4 ms·

>> not so smart that you’re just lost when talking to them That, BTW, is a sure sign that someone is trying to appear smarter than they really are. Having work

by m0zg 7y ago

>> not so smart that you’re just lost when talking to them That, BTW, is a sure sign that someone is trying to appear smarter than they really are. Having worked at 2 research labs over the course of my career I know more than my fair share of genius-level people. Without fail, they are humble about it, and can explain complex concepts in a way the rest of us can understand. This is something that just blows my mind pretty consistently actually, and IMO it is a sign of true, deep understanding of a complex subject. The person didn't just memorize formulas (although many of them excel at that as well), they understand why things are the way they are, the real meaning behind it all. It could be that this is selection bias though, and I only got to know geniuses who aren't also assholes.

afarrell 7y ago
> a sure sign that someone is trying to Nope. Explaining things well is a skill. One can be non-excellent at it. Its possible to have a moderately-good grasp of something that you can use while working with it, but not yet have come up with good ways to make your knowledge explicit in a well-organized fashion.
- learnstats2 7y ago
  Moderately-good is not genius. Part of being great at something includes an ability to abstract out common difficulties, which helps other people to understand (even when you are not that great at explaining). I'm not aware that I've ever met a genius who was working on completely different principles to other people - everyone reaches the same difficulties and has to find a way to resolve those.
  - afarrell 7y ago
    > Moderately-good is not genius. Agreed. But moderately-good is also not "a sure sign that someone is trying to appear smarter than they are". > everyone reaches the same difficulties That is definitely false. I've had difficulties with social skills, the writing process, and knowing how to direct my attention. Some of these are so alien to other people that when I ask questions, it is not uncommon to get responses like: * Just do the obvious thing. * This isn't hard. * What do you think {repetition of my question}? * You're overthinking things. * What the fuck is wrong with you? The folks I've heard get discouraged from maths or science tell similar stories. Part of being good at the skill of explanation is asking questions which help you understand the other person's perspective and what their difficulties are.
    - learnstats2 7y ago
      >> everyone reaches the same difficulties > That is definitely false. A bit strong, and I don't think your examples are necessarily contradicting this. Obviously everyone has their own experience. Responses such as "You're overthinking things" most often mean: 'I overcame this problem with practice but it happened subconsciously, so I'm not able to express how I did this.'
prostheticvamp 7y ago
As Feynman said: you don’t really understand a subject until you can explain it to your grandfather.
- username90 7y ago
  Just a note, Feynman was very bad at explaining things to uneducated people. He was famous for his insights and ability to explain things to other professionals, but his lectures were very badly received by the students. So I'd take that statement with a grain of salt, as Feynman obviously have way better understanding than an average lecturer.
- 1337shadow 7y ago
  And that's how I explained the cloud to my grandma: the company buys big daddy servers which make baby computers that the company sells for profit. She was so happy she finally understood what my job was at the time.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    How about: instead of keeping photos in a shoebox in your cupboard at home, you can keep them in a container at a company's storage place. But people want their own box, so the company divide their container box up into pigeon-holes and fit all the shoeboxes in to the spaces in it. If you want to look at the pictures you can go and view them, you only have access to your own shoebox though. Shoebox is logical computer, cupboard is computer, container is a distant "big" computer (server), pigeon hole is a virtual server. Now you might have a few boxes of photos at different companies -- the cloud is being able to see/use all those photos at the same time from anywhere in the World. [Perhaps too close to storage model vs processing model of cloud?]
  - afarrell 7y ago
    When I read this gestation/birth analogy, it makes it seem to me like a large piece of hardware assembles and ejects a small piece of hardware. I assume in-person there was more detail or different imagery?
saagarjha 7y ago
No, not always. I have talked to a lot of people who are doing something I just fundamentally know nothing about, and I just cannot follow them. In my experience, people who are trying to appear smart are often intentionally unhelpful when you ask them for clarification or details (though there are of course smart people who just choose to be this way…)
hnews_account_1 7y ago
I highly doubt explanatory capability is a sure sign of genius. I have it in that I can explain it to an equally smart person who doesn't know the field. But the reason I can do that is because if I don't extract the essentials of what I'm doing, I get confused myself. I spend 90% of my life confused so I'll have clarity for the remaining 10% when my only slightly above average intelligence finally fits the new piece of knowledge into the jigsaw of concepts inside my brain. Consequently, I'm generally good at explaining stuff to people who are willing to learn. If nothing, I don't disparage the ones who don't know enough just because it happens to be my field of expertise (if you're also in my field and at my level and you fuck up something simple, I'm not a forgiving person though). That makes me come across as smart and what-not, but honestly it is hours and hours of work being shut up in my room and reading and analysing a metric ton of data. This is followed by long showers where I consider the concept in many different ways and have some final grasp of it by the time I'm back to my desk. I'm explaining all this to say that I'm very very far from genius. I've seen genius. It is a grasping ability that is technically superior to mine while I get mired in all the offshoots. And not all of them can explain a concept as well as I can.

by m0zg 7y ago

afarrell 7y ago

> a sure sign that someone is trying to Nope. Explaining things well is a skill. One can be non-excellent at it. Its possible to have a moderately-good grasp of something that you can use while working with it, but not yet have come up with good ways to make your knowledge explicit in a well-organized fashion.

learnstats2 7y ago
Moderately-good is not genius. Part of being great at something includes an ability to abstract out common difficulties, which helps other people to understand (even when you are not that great at explaining). I'm not aware that I've ever met a genius who was working on completely different principles to other people - everyone reaches the same difficulties and has to find a way to resolve those.
- afarrell 7y ago
  > Moderately-good is not genius. Agreed. But moderately-good is also not "a sure sign that someone is trying to appear smarter than they are". > everyone reaches the same difficulties That is definitely false. I've had difficulties with social skills, the writing process, and knowing how to direct my attention. Some of these are so alien to other people that when I ask questions, it is not uncommon to get responses like: * Just do the obvious thing. * This isn't hard. * What do you think {repetition of my question}? * You're overthinking things. * What the fuck is wrong with you? The folks I've heard get discouraged from maths or science tell similar stories. Part of being good at the skill of explanation is asking questions which help you understand the other person's perspective and what their difficulties are.
  - learnstats2 7y ago
    >> everyone reaches the same difficulties > That is definitely false. A bit strong, and I don't think your examples are necessarily contradicting this. Obviously everyone has their own experience. Responses such as "You're overthinking things" most often mean: 'I overcame this problem with practice but it happened subconsciously, so I'm not able to express how I did this.'

prostheticvamp 7y ago

As Feynman said: you don’t really understand a subject until you can explain it to your grandfather.

username90 7y ago
Just a note, Feynman was very bad at explaining things to uneducated people. He was famous for his insights and ability to explain things to other professionals, but his lectures were very badly received by the students. So I'd take that statement with a grain of salt, as Feynman obviously have way better understanding than an average lecturer.
1337shadow 7y ago
And that's how I explained the cloud to my grandma: the company buys big daddy servers which make baby computers that the company sells for profit. She was so happy she finally understood what my job was at the time.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  How about: instead of keeping photos in a shoebox in your cupboard at home, you can keep them in a container at a company's storage place. But people want their own box, so the company divide their container box up into pigeon-holes and fit all the shoeboxes in to the spaces in it. If you want to look at the pictures you can go and view them, you only have access to your own shoebox though. Shoebox is logical computer, cupboard is computer, container is a distant "big" computer (server), pigeon hole is a virtual server. Now you might have a few boxes of photos at different companies -- the cloud is being able to see/use all those photos at the same time from anywhere in the World. [Perhaps too close to storage model vs processing model of cloud?]
- afarrell 7y ago
  When I read this gestation/birth analogy, it makes it seem to me like a large piece of hardware assembles and ejects a small piece of hardware. I assume in-person there was more detail or different imagery?

saagarjha 7y ago

No, not always. I have talked to a lot of people who are doing something I just fundamentally know nothing about, and I just cannot follow them. In my experience, people who are trying to appear smart are often intentionally unhelpful when you ask them for clarification or details (though there are of course smart people who just choose to be this way…)

hnews_account_1 7y ago

I highly doubt explanatory capability is a sure sign of genius. I have it in that I can explain it to an equally smart person who doesn't know the field. But the reason I can do that is because if I don't extract the essentials of what I'm doing, I get confused myself. I spend 90% of my life confused so I'll have clarity for the remaining 10% when my only slightly above average intelligence finally fits the new piece of knowledge into the jigsaw of concepts inside my brain. Consequently, I'm generally good at explaining stuff to people who are willing to learn. If nothing, I don't disparage the ones who don't know enough just because it happens to be my field of expertise (if you're also in my field and at my level and you fuck up something simple, I'm not a forgiving person though). That makes me come across as smart and what-not, but honestly it is hours and hours of work being shut up in my room and reading and analysing a metric ton of data. This is followed by long showers where I consider the concept in many different ways and have some final grasp of it by the time I'm back to my desk. I'm explaining all this to say that I'm very very far from genius. I've seen genius. It is a grasping ability that is technically superior to mine while I get mired in all the offshoots. And not all of them can explain a concept as well as I can.