331–340 of 811 posts
It would be fun to have a list of these ideas. Anyone have any examples beyond the footnote in the article? (why wider tires have better grip)
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…
Great read!
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It's a social reality most nerds ignore at their own peril. The way you're treated is very loosely correlated with being smart, having unusual tastes, or asking questions but tightly with how you present yourself.
"at their own peril"? It's really not a big deal lol
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In would say it goes even further than humblebragging, and ventures into narcissism and an inability to handle criticism, explain oneself, or accept help. If the car insurance salesperson disagrees with you, maybe you should try to understand why? Did you really consider the possible that a tree branch could fall in front of your car or that you could get caught in a hail storm? If the Apple store employee doesn’t un…
> explain oneself I hate this, the idea that I should have to explain myself to a random stranger in a shop as if they are entitled to know anything about me. I buy a lot of sweets on Friday for the weekend and regularly the clerk behind the till will make a comment, "Thats a lot of chocolate! Who is going to eat all that! You must be having a party whats the occasion?". In front of a line of customers who are eager…
Even though I, personally, feel the way you do, the above doesn't ring true. Many people crave those small interactions with strangers, and welcome the opportunity to talk about themselves. That's the reason they're a social norm.
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…
Whenever I ask questions, I tend to go to the very bottom of it. And I am not satisfied as long as I get a very intuitive and fundamental understanding of the topic. I have seen, however, that this can be tiring. Unless you are having the conversation with someone who has the time, willingness, and the knowledge to satisfy my curiosity, it is pointless to keep probing. People would often be exasperated or would be un…
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 through all the super-obvious stuff to satisfy the one guy who didn't do his homework.
So I start asking questions, and slowly begin to realize that nobody in the room has any idea what they are talking about. That there are fundamental misunderstandings and misconceptions about existing systems. And, naturally, it turns out that the questions I have are questions that other people have.
This has happened to me so often now that you would think the sinking feeling I get before I brace myself to look stupid would go away, but it never does.
The author considers himself to be extremely smart. I don‘t think I‘d enjoy their company.
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On the other hand, he doesn't spend much time talking about the case that could have him die or the one that could have him go blind. If something like that happened to me, I would probably have a position like the author. There are also a few cases (COVID, air filtration) where people disagreeing with him had relatively serious health consequences.
While this guy is clearly smart, and willingness to ask simple questions is a worthy quality that many people possess, this is an article about what happens when decent intelligence and a good instinct is accompanied by narcissism and delusions of grandeur. Being right about something feels even better if other people thought you were wrong about it. With his COVID action— people disagreeing with him, at first, wasn'…
Sure, there was no public data on r0 and no proof that COVID19 was similar to the other SARS viruses. But given only the info of "Wuhan was under lockdown", wouldn't it be indicative of the seriousness and the contagiousness of the virus, at least in the eyes of Chinese government officials?
I always thought the "West" misinterpreted the events in China at their detriment. Perhaps they assumed that it merely reflected the inability of the Chinese government to control a pandemic instead of actual seriousness of the disease?
Anyway I started wearing a surgical mask regularly and made sure I washed hands thoroughly after the Wuhan lockdown was announced. I hate wearing masks but it was less than $1/day and some inconvenience compared with an unknown but potentially scary disease. Not sure how anyone would come to a conclusion that taking precautions could be a bad bet (on a personal level at least).