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Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

deadneurons.substack.com

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Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

#61

Post by com2kid »

specialist wrote: post #58
com2kid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why, aside from pride, every other 3d modeling program doesn't just copy Rhino's UI. EVERYTHING is awful compared to Rhino3d. Viscerally painful to use bad in comparison.

TLDR: Michael Gibson is the brain child for Rhino3D's UI. Yup. I know some of this story. It's been a minute, so I forget some details... Ages ago, Robert McNeel & Assoc had been working on the geometry kernel for years. They had high value customers who needed very correct results, not available (from other kernels) at the time. By that time, being a VAR, McNeel had experience with most commercial offerings. Not hav…

I grew up in Seattle and attended West Seattle High School. The technology teacher (whose name I forget, but I can remember his face and voice!) decided to teach us Rhino3d. That went on to me talking about Rhino on Slashdot one day and a digital book publishing startup noticed my comment, and eventually offered me a job of writing a book about Rhino.

I actually haven't used Rhino for much of anything for decades now, I think the last time I used it was to build a scale model of my old town home. I cannot really justify spending $1000 on a program that I would only boot up once every few months for fun. But I have kept love for it all these years, every time I have started it up (downloaded a trial to get some particular task done) I was able to continue right where I left off making things.

Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

#62

Post by justonceokay »

saghm wrote: post #53
justonceokay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being self-centered is helpful.

If you think that everyone else who is worse at you than reading social cues is self centered rather than your way of experiencing the world maybe just not being universal, I feel like you might be the one acting self-centered.

I was more addressing the alternative of “stepping on all the landmines”. Every time I have made progress in being a better listener I have found I suddenly also make fewer social faux pas. That I can hang with a wider range of individuals because I am less rigid in my own thinking.

It’s difficult to imagine someone who is very present with what is happening be truly socially awkward. They might be uncomfortable but they will likely still be funny and caring. But it’s easy to imagine 100 ways in which a more egotistical person could offend, confuse, or otherwise put off bad vibes in a social setting.

Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

#63

Post by antonvs »

znnajdla wrote: post #31

And this is also why all institutions rot over time. When the original experts and founders are gone, only the codified superficial knowledge remains. The result is bureaucracy coasting on the resources and reputation built by the original founders. Works until it encounters real problems that are not solved by superficial rules.

There's another perspective on this, which is that the entire function of mature corporations is to codify what's needed to perform certain functions mechanistically, eliminating the need for expertise. Sure, you might have product development or R&D but they're not part of the daily customer-facing function of the corporation.

That's why when private equity buys a company, the first thing they often do is shut down any new product development or R&D. They want to run the machine and extract profit from what it does now - a cash cow - without taking risks on changing a working model. In this model, new product development is for startup ventures, not mature companies whose DNA doesn't tend to be a good fit for it anyway.

tl;dr: What you're describing is the system working as designed and intended. For better or worse.

Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

#64

Post by RetroTechie »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #23

Fully agree and this something I only fully realised quite late in life. One of the implications is that at any given point in time, the vast majority of human knowledge is living in people's brains and cannot be stored. The seemingly ineluctable and almost mechanical progression of technology is happening on a thin margin between generational losses.

Maybe not so thin: much humans' knowledge is embedded in things we create (outside of language).

For example the design of a machine may have it tolerate inputs way outside spec & work fine. It may be built to take a beating, while no manual mentions using it in a rough environment. There may be subtle or not-so-subtle tweaks done to it over the years.

So that machine embodies knowledge, that may be 're-discovered' (by observing machine in action) long after its original designer is gone.

Another example: the design of traffic systems, the layout of cities (mostly organic growth), and how it affects the flow of people & goods through that city.

That's just a few examples. In short: knowledge is stored in other ways besides books/videos etc, or people's heads.

Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

#66

Post by saghm »

justonceokay wrote: post #62
saghm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that everyone else who is worse at you than reading social cues is self centered rather than your way of experiencing the world maybe just not being universal, I feel like you might be the one acting self-centered.

I was more addressing the alternative of “stepping on all the landmines”. Every time I have made progress in being a better listener I have found I suddenly also make fewer social faux pas. That I can hang with a wider range of individuals because I am less rigid in my own thinking. It’s difficult to imagine someone who is very present with what is happening be truly socially awkward. They might be uncomfortable but…

> It’s difficult to imagine someone who is very present with what is happening be truly socially awkward. They might be uncomfortable but they will likely still be funny and caring. But it’s easy to imagine 100 ways in which a more egotistical person could offend, confuse, or otherwise put off bad vibes in a social setting.

I think I mostly agree with the sentiment behind this, if not the terminology. I would certainly describe plenty of people who are well meaning but inept as socially awkward, but I agree that for the most part they are less likely to ruffle feathers.

That being said, I do think the parent comment was speaking specifically about the ability to adapt to new groups with different expectations on the fly. At least based on personal experience, I don't find it particularly difficult to imagine a circumstance where good intent is not enough for someone who struggles to read social cues to still encounter some initial friction with a new social group that doesn't closely resemble one they're familiar with, but I'd agree that it's probably less likely than someone who genuinely doesn't care about whether they offend anyone.

In any case, I appreciate your elaboration on this! I don't think I inferred the point you were trying to make very well initially, so the extra context was helpful to understand where you're coming from.

Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

#69

Post by darkerside »

justonceokay wrote: post #62
saghm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that everyone else who is worse at you than reading social cues is self centered rather than your way of experiencing the world maybe just not being universal, I feel like you might be the one acting self-centered.

I was more addressing the alternative of “stepping on all the landmines”. Every time I have made progress in being a better listener I have found I suddenly also make fewer social faux pas. That I can hang with a wider range of individuals because I am less rigid in my own thinking. It’s difficult to imagine someone who is very present with what is happening be truly socially awkward. They might be uncomfortable but…

I'd be wary of testing this as binary. It's not self centered versus not. It's a continuum, which I think you understand because you discuss making progress.

But, what you don't seem to acknowledge is that you don't hear what you don't hear. Some groups may be quietly judging you in a way that is VERY difficult to perceive because you don't understand their subtle social cues. Or, maybe you have perfect social awareness in all situations. I truly don't know.

Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

#70

Post by robocat »

skeletoncrew2 wrote: post #17
robocat wrote: post #2

I would call the difference intuitive knowledge versus rational knowledge. I've never seen the word calibration used this way: different modes of learning. The first is instruction: the transfer of explicit models, rules, and relationships from one person to another through language. The second is calibration: the development of internal models through repeated exposure to feedback in a specific environment. Judgemen…

Or maybe inductive vs deductive reasoning

I should avoid the word rational. Unfortunately I really love the word due to the paradox of rationalisation (being irrational).

Analytical or reasoned would be better opposites (of intuitive) for the split in meaning I was looking for.

Inductive and deductive reasoning are usually analytical.

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