Willingness to look stupid • Hacker News Board

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#451

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

The problem with looking stupid is that actually stupid people (i.e., people who do actually stupid things) are dangerous both to themselves and others. So, seeming to be stupid leads people to distance themselves from you, to avoid being caught up in expected consequences of stupid actions.

Donald Rumsfeld was both actively intelligent and very actively stupid. Staying away from him was smart.

He could have just asked the Apple droid to bring out one of each laptop in its box, and picked one without saying why he was picking that one. The whole transaction would have gone quicker. So, making himself look stupid produced a predictably suboptimal result in that case.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#452

Post by marttt » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #376

mywittyname wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> Most of the time when I ask obvious questions, the replies are yes/no. She knew how to ask them in such a way that gets the person talking in greater detail. Dumb question here, but is it as simple as starting your question with "how" or "what" rather than "does"? The former invite explanation and the later looks for a yes/no. My big thing lately is to not ask rhetorical questions (which can be sarcasm in disguise…

> Dumb question here, but is it as simple as starting your question with "how" or "what" rather than "does"? The former invite explanation and the later looks for a yes/no.

Yes, this is the 101 of basic interviewing in journalism. Inexperienced reporters often ask too many "does" questions and are puzzled afterwards as to why the interviewee didn't talk much.

"Does" is also used when the journalist aims or pushes for a straightforward, yes-or-no answer. For example to interfere to a politician who is trying to avoid direct answers by trolling the interviewer with some off-topic agenda.

Also, this is a funny proposal with regard to the Five Ws: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/additions-to-th...

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#453

Post by terr-dav » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

VortexDream wrote: post #293

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 article speaks to my soul. All my life I've been told how intelligent I am. It's been such a massive driver for my own insecurities and fear around anything I do, since my identity is tied up so much in being right and not being wrong, in continuing to present this image of infallible intelligence. It's likely also fed into my issues with depression I've had all my life. I can consistently get people to see how…

What helps me is to view intelligence as strictly a matter of brain power. I can use my intelligence to do things that are stupid, unwise, misinformed, harmful, etc.

What I take from the article is that saying stupid things is the best way to avoid doing stupid things.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#454

Post by joeberon » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

blfr wrote: post #334

joeberon wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"at their own peril"? It's really not a big deal lol

Being treated poorly compounds, just like the fear of looking stupid. Especially in the dating market.

You sound like an incel. Anyone who cares about this stuff is already weak.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#455

Post by kakuri » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

I failed a technical interview at a large financial institution and I'm sure the interviewers thought I was stupid. As I gazed at the atrocious code they wanted me to make changes to and listened to them misuse programming terms as they tried in vain to communicate what changes they wanted me to make I'm sure my bewilderment was all over my face. Everything else about the company was great, but all my enthusiasm died when I saw into the engineering side of the business.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#456

Post by TameAntelope » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

barrenko wrote: post #131

roenxi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Looking stupid" is an assessment of what other people think. Eg, asking for the smallest box isn't stupid - Apple expects all the boxes to be good products. Even picking a product randomly isn't stupid and therefore shouldn't look it. The looking stupid part is an assessment of what the store clerk is thinking. That is a very subtle, fraught and complicated assessment. There is a lot going on to do with the audience…

Yes, but in general it's pretty noticeable when someone thinks you're stupid, because when people find a reason to place you "below" so to speak, all kinds of behaviour quickly come out.

People are, generally, thinking about you a lot less than you perceive them to be thinking about you.

So in general it may seem pretty noticeable, but in reality it's rarely so.

> In particular, it's often the case that there's a seemingly obvious but actually incorrect reason something is true, a slightly less obvious reason the thing seems untrue, and then a subtle and complex reason that the thing is actually true.

This is a good example of what's in the submission! It's "seemingly obvious" that people are judging you all the time, and slightly less obvious that people aren't actually thinking about you nearly as often as you think, but the few who are thinking about you might be indeed judging you to look stupid for asking "basic" questions.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#457

Post by 7402 » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

I think that sometimes "willingness to look stupid" can simply be a function of your power situation.

When I was a respected Principal Engineer, secure in my position, I was willing to look stupid.

When I was in a contract-to-hire position, where I had spent months looking for a job and where I was constantly judged and I thought I might be let go at any moment, I was not willing to look stupid.

When I was a long-time group leader and project architect, I was willing to look stupid.

When I worked at a place where I was in the political and religious minority, I was not willing to look stupid.

One shouldn't be afraid to look stupid in situations where that fear is groundless. But I think it's worth having some empathy for people who are in a situation where looking stupid could actually be a threat.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#458

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

andrewla wrote: post #338

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…

[deleted]

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#459

Post by nzealand » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

babelfish wrote: post #416

stavros wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why he was asking for the smallest box, though? Isn't that an inefficient proxy? Wouldn't asking to see the computers have been more accurate?

The author's refusal to explain to the store employee why he wants the smallest box makes me think he actually is stupid, or at least lacks the emotional intelligence to understand that when someone is trying to help you, you should explain your intentions to them. If I worked at the Apple store, and somebody insisted they want the laptop in the 'smallest box' without explaining why, the only reasonable conclusion is…

I think that is the funniest part of this article.

I read his post to the end looking for the answer to why he wanted the smallest box, furiously thinking of why. I could only think of three reasons that I rejected as unlikely. Frustrated, I came here to look at the comments. So many comments about the box. It's like the contents of the briefcase on Pulp Fiction. It's like a McGuffin that forces everyone to talk about his article.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#460

Post by jack_riminton » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

I did an MBA which involved plenty of consulting projects for real firms. I pride myself on being brave enough to ask stupid questions and I found that this was a superpower when consulting on complicated projects. Often the instigators don't know the answers themselves so you go on journey of discovery together in the first few meetings.

A lot of the international students, especially from Asian countries, would never ask such 'stupid' questions for fear of losing face. This became apparent for a lot of them in the final presentations when they still didn't understand the real problems