> I would sometimes run into people who would verbally make fun me
If one does that, they are part of the problem. Please leave other people alone. You do not know anything about their personal situation.
Willingness to look stupid
251–260 of 811 posts
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#252In my experience, there is a slight nuance in the frame here. It isn't just that Mr. Luu is "willing to look stupid", it is that he has confidence that his decision making process will on average turn out better decisions than the go-to default strategy that most people employ ("copy the crowd"). Most people, if they rely on their own research and decision making, will do poorly. And even moderately clever people gen…
This is true when it comes to actual decision making, but what about asking questions? Isn't being willing to look stupid clearly important here regardless of how smart you are? Even if you actually are stupid, you'll end up knowing more if you ask stupid questions, then you would have if you tried to hide your stupidity.
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#253When 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 (l…
Meh. Non-fence-climbing isn't some important skill children need to learn
I applaud your fence-jumping! I think children learning that it's ok to have fun as an adult is a much more important (and rare) lesson than learning that sometimes you have to abide by arbitrary rules
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#254When 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…
If you don’t know the answers to stupid questions you originally don’t understand the topic fully .
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#255Earlier 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 Little Schemer is a wonderful book that teaches functional programming and Scheme by just asking the reader questions (aka the Socratic Method). Off putting to me initially, but now I'd love it if more books were like this!
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#256Awesome. A friend I was on a same team, told me once that its always good to show up a bit slow witted to your opponent. I've had no issues in adjusting to that.
Not stating that I'm anything of a genius BUT that it makes life a lot easier when you lose the excuse to pretend smart and can be actually yourself.
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#257> 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.
Key word: empathy. I'm not seeing it in the examples in the post.
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, didn't expect the venerable Meletus to show up in the conversation today. How's the weather in Athens? > sentenced to death because he was deliberately annoying people I see you're still certain of Socrates' motives. When you claimed he was 'corrupting the minds of the youth' and 'denying the gods of the city' you were simply repeating the charges laid at any philosopher who threatens the powers that be. If anyon…
Facts don't care about your feelings and the truth doesn't hurt points of view that are legitimate.
I’m not sure what this has to do with an ancient Athenian philosopher being stoned to death for saying things other people didn’t want to hear, such as “I can’t possibly be both an atheist and worship false gods”.
Care to elaborate?
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have encountered both, I'm sort of leaning towards being charitable since the "just asking questions" crowd tends not to write articles about their behaviour! That lack of transparency seems to be a theme. I have difficulty with blood draws as well and I have never encountered a health care professional that didn't immediately switch to "ok, which arm is usually best" mode.
I've seen people getting a blood draw that the nurse wasn't willing to listen to. They'd tell them what usually happens, and how it goes best, and the nurse would ignore them. In the end, every single one of the patients was correct . Anyone who typically had problems with blood draws knew their problems well. Yes, most nurses listen. But there are enough out there that don't that I've seen it multiple times. I've sa…
> I've seen people getting a blood draw that the nurse wasn't willing to listen to. They'd tell them what usually happens, and how it goes best, and the nurse would ignore them.
Fair, it could just be my experience as a middle aged, white male coming into play here.
Re: Willingness to look stupid
#260A related "power" I've found in the past is being willing to say "I don't know".
Fundamentally I work as a consultant. It's my job to solve other people's problems, which we usually (but not always) do by building something for them. Often our clients deal with a lot of consultants of different forms - they use consultants because they have specific skills and knowledge in different areas. Unfortunately this means that everyone is always trying to sounds as smart as possible and never admits to not knowing something. For the client they then don't know if they're getting "this is something that I know from doing 100 times" from "I'd guess this is the answer".
I've found that answering the occasional question with "I don't know (but I'll find out and get back to you)" changes people's opinion of me (and my company) for the positive. They suddenly (usually subconsciously) have greater trust of what we're telling them, because they know we'd admit if we didn't know.