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Willingness to look stupid

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Re: Willingness to look stupid

#101

Post by HeckFeck »

dusted wrote: post #50

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…

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#102

Post by davidcollantes »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #84
rStar wrote: post #35

the dating example is stupid. when you assume you make an ass out of you and me.

Which example?

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#103

Post by Ensorceled »

sampo wrote: post #11

> 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 som…

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#104

Post by crispyambulance »

Kaibeezy wrote: post #52

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, be…

> ...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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#107

Post by Dudeman112 »

spzb wrote: post #67
dTal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or certainly the "eccentric" theory.

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#108

Post by m12k »

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#109

Post by jack_pp »

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

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#110

Post by dangerface »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #90
cycomanic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

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.

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