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Willingness to look stupid

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Re: Willingness to look stupid

#91

Post by miroljub »

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #78

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 r…

Nicely put. That's why most of the innovation over the centuries came from the high trust style societies.

With the decline of trust, I fear we as a civilization are going into a long period of stagnation or even regression. Unfortunately, at this point there's no socially acceptable way to reverse the trend of trust destruction.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#94

Post by bear141 »

Reading this makes me think of the effect of doing something you do all the time, and are pretty great at, but when someone is watching you, you inevitably make a stupid mistake.

It also makes me think of certain people that attain the level of fame where everything they do is praised, whether it is objectively good or not.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#95

Post by pbhjpbhj »

WalterBright wrote: post #86
ahf8Aithaex7Nai wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow, it always triggers my skepticism when supposedly sociobiological or evolutionary anthropological or evolutionary psychological arguments are brought up. My suspicion is that it is far too easy to simply pack in the story you want to have in there. I can think of dozens of objections to your description. For example, in small groups, the social game in terms of status may not be that complex, and the choice f…

I've never encountered a person who was attracted to a stupid person. BTW, the Flintstones is just The Honeymooners without Jackie Gleason. One could also argue that Family Guy and The Simpsons are also reboots of The Honeymooners. > who have strangely short haircuts and go hunting the way people go to work today "They're the modern stone age family" are the words in the Flintstones' theme song.

Never heard of "bimbos"/"himbos"?

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#96

Post by teekert »

I think I was 35 when I first said to myself: "When you don't understand something, it's either because it's difficult, or because you don't have all information you need yet."

Being able to think this (and really feel it) was a big step for me. I think objectively I was always quite smart and also highly educated but I still felt like an imposter. It's nice when you finally feel that trust in yourself. And indeed I probably sometimes look stupid, but I think I often come back quickly in smart ways afterwards anyway, so I don't care so much about it.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#97

Post by satisfice »

“Fragile ego” is such a tired trope. It is certainly a factor, but its effects are way overestimated. Something about “fragile ego” seems to stop people from thinking any further.

“Looking stupid” has an obvious downside. Just restate it as “proven incompetent.” If you are proven incompetent within your social group, you lose your power. Loss of power has terrible consequences! Duh!

When someone blames fragile ego, which is equivalent to saying “fear of losing self-respect” but ignores “being ostracized from access to resources and influence by people you depend upon and respect” I might conclude that I should ignore what that person thinks, because maybe they have a thinking impairment. (See how that works?)

Young people are not trying things because they are fearless, nor do they have bullet-proof egos, they are trying things because they really are stupid (in a gentle manner of speaking). They don’t know as much as they will know. Also, they know they have no social status and they must take risks to prove themselves.

Finally, they do it because they have nothing else to do and nothing else to protect.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#98

Post by KuSpa »

cjlm wrote: post #36

See also: https://danluu.com/look-stupid/

What a genuine read. And it is kinda the whole reason why i started blogging (shameless plug: stupid-ideas.com). You never git gud if you never start. And you innevitably look stupid to some people when starting.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#99

Post by themafia »

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #78

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 r…

I've never understood the "high-strust/low-trust" social dichotomy. I've never processed "society" as a single entity, but a large system with many independent aspects, and my levels of trust vary wildly across them and over time.

I'd also offer that there's no difference between "truly creative work" and "truly creative and profitable work" but we often see the two as separate because we only have convenient access to one or the other.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#100

Post by iamflimflam1 »

eucyclos wrote: post #71
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.

The sign of true subject matter expert is someone who has the confidence to say when they don’t know the answer.
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