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

Willingness to look stupid

danluu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 811 posts

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#171

Post by anotheryou »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #2

> 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…

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... "

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#172

Post by nickelcitymario »

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#173

Post by rlonn »

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#175

Post by WA »

frumiousirc wrote: post #160
WA wrote: post #145

> 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…

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.

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?

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#176

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

barrenko wrote: post #134
cycomanic wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is it arrogant?

"People think I'm stupid but it is actually they who are stupid and unable to comprehend my genius intellect"

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#177

Post by strken »

WA wrote: post #145

> 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…

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#178

Post by agumonkey »

HeckFeck wrote: post #101
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…

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

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#179

Post by Grustaf »

q-base wrote: post #21

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…

> 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.

Post reply on HN