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You can't tell people anything (2004)

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Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#71

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Training is hard.

I've been training remarkably difficult-to-train people for decades, with really spotty success.

Part of it was that I have never been "trained to train," so I cleared the minefield by dancing through it.

I have learned to take Responsibility for communication.

In my experience, if "they" don't "get it," it's my fault.

The biggest problem that I have, is starting at too high a baseline (sounds like what happened here). In many cases, I need to back up, and do a "preflight" of "the basics."

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#72

Post by 7thaccount »

memco wrote: post #66
jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. This may be way off in another field, but this is actually frustrating to me as a father in another way: when we watch shows or read books with our child so many of the stories are so far detached from reality as to make me ask, "Why are we asking kids to care about this?" I have particular ire fo…

Daniel Tiger is pretty good about working with others and focusing on our emotional maturity.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#73

Post by KajMagnus »

jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> giving the students time to grapple with the problems without the answers, because then the answers would stick

Well said :- )

How do I create a computer game with monsters and a hero? By learning how to program. Ok so I need to learn how to program

Leading off with the problem, caused years of intensive studies, in my case (long ago). But if instead starting with for loops and if statements, I'd think that would have seemed boring.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#74

Post by jrussino »

memco wrote: post #66
jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. This may be way off in another field, but this is actually frustrating to me as a father in another way: when we watch shows or read books with our child so many of the stories are so far detached from reality as to make me ask, "Why are we asking kids to care about this?" I have particular ire fo…

Have you found any good counterexamples? We let our three-year-old watch Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and I love it because it is exactly this: short (~10 minute) stories about situations and conflicts that a young child will encounter in everyday life. I’d be really interested to hear of other good shows & books like this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Daniel_Tiger%27s_Nei...

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#75

Post by Smoosh »

memco wrote: post #66
jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. This may be way off in another field, but this is actually frustrating to me as a father in another way: when we watch shows or read books with our child so many of the stories are so far detached from reality as to make me ask, "Why are we asking kids to care about this?" I have particular ire fo…

Similarly, almost all the YA novels involve a transformation from ordinary mortal, perhaps even social outcast, to someone who has superpowers and/or is the special chosen one (and the story is the journey to overcome challenges and believe in yourself). They go way past "everyone is special" into "you're a failure if you don't change the world".

Here I am, over 50 and I'm still waiting for my superpowers to kick in...unless it's the power of mostly being adequate, and occasionally useful and creative.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#76

Post by Jenz »

> One final point: I expect none of you to really get what I’m talking about here, because this principle also applies to itself.

This is a bit discontenting... as the author himself notes:

> without some kind of direct experience to use as a touchstone, people don’t have the context that gives them a place in their minds to put the things you are telling then.

Generalizing from mine and friends’ experience, all who have ever tried explaining anything in depth have been exposed to this, thereby we–I expect the HN crowd have all been there–should understand this, we should “get it”.

As an ending note, both OPs post and my comment are grossly simplified; for example, even with “a touchstone” people won’t understand with mere exposure confronted with anything of slight complexity, they probably won’t get it until knowing the stone inside out; I remember after half a year with programming in high school, many people that genuinely tried to learn, still didn’t get why they should bother with getting the syntax exact...

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#77

Post by cuddlybacon »

js8 wrote: post #42
cuddlybacon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've noticed is the better an engineer gets, the better they are at shooting down every idea they see. While I have seen many cases where a person did it anyways and failed, I have also seen many cases where they did it anyways and where massively successful.

Indeed, I suspect there is a curse of expertise. If you're an expert, you begin seeing everything as so nuanced, as so fragile, that you will dismiss lots of radical innovation as too simplistic. (And I think especially it affects motivation to actually try something new.) But if somebody somewhat naive comes along, and just pushes through with sheer effort, they might succeed where many experts have predicted a fail…

There doesn't even need to be great effort. Sometimes the experts are just so good at making every idea look like shit that they don't even try.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#78

Post by dvtrn »

cuddlybacon wrote: post #40
marcosdumay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the culture of anti-competence (although, yes, that exists). How many times have you tried to communicate a novel idea to competent people just to have them dismiss it with obvious problems that clearly don't apply to your idea? That doesn't happen because they can't evaluate your idea, it happens because they don't understand the idea itself. When the innovation is small you can get away by repeating it aga…

One thing I've noticed is the better an engineer gets, the better they are at shooting down every idea they see. While I have seen many cases where a person did it anyways and failed, I have also seen many cases where they did it anyways and where massively successful.

One thing I've noticed is the better an engineer gets, the better they are at shooting down every idea they see.

This was two jobs ago. Razor sharp developer, could come up with any feature you asked him to. Which was the problem, if ideas didn't originate from him, good freaking luck getting him to work on it. He cost us to miss a few critical deadlines because of his refusal to let other people do their jobs unless it satisfied his demands, company refused to fire him because he had been around so long and carried institutional knowledge about the application but also refused to de-silo himself-thereby making the entire engineering effort dependent on his knowledge.

Guy went from a severely annoying veteran on the team to being given management duties over the team once our old boss retired due to health concerns (irrelevant to the job itself-he just drew a very unlucky health card). I and several other developers were out the door soon after because none of us wanted to report to him.

Company later got acquired. I like to peep in on their "About Us" company roster page every now and then. He's still there. But I've seen 3 different people in three years in my former role reporting to him show up on the roster, and then disappear and then get replaced by a new face.

"People don't quit jobs, they quit bosses".

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#79

Post by ksdale »

memco wrote: post #66
jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. This may be way off in another field, but this is actually frustrating to me as a father in another way: when we watch shows or read books with our child so many of the stories are so far detached from reality as to make me ask, "Why are we asking kids to care about this?" I have particular ire fo…

To add to your complaints, so many narratives designed for kids have such a clear delineation between the good side and the bad side. I'm not sure it's great for kids to be so steeped in the belief that the good and the bad are always and immediately obvious.

Another qualm I have, similar to yours, is the number of kids' shows that focus on "problem-solving" but then have the solution be some sort of magic item they very recently acquired, instead of needing to choose a solution from among several non-obvious solutions. Naturally, it's hard for very young children to follow anything very complicated, but it seems like at the very least, they could not opt for magic when it's entirely unnecessary (if they're trying to teach problem-solving).

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