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Willingness to look stupid

danluu.com

391–400 of 811 posts

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#391

This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have apparently been stalling out. I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to walk…

->nobody in the room has any idea what they are talking about

I have seen a few people unwilling to admit that they don't know...when they're supposed to know. The easiest way out they come up with is 'we will discuss this offline'.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#392
post #268
post #210

Can I ask a stupid question? Who is Dan Luu and why does he keep appearing here? The content hasn’t been amazing. It’s not amazing here either. The blog doesn’t have an about me page as far as I can tell. Google says Dan is a systems engineer at Nvidia. Edit: Found the About page https://danluu.com/about It's at the bottom of articles, but not accessible on the home page. If this were an actual technical topic, I'd b…

Found his LinkedIn and GitHub. I don't know how that helps, but it's more information than before. It looks like he works for NVidia. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-luu-37721316/ https://github.com/danluu

That is definitely not his LinkedIn

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#393
Come back to academia, I keep along stupid questions all the time. Granted, my defence is I'm no longer paid to do science so don't mind looking stupid in that regard infront of the boss. I just build things for them to use.

It's remarkable how many of the "stupid questions" ends up sounding like the synonymous "reviewer 1". And how many end up catching out high level problems which are lost in the detail in something new and exiting. Such as "OK we build and install it there and calibrate it, but what about networking and power in year 2 after the upgrade?"...

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#394

This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have apparently been stalling out. I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to walk…

One of the best people I've ever worked with used this approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm understanding the problem, ." were two phrases she used all the time . I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is knowing what obvious questions to ask. Mo…

Huh, interesting. I've done this pretty much my whole (programming) career. As a non-traditional, I always felt it was a weakness to be "that guy", but it's good to know that it's a common tactic.

Luckily, I've always been around coworkers that never put me down for asking those questions.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fear of looking stupid as a beginner is something that most people have right from the start I'm a parent of a 5yo and surprised this is your experience. If anything, I'd say child behavior is the perfect anti-example of fear of trying new things. Take one of the examples you provide: language. Young children ages don't care about using incorrect grammar or using the wrong words. This is why they're so good at prog…

Kids don’t mind listening to someone speaking a new language or reading them a story they can’t understand, and they don’t mind trying to communicate, but if you put them on the spot by asking them to do some kind of formal lesson, they freak out just like anyone else. The most important thing I have found when trying to teach kids [and probably most other people too] is (1) break tasks into very small steps, (2) mak…

I view performance anxiety and fear of looking stupid as a beginner as completely separate things.

When you put the average adult learning a new language in a foreign country, they'll pause before new words, think before conjugating a verb, etc. Kids don't do that; they just talk. They don't worry about making a mistake, but adults (on average!) do.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#396
People also think I'm stupid. I am, but people think I'm stupid too.

The secret is that we're all dumb as bricks - most of us just dont act like it, and so they go on being a brick. Those of us who are self aware and unashamed can be slightly less stupid on a good day. That's about all we can hope for, but it's worth it imo.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#397

This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have apparently been stalling out. I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to walk…

One of the best people I've ever worked with used this approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm understanding the problem, ." were two phrases she used all the time . I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is knowing what obvious questions to ask. Mo…

Reminds me of something from decades ago in India, there was only television channel and it was state run. Early evenings were dedicated to rural areas and farmers there.

Most of them were illiterate and did not understand what plant scientists or professors were talking about re inputs or seeds or Tractors etc needed to modernize Ag.

So the format would be an interview in the middle of a coconut grove or a farm. The interviewer(usually female) would ask a question and the expert would answer. After he finishes answering, she’d turn towards the camera and go like “what you are basically saying is..” or “what he is saying..”..and she’d give the wrong details. Then the expert would interrupt her and explain it again with the correct answer. There were a lot of English words he’d use and she’d break them down in the vernacular and also in the same order as his sentence.

These wrong things repeated by her were obvious misunderstandings anyone unfamiliar with fertilizer application would make…it was probably scripted so that the answer can be ‘corrected’ multiple times and also probably reflected mistaken notions by the viewer. Never once was the viewer(here, it was the illiterate non English speaking village farmer) made to feel dumb but always as though they are learning something valuable and special.

It was like Sesame Street for farming adults. It was awesome and kept me glued to the television screen. I would memorize all the IRRI rice hybrids and probably was the only one in school who knew IR20, IR64 and IR8…and urea application rates for them.

Ask anyone of a certain age who their favourite Sesame Street character is …and you would have cracked effective communication technique for that time period.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#398
post #350
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree he's probably a self-entitled know-it-all, but I think at least his conclusion for COVID was spot on. By 2020-01-26 Wuhan (a major Chinese city) was already under lock down, so it was pretty clear CoVID19 was serious. I live in Asia, so I'm not in a position to understand the sentiment in (for example) the US, so the "let's wait until we have more data" attitude is really perplexing to me. Sure, there was no…

I agree with you about COVID. In January, we had videos of China blocking roads that led to Wuhan, soldiers in the streets, people disinfecting the streets. At this point, I knew that it was probably going to be serious.

More than that.. by the 26th they had already cancelled Chinese New Year & implemented lockdowns/restrictions outside of Hubei.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#399
post #130

As a man, every condescending comment you get in person only tells you one thing: your deadlift PR is still too low. Get jacked and all these problems disappear. No matter how silly your questions and objections, no matter how dumb they may think you are, all your concerns will be treated very seriously, criticism couched in most polite terms, and weird stuff written off as eccentric. (It helps to be taller, well-dre…

Sounds like great advice! Why should I listen to guys like Dan Abramov when I can listen to you?

In all seriousness though, this comment almost sounds like its from another language when read here on HN. Its crazy how completely wierd some parts of the internet has become.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#400
> 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 seems fine, but I've found a better approach in this sort of situation is to—as much as possible!—explain your reason to the person helping you. It's not about seeming less stupid (although that is one of the outcomes) but about giving the other person room to help you with your actual goal. When somebody understands why you need the smallest box, they'll have no reservations about finding it for you, and they might have even better suggestions you didn't consider (eg "order this laptop online, the boxes they use for shipping are more efficient").

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