem they don't have". I don't see how this (alone) will make a difference.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#32

Post by jerf »

hackerfake wrote: post #31
jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> leading off with the problems, and giving the students time to grapple with the problems without the answers Sounds good, but how do you get them to grapple? You only turned "tell people the solution to a problem they don't have" to "tell people of a problem they don't have". I don't see how this (alone) will make a difference.

That's too powerful an objection; you haven't proved that I'm wrong, you've proved education in general is impossible for certain people who take certain attitudes towards it, if they refuse to engage at all.

I'm going to surprise you and just agree. Some problems don't have solutions. That doesn't mean that the people who are willing to engage and will grapple with the problem won't find my way a lot more effective.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#33

Post by AnimalMuppet »

numpad0 wrote: post #22
Kednicma wrote: post #2

I suspect that, in addition to the difficulty of communicating anything using words, there is often a situation where people are not actually listening; people can't be told anything.

I think people aren’t good at understanding statements that are not actionable or offer them no immediate benefits.

That's a different problem. I believe that Kednicma is talking about people who aren't even trying to understand.

Let's say the conversation is about Haskell, and some random HN commenter wanders in who has never used Haskell. (Let's call him AnimalMuppet, just to put a name on.) You can't really explain monads to him; he has to go try them to get what's going on. But there's a difference between AnimalMuppet saying "Tell me why you'd want to program that way", and saying "No, monads are not a burrito, they can only give metaphorical indigestion, not the real thing." One is trying to understand (without the background to be able to do so). The other is just wanting to argue, without even caring whether the basis for doing so has any relevance to the discussion.

"It is useless to have a conversation with those who will not listen." - me, but it sounds deep and almost Buddhist, so maybe I stole it from someone.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#34

Post by xboxnolifes »

hackerfake wrote: post #31
jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> leading off with the problems, and giving the students time to grapple with the problems without the answers Sounds good, but how do you get them to grapple? You only turned "tell people the solution to a problem they don't have" to "tell people of a problem they don't have". I don't see how this (alone) will make a difference.

You can tell people a problem that they would realistically run into in the near future. Built it up in a way that they can actually see they having trouble due to the problem.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#35

Post by bsenftner »

Anything truly new is met with everything but understanding.

Back in 2006 I had the seeds of an idea that you probably know today as a "deep fake", but I was calling it "personalized media". By 2008 I had a fully operating feature film quality automated actor replacement pipeline (my background is visual effects.) However, even with a working system nobody could understand the ramifications this could have on education, entertainment and advertising. Even today, I'd be surprised if you, dear reader, understand the ramifications of being able to replace actors in filmed media. The shortsightedness of, well everyone, is obvious. People think of creating porn when they think of a deep fake, yet that is the dumbest implementation of the technology one could waste their time doing. Why not create an advertising system where consumers, and their friends appear in video advertising using the products being advertised? Add celebrities and you have virtual celebrity experiences. Add political candidates and you have virtual meet your candidate experiences. Educational media where you and your classmates are on location in historical events. This is just the smallest example of how far media with the viewer embedded in it could go. I pursued the idea until I went bankrupt.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#36

Post by xboxnolifes »

memexy wrote: post #29
felipemnoa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case I just want to follow the rabbit hole to wherever it takes me without worrying about showing results to anybody.

Why can't you do that now?

It generally leads to being fired for not completing milestones, which leads to not having income to support yourself.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#37

Post by elchin »

throwaway713 wrote: post #8

> When people ask me about my life’s ambitions, I often joke that my goal is to become independently wealthy so that I can afford to get some work done. Mainly that’s about being able to do things without having to explain them first, so that the finished product can be the explanation. I think this will be a major labor saving improvement. This is an excellent explanation that mirrors my own life goals, but I have s…

Is this similar to FIRE?

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#38

Post by oh_sigh »

goblin89 wrote: post #19
baxtr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend the book or the blog posts of JL Collin. His posts are all about how to achieve financial independence https://jlcollinsnh.com/

Websites that aim to help people become wealthier, and yet are sprinkled with ads, inevitably give an impression that their owners consider ad revenue a viable source of income. If that is so, I’d be reluctant to follow any advice given on such a site, as I do not want to be in a position where I rely on ads for own financial independence.

It's like writing a book on how to become wealthy, and the advice it gives you is to write a book on how to become wealthy.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#39

Post by phkahler »

>> When people ask me about my life’s ambitions, I often joke that my goal is to become independently wealthy so that I can afford to get some work done. Mainly that’s about being able to do things without having to explain them first, so that the finished product can be the explanation.

OMG Yes.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#40

Post by cuddlybacon »

marcosdumay wrote: post #9
evdev wrote: post #5

In my experience what we have in a lot of places are cultures of anti-competence. In a competence culture, you try to understand your sphere very, very well, including not only the current facts of the matter but how those facts might change under different circumstances. Then you try to understand enough of spheres of people around you that you can bracket what will affect you, and how you will affect them. It's imp…

It's not the culture of anti-competence (although, yes, that exists). How many times have you tried to communicate a novel idea to competent people just to have them dismiss it with obvious problems that clearly don't apply to your idea? That doesn't happen because they can't evaluate your idea, it happens because they don't understand the idea itself. When the innovation is small you can get away by repeating it aga…

One thing I've noticed is the better an engineer gets, the better they are at shooting down every idea they see. While I have seen many cases where a person did it anyways and failed, I have also seen many cases where they did it anyways and where massively successful.
Post reply on HN