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Willingness to look stupid

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Re: Willingness to look stupid

#191

Post by medstrom »

akudha wrote: post #164
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…

I think people who are afraid to ask questions are conditioned to be that way. It is just easy to keep quiet in a team meeting than risk asking/saying something that might expose one's lack of knowledge on the topic being discussed. People also secretly hope that someone else might ask the same question that they are thinking about, so the other person can take that risk. The environment largely shapes people's behav…

>but practically, how much influence does a person (who is not in a position of authority) have?

Surprisingly much, for the kind of people who stay quiet. They underestimate their own potential impact.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#192

Post by germandiago »

Sometimes I was even scolded for asking too much from other people that knew me on the basis that if I did it it did not look good, it would look like I blabla... all stupid things about how you look to others.

I never stopped doing it. I will never stop. I do not care. At the end, what I want, is to know new stuff.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#194

Post by darthrupert »

matwood wrote: post #111
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…

Exactly! We should practice being a beginner for our entire lives. It's a constant reminder to have that beginner mindset even where you think you are an expert. I took up Jiu-Jitsu at age 40. Talk about humbling. I also catch myself occasionally doing what you did and mention how terrible I am/will be as a defensive mechanism. But, the more comfortable I got at being a beginner led to even faster learning. This atti…

Martial arts are a hobby where I think this happens often. You could practice your whole life, but then you change disciplines or face a new teacher and suddenly you're doing everything wrong.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#195

Post by InsomniacL »

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…

Only half plausible reason I can think of is for a 'Pass The Parcel' prize. Anything else, surly the smallest laptop would be preferable and you could repackage it.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#196

Post by drewg123 »

When I was onboarding at Google in 2013, one of the things that they said was "don't be afraid to ask questions in a meeting. Chances are most other people have the same question, but are afraid to look dumb by asking it"

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#197

Post by germandiago »

formerly_proven wrote: post #23

> Friends have been chiding about this for years and strangers, dates, and acquaintances, will sometimes tell me, with varying levels of bluntness, that I'm being paranoid and stupid There is way to much of this bullshit all over the place (e.g. PPE use) and I'm quick to judge people who do it, because I find it a truly moronic attitude.

I have also heard this. Even the other day I asked my own sister about data about her own profession. She genuinely thinks I am asking too much/bothering her so she just replies "just let it go" or "you think too much".

Well, if I think too much, probably I think more than you about your own profession, so, I do not want to say this, but you are not the best possible professional, because sometimes I had the feeling that she just follows the trend instead of getting genuine opinions about some of the topics in the discipline.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#198

Post by sanderjd »

On the "learning new things" point: I have often thought it is a bit of a super power to enjoy that feeling of being stupid and incompetent. It's a necessary stage in learning new things, and learning new things often is the only way to avoid stagnation. Many people really dislike that initial stage. Lots of successful people are just good at pushing through it in order to get the useful new expertise. But actually being able to enjoy that feeling of stupidity makes it far more likely that you'll learn new things more often. My ability to do this ebbs and flows, but when I do have it, it's a wonderful feeling.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#199

Post by watwut »

dotancohen wrote: post #147
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…

> Naturally, the established powers and polite society didn't find this to their liking. We all know how his story ended. Socrates was sentenced to death not for exposing how little everyone else knew. The esteemed philosopher was sentenced to death because he was deliberately annoying people - like a fly - with badgering questions that would force the questionee into a corner. Today we call this method of exposing c…

> The esteemed philosopher was sentenced to death because he was deliberately annoying people - like a fly - with badgering questions that would force the questionee into a corner.

It had more to do with revolutions in city just before, when two his students and friends worked with enemy to make dictatorship out of Athens. They killed and tortured quite a lot of people. Then it reversed. Now, he did not participated actively and citizens behavior during above was supposed to be forgiven anyway. It was miscarriage of justice.

But, these events in combination with what his ideas actually were were closer to why they wanted him killed then general "asked too many questions". As far as they were concerned, he was actually dangerous.

The yet other official reason was impiety, which despite sounding ridiculous to us, to them was important too.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#200

Post by Zababa »

> 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

I think that's a case where the Apple store employees err on the side of caution. I would bet that they have more clients asking for the smallest box while wanting the smallest computer compared to clients asking for the smallest box while needing the smallest box. I think that's an instance of the XY problem https://xyproblem.info/, and people being trained to recognise it and having a false positive.

> Air filtration: I did a bit of looking into the impact of air quality on health and bought air filters for my apartment in 2012

To take the "opposite view" (as in, don't be afraid of talking to people who look stupid) from this, I love talking to people about these kind of things (if they are willing to talk about them, of course). In many circumstances, I learned a lot by being charitable, open and ready to hear the thoughts of someone about something, even when they're unconventional/look stupid. I think I have that position because I deal more with "look stupid but are smart"-type people, while the Apple employee store or the stackoverflow user seem to deal more with the "look stupid so I have to protect them from themselves"-type people.

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