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Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

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Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#21

Post by edw519 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

People are social animals. I think as analytical people we forget this aspect of our humanity a lot. So you need to feed that social part of yourself without doing, time-consuming and mostly pointless things, like getting drunk with the guys and watching naked women dance. If you dig naked women dancing, get HBO. Or just surf the net. As a consultant, I go through phases of alone down-and-working hacking, when I'm no…

Great response! I didn't read this until after I made my response, but I couldn't have said it any better myself.

Daniel, sometimes (not always) when I read your writing, I wonder if we were separated at birth. Sure looking forward to meeting you someday.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#22

Post by eugenejen »

I just think it is more important to be authenticate with myself and people who knows me.I do not to dumb myself down if I am really smart. And I know there are chances that someone is smarter than I am or learned more domain knowledge than I have. I need to be modest but I need to hold my own ground. Otherwise, I will be a big coward toward my true self.

I did not try to fit in any group. If I don't feel comfortable. I leave. I am a pretty loner and I take it.

I hold very low opinions toward a person who can't be authenticate about himself/herself. When I feel a person are just a fake person and I just move away. IMHO, faking wastes precious resources in the world. I don't want myself to be someone wasting other people's time and emotion. And I don't want people like that to waste my time and emotion.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#23

Post by durana »

I think you're looking at this problem in the wrong way. Apply some of that intelligence of yours and try to figure out why you have to "dumb yourself down" to have a good relationship with your friends.

Conversation is a real skill. Communicating your ideas in terms that someone else can really understand and find interesting isn't always easy. And on the flip side, truly understanding what someone is saying and finding value in it for yourself isn't easy either.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#24

Post by ilitirit »

jacoblyles wrote: post #12

You sound like a socially-uncalibrated egotistical person who blames his short-comings on other people. I don't really see what the problem is with "switching modes" depending on who you're talking to. Everybody does it. It's natural. You don't want to be the guy that yaps about the research project he's doing during the department social hour, and which is coincidentally the only thing he talks about before and afte…

> You sound like a socially-uncalibrated egotistical person who blames his short-comings on other people.

Why do you say that? I ask because I'm genuinely curious about how to talk about these things without sounding like that, and without having to qualify everything I say.

The fact is that I am aware that it's my shortcoming. That's why I'm not asking for advice on how to change other people. I'd rather find a way to improve the situation for myself. I don't consider myself supremely intelligent, and I don't consider my peers stupid either. For all I know, they might have the same complaints about me when it comes to topics like sports or women. I don't base relationships with people on the basis of my perception of their intelligence either. As I mentioned to someone else, this is just one aspect of the entire spectrum of interpersonal relationships. In the future, I might have a problem with learning to accept people's opinions. But right now, as far as relationships go, this is what has been on my mind.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#25

Post by spkthed »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

People are social animals. I think as analytical people we forget this aspect of our humanity a lot. So you need to feed that social part of yourself without doing, time-consuming and mostly pointless things, like getting drunk with the guys and watching naked women dance. If you dig naked women dancing, get HBO. Or just surf the net. As a consultant, I go through phases of alone down-and-working hacking, when I'm no…

That's a pretty good response. Intelligence has nothing to do with intellectual abilities. 'Idiot savants' can do brilliant and amazing things. The smartest people in the world have trouble remembering where they put their glasses. Some people can recall every detail of every minute of their lives.

People are simply different. The people that feel that they are smarter than others are often way down the line. The really smart people are the ones that want to learn everything from everyone.

As it turns out, when you're always trying to be the teacher, you miss out on many of life's lessons.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#26

Post by helium »

Don't dumb yourself down. People will sense that you are not being yourself and you will be miserable anyway. I have made the same mistake myself in past and I have realised that often times people that you consider less 'intellectual' are capable of very stimulating conversation if given the right subject to talk about.

The key is to not be condescending. People don't mind smart people, but they hate being made to feel stupid. If you have to correct someone, do it in a kind, diplomatic matter.

People don't always have to be super smart to be interesting, even less intelligent folks have the ability to teach you something if you really show an interest.

I myself would rather spend most my time with 'boring', real live people than with a web browser in a darkened room.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#27

Post by russell »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

People are social animals. I think as analytical people we forget this aspect of our humanity a lot. So you need to feed that social part of yourself without doing, time-consuming and mostly pointless things, like getting drunk with the guys and watching naked women dance. If you dig naked women dancing, get HBO. Or just surf the net. As a consultant, I go through phases of alone down-and-working hacking, when I'm no…

Agreed. You (the OP) need to be socialized. :-) There is a phenomenon I call the "Engineering Dance", where engineers and similar types go through a kind dominance ritual on first meeting, probing to see who is the most expert. This doesn't work in most social situations; most people dont like it.

My SO has a masters in math and a minor in CS, but we dont talk about my work much at all. She's a painter; we talk about painting. I enjoy it because I'm learning a lot. I suggest finding a nontechnical interest and become good at it: music, art, literature. You dont have to be an artist or musician, just knowledgeable.

Enlist a woman in the reclamation project. Their social skills really are better than ours, especially the extroverts. Dont look for a GF to do this. Enlist a sister or friend. The two of you can throw a barbecue or the like for the expanded set of friends.

Most people have a socially adept friend. Use said friend for introductions.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#28

Post by stcredzero »

jacoblyles wrote: post #12

You sound like a socially-uncalibrated egotistical person who blames his short-comings on other people. I don't really see what the problem is with "switching modes" depending on who you're talking to. Everybody does it. It's natural. You don't want to be the guy that yaps about the research project he's doing during the department social hour, and which is coincidentally the only thing he talks about before and afte…

Even though I can follow a conversation about graph theory and computational biology, I still avoid the guys at social hour that won't talk about anything else

I read his question as more like: "How do I reconcile knowing spouting X and Y are egregious idiocy with socializing with people who do that?"

I hear this question as more like "Doctor, it hurts when I do that, what do I do?" Answer: Don't do that!

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#29

Post by DanielBMarkham »

edw519 wrote: post #21
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

People are social animals. I think as analytical people we forget this aspect of our humanity a lot. So you need to feed that social part of yourself without doing, time-consuming and mostly pointless things, like getting drunk with the guys and watching naked women dance. If you dig naked women dancing, get HBO. Or just surf the net. As a consultant, I go through phases of alone down-and-working hacking, when I'm no…

Great response! I didn't read this until after I made my response, but I couldn't have said it any better myself. Daniel, sometimes (not always) when I read your writing, I wonder if we were separated at birth. Sure looking forward to meeting you someday.

What can I say? I'm a karma whore. I just restate the obvious and bask in the upvoting love. ;)

Seriously though, I thought long and hard about hitting the submit button. Too many times somebody comes to the group with an honest question and then we rag all over them. It's easy to be critical! As hackers we are really good at finding faults.

But I tried to put myself in his shoes. After all, he came for some feedback. I thought the best thing to do was try to give it to him as honestly and as kindly as I could.

The feeling is mutual! Look forward to meeting you as well some day.

Re: Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?

#30

Post by DenisM »

It's funny how a simple "I find most people intellectually boring, what to do?" got a lot of highly up-voted "get off of your high horse, smarty-pants" replies. I suppose the first lesson here is not to let people know you think lowly of them. Otherwise they get angry and stuff, silly bipedals.

You would have had much different replies if you rephrased your question to "Hey, HN is full of great people with interests and values similar to mine. I feel like I found my long-lost solumate, only several hundred of them at once. How do I find / build similar community in real life, so that I can share both bar hopping and code-hacking?".

:-)

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