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I never considered that this might be common. I guess I shouldn’t take myself as an example.
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).
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/ m…
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.
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.
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.
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-h…
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'v…
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.
> 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.
> 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 und…
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.
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. :-)
> 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 und…
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…