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Willingness to look stupid

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Re: Willingness to look stupid

#181

Post by ghufran_syed »

alexandrerond wrote: post #166
pydry wrote: post #55

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 roundabo…

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 mak…

“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

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#183

Post by jaclaz »

alexandrerond wrote: post #166
pydry wrote: post #55

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 roundabo…

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 mak…

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#184

Post by soneca »

alexandrerond wrote: post #166
pydry wrote: post #55

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 roundabo…

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 mak…

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).

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#185

Post by papandada »

pydry wrote: post #55

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 roundabo…

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#186

Post by codedeadlock »

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/

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#187

Post by HeckFeck »

agumonkey wrote: post #178
HeckFeck wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#188

Post by nate »

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#189

Post by h2odragon »

dangerface wrote: post #110
NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

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.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#190

Post by fjfaase »

jacobolus wrote: post #135
josephg wrote: post #36

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…

> 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, ...

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?
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