Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Willingness to look stupid

sharif.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 273 posts

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#71

Post by eucyclos »

danpalmer wrote: post #16

> Some of the best research ... has come from surprisingly young people. ... They're not afraid of looking stupid. Young people aren't doing things without worrying about looking stupid, they just don't know that they look stupid. I say that as a former young person who was way more naive than I thought I was at the time. This is good and bad. Also I think this point ignores that as people grow in their careers they…

There's also the fact that there's a lot less social pressure for young people not to look stupid. If you're the senior subject matter expert and get a question you can't answer, people still expect you to make an educated guess. The junior guy they expect to ask someone.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#72

Post by b3lvedere »

stefap2 wrote: post #5

I found it gets easier as you get older. Somehow I care much less what others think

I find it incredibly easy on people and processes my life does not depend on being the way it is. I find it incredibly annoying and unconfortable when around people and processes my life depends on.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#73

Post by klausa »

tayo42 wrote: post #31
rvrs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you like it or not you will look stupid to native speakers. It's a subconscious bias

Idk if that's universal, when I run into people who struggle with English or just don't know it my first thought has never been this is a stupid person.

"Looking stupid" and "being a stupid person", or even "coming off as a stupid person" are not the same things.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#74

Post by famahar »

nickvec wrote: post #67

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's the prevalence of AI-generated text on the Internet now, but I feel more motivated to just... type stuff out and post it now without giving it too much thought (where previously I would overthink things.) Could be all the Claude Code prompting I've been doing too? Not sure.

I feel more motivated to write now because a "badly" written text made by a human to me is always better than a "perfect" text completely made by AI. Everyone has their own way of writing. Embracing that in these times is something to find motivation in.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#76

Post by socalgal2 »

I'm not sure this is the same thing but I waffle between wanting to not look stupid and also not wanting others to think I'm not trying hard enough.

Let's say there is something I need to do at work. I could read docs in the company internal site. I could read the code. Maybe the thing I need to do is figure out why a test is failing. It's possible it's failing because there's a bug in the code. It's possible it's failing because there is a bug in the test. It's possible it's failing because there's a bug in the CI/CQ. It's possible it's failing because some other dependency changed something.

The question is, when do I keep digging on my own vs ask for guidance and how much guidance? I never have a good feeling for that. I kind of wish the guidance was offered or encouraged as "I know you're not familiar with this stuff so let me walk you through this issue and then hopefully you can do it on your own the next time". But, I never know. I feel compelled to try to work it out on my own. Some of that is ego, like I can't do it on my own I must not be as good as others on my team. But I have no idea how much they asked vs figured out.

A few times when I do get guidance it's not enough. the person giving it isn't aware of all the hidden knowledge that's helping them figure out the issue and therefore doesn't pass it on.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#77

Post by john-j »

nickvec wrote: post #67

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's the prevalence of AI-generated text on the Internet now, but I feel more motivated to just... type stuff out and post it now without giving it too much thought (where previously I would overthink things.) Could be all the Claude Code prompting I've been doing too? Not sure.

- Could be a much higher prevalence of badly written AI-generated articles, awful AI slop code etc - you know you can do better

- Could be the opposite, the fact that a lot of what is AI-generated is well polished, at least on a surface - your raw input is distinguishable as a human and rated higher by yourself or others

- Could be the motivation to try to keep internet human-made even if it seems like a lost fight

- Could be the fact that people overall take less effort to write things as you can always polish it up with AI - some decide not to do that and still post it - you feel safer doing the same

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#78

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

This posts observation have interesting side-effects. Measurements, metrics and surveillance kill creative work. And hierarchies and the fear of embarrassment do too. So, the more you try to force "excellence" into existence via external pressures and resource tracking, the more it disappears.

Which leaves as observation, you can only do truly creative work - in a high trust society, where people trust you with the resources and leave you alone, after a initial proof of ability.

Or in a truly low-trust society, where you are part the kleptocrat chieftain system and you just use your take to do this kind of work. The classic MBA process will totally destroy any scientific or creative institution.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#79

Post by csin »

saulpw wrote: post #23
reverius42 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see a bull open a very complicated garbage dumpster in a national park. Maybe bears are actually smart and not just looking smart? > Said one park ranger, "There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists."

I think they are probably referring to marketplace bears and bulls.

It's a horrendous example.

Bears are the same thing as bulls. Just the opposite.

You can look like a degenerate wallstreetbets gambler, being a bull, buying puts.

You can equally look like a degenerate wallstreetbets gambler, being a gay bear, shorting the stock.

The "beauty" of our modern stock market, is it provides both sides the avenue to lose stupid amounts of money.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#80

Post by ryanjshaw »

polywanna wrote: post #33
strken wrote: post #27

> There might be a good reason why smart people want to avoid looking stupid ... The only plausible explanation is that our egos are fragile I disagree with this, at least in how it regards ego as pointless. Humans are tuned to win a delicate social competition by becoming popular and therefore having a bunch of kids with other popular (and therefore reproductively successful) people. The most plausible explanation i…

[flagged]

> It exists only for the people who think it exists

Right. Which means it does exist. And the point of the article is to bring about self awareness of the phenomenon so that people can improve.

I think you have the same goal with your comment, but your style of communication needs work.

Ironically, I would argue you might benefit from caring a little about how others perceive you.

Post reply on HN