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Willingness to look stupid

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Re: Willingness to look stupid

#701

Post by rdiddly »

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…

Good points, to which I'll add, how the heck is he surrounded by so many people who a) give a shit at all, and b) are so willing to let him know they think he's stupid? No one cares or dares in my case. Maybe it's my "tall privilege" again?

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#702

Post by rdiddly »

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…

Yeah or for that matter, what about the times when people wrongly thought he was smart?

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#703

Post by adamzerner »

Through whatever quirk of my psychology, looking stupid has always been something that I have been 100% ok with. There are various stories that come to mind, but the two that stick out the most happened in middle school science class.

One time we were learning about volcanoes. And, of course, that they erupt. I was thinking about how the eruption is dangerous and causes harm, and what we could do to prevent it. My first thought was, well, to put a cap on the volcano. So I raised my hand and asked the teacher "what if we put a cap on it?", and everyone laughed.

Another time we were learning about plants, and how if you give them too much water they will die. That immediately sounded insane to me and I raised my hand to ask, "Wait, why don't they just not drink it?!"

Both of these stories lingered around for years and people knew me as someone who lacks "common sense" and who is known for asking silly questions.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#704

Post by strken »

lugged wrote: post #700
strken wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a gigantic PDF listing ways the truth can hurt all kinds of things: https://www.nickbostrom.com/information-hazards.pdf

What's your point? I didn't say the truth was harmless. Just that it doesn't hurt points of view that are legitimate. Illigitimate views and your feelings may still suffer from hearing the truth. My point is that the facts don't care.

My point is that you can use true facts to give an impression that is false, as documented in the pdf.

Therefore, completely true facts can make you believe a falsehood.

Therefore, the truth can harm a point of view that is legitimate.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#705

Post by NumberCruncher »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #560
Ensorceled wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say, this example did make me switch my view of the author from some one who wasn't afraid to ask the "stupid" questions to being either a deliberately "just asking questions" asshole who likes to fuck with people or, to be more charitable, someone with a bit of a spectrum disorder.

>someone with a bit of a spectrum disorder. I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to see someone suggesting this, since it seems extremely obvious to me that this is part of the case. It's becoming fairly well-documented that one of the primary differences in people on the spectrum is a difference in communication style , which anecdotally seems to be more direct and less apologetic or prone to "superfluous" verbal…

>> someone with a bit of a spectrum disorder.

> I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to see someone suggesting this, since it seems extremely obvious to me that this is part of the case.

The whole thread has currently 1471 points and 681 comments. I seem the be the 4th person realising, that the whole discussion is about "communication advices given by someone fighting the spectrum disorder". I don't know wat to say.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#706

Post by namibj »

mywittyname wrote: post #360
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…

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…

I think I possess this skill (at least partially), and the trick of "knowing what to ask" is to train yourself heuristics that guide you towards questions that reveal outstandingly large amounts of new information. Of course you have limited information, so those determinations about how much information a question's answer would yield are plagued by that. Hence the heuristics.

This is not easy to learn, and great understanding ability is a prerequisite.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#707

Post by mnsc »

mywittyname wrote: post #360
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…

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…

For me, I think it's about your speed of thinking. If you ask a probing stupid question and get a "yes". If you are quick to reassemble your very low level of understanding into a (wrong) model, you can ask question about this model. "So that means that x goes into y to do z?" which makes you indeed look stupid but it also triggers the person explaining into "ok, this is a full out idiot, I need to go slow and explain in extreme detail". But then I interrupt when it goes to slow with a new pieced-together temporary model from some fact they let out and ask a new maybe less stupid question that makes the explainer go "ok, maybe they understand a bit more" and goes faster/skips details. And then it's like that back and forth until I understand it all and my questions goes into the territory of "yeah, that bit I don't understand either..." which leads us to go on a joint adventure into even greater understanding. A fellowship of the stupid.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#708

Post by Zababa »

indymike wrote: post #624
Zababa wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends. Yes/no questions are great when you want to quickly validate something. Open-ended questions are great when you want to get a lot of information. Yes/no are for confirmation, open-ended for exploration. Different goals.

Hmm. Often times, an open ended question results in a much more accurate answer. Humans tend to approximate or even lie to force an answer to fit a limited choice question. Example: you want to know if water is falling out the sky. You ask: Is it raining? Response is no. You walk out the door and are rendered unconscious by golf-ball size hail. Better to have asked, "what's it like outside?" or, "what's the weather r…

Again, I think that depends on where you are in the exploration/confirmation spectrum. I don't really think about it when doing it, but usually I use open ended questions for stuff I don't know, and yes/no questions to link things to my existing mental model.

That also depends on the person. With some people open ended questions are great, with others yes/no are better.

I'll also add that yes/no questions are often faster if you get the response you expect.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#709

Post by greggman3 »

The masks and air filters make me wonder if my refusal to patronize restaurants that require paying via their website and signing up for an account with email and phone number, both verified by codes. It puts my friends out who just wanted to eat but I'm not eating if they require an account (which always says "we will use your info for marketing").

Maybe it's not the same thing, masks and air filters have more obvious benefits than avoiding accounts at restaurants.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#710

Post by seanhandley »

Re: "You are not noticing when people think you're stupid"

and particularly

> it's very important that you know that they think that you're stupid and will keep increasing the intensity of their responses until you acknowledge that they think you're stupid.

I rarely get criticised or mocked and I think it's because I'm tall, white, and male. If I say something naive, people are almost always accommodating (ok, not on the Internet) because they don't want to risk offending the big beardy dude.

This is a shame because I've spent much of my life:

a) thinking people are basically kind and accommodating b) not being questioned, so missing a potentially valuable source of data with which to check myself and improve

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