14 ms·

The power of admitting ignorance

316 points by Topolomancer 6y ago

KozmoNau7 6y ago
"I do not have enough knowledge of this subject to hold an informed opinion" is a statement that should be respected, not ridiculed. We have a tendency to view people who change their views as "wishy-washy" and "flip-floppers", instead of respecting them for informing themselves and reevaluating their positions.
- brenden2 6y ago
  The truth is that egomaniacs tend to be the ones who get all the fame and glory. Just look at Musk, Trump, and anyone else who's managed to acquire a massive cult following.
cloudier 6y ago
Thanks for sharing this — I needed it. I think this explains why I often say “I get it” when I really don’t: I don’t want to look stupid. But being able to admit ignorance means that I can test my mental models and make them even better. I need to be able to admit my ignorance to myself to be able to ask myself the questions that strengthen my understanding of new or unfamiliar concepts.
- redcalx 6y ago
  In my experience it's often quite obvious when someone doesn't understand something and they say they do. Someone who properly understands will typically offer some tidbit of feedback from their understanding as an acknowledgement. And if not forthcoming I will extend the conversation to try and tease out that bit of feedback. I think this works because the people who genuinely understand something are usually keen to demonstrate that understanding in some small way.
- claudex 6y ago
  If I explain something to a coworker and he doesn't understand it, I think that is because I explain it badly and will try to reformulate or find someone else to explain it. But it only works because I consider my colleagues. If a random person does not undestand, I will react differently.
- Topolomancer 6y ago
  Glad to help out! I think this is also a cultural thing to some extent: no one wants to 'lose status' in front of their peers. Overcoming this is important to actually learn something---and to me, this displays great confidence.
deathgrips 6y ago
This only demonstrates that people with high status in academia can admit ignorance and get a good result. I can speculate that the author would get very different results if he professed ignorance at his first job--I think coworkers who followed "fake it til you make it" would get promoted faster.
- toohotatopic 6y ago
  In the light of amelius's comment: Is the first promotion that relevant? If you learn faster by asking questions, you are a more skilled programmer much sooner. If your first employer doesn't honour that, you then have the skills to switch and earn according to your much higher skills at another company.
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    Companies cannot perfectly measure your programming skill and most software companies don't conduct in depth algorithm interviews. Most of the hiring decision is based on your likability, social skills, previous job history (including job title and skills listed from that first promotion), and how you handle interview questions. You can bullshit your way very far in most of the software development world even if you're only 80% as good as your peers. If you have "junior developer" or "senior developer" on your resume but aren't as good as a "entry level developer", it's a moot point if you get called for an interview but the other guy doesn't.
  - 0DHm2CxO7Lb3 6y ago
    Not only will you learn more but you'll also show your coworkers that you're enthusiastic about learning and that you are an honest person.
  - p1necone 6y ago
    I don't know about others but in my experience if I get a new hire who doesn't ask any questions there's a good chance they've got no idea what they're doing. Nothing worse than having to constantly prompt someone to let you know that they're stuck because they refuse to say anything.
amelius 6y ago
> The person who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the person who does not ask is a fool for life. -- Confucius
- ooobit2 6y ago
  Mandatory notice that should appear with one of those reCAPTCHAs whenever someone opens a social media site or app.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  “The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.” -On the wall of a classroom in my past -can’t remember where.
  - cl0rkster 6y ago
    "Even a fool is wise who knows when to keep his mouth shut" -Proverbs "I know it's a much better decision to shut yo' mouth When you don't know what you talkin' 'bout Than to validate what everybody already thinks of you" -Hip hop
    - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
      I don't really care what my classmates think of me. I'm not there to make them happy. I'm there to learn. If I don't understand a subject "to the bone," I am quite tenacious about finding out what makes it tick; even if that means bothering a content expert teacher with questions about fundamentals. The results speak for themselves. I also don't shame or humiliate others; even if they seem to be "intellectually lazy," or willfully ignorant. I get absolutely no benefit from that attitude. None whatsoever. In fact, learning to shame and humiliate others makes me a pretty shoddy team member. No one wants to work with someone that will jump on their weak points and won't help them to fulfill their potential.
      - rumanator 6y ago
        > I don't really care what my classmates think of me. I'm not there tomake them happy. That remark shows a complete lack of understanding of your situation, your best interests, and social awareness. In the very least, your role is to ensure your peers don't become a roadblock on your path to progress. The least you should aim for is to leverage your classmates as facilitators by helping you lower the difficulty curve. By completely disregarding your classmates you are effectively doing the stupidest thing you could do, other than antagonizing both the student body and teachers: make your life harder just because you are totally oblivious to the importance of living in society
saagarjha 6y ago
Similarly, the instructors I really hate are the ones who don’t know the answers to questions but they’ll try to come up with answer on the spot because they think you (or the eavesdropping student) doesn’t know better. Just say you don’t know!
- Topolomancer 6y ago
  My least favourite instructor, upon being asked whether a certain convergence criterion was just necessary or also sufficient, assumed a very ponderous face and replied sagely---or so he thought---with a simple 'it depends'. The rest of the course went downhill pretty fast from there.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  That's unfortunately a common behaviour among 'experts' and we are witnessing this a lot at the moment.
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I don't know about any research supporting this (see what I did there) but in my experience the best performing teams provide a safe space - where you are not immediately judged or criticised for mistakes, uncertainty or asking questions - but this necessary to bleed upwards to not holding teams to unrealistic deadlines, to careful assessment of quality of definition of work set, even towards what Incall "outcome driven development" where we set metrics to be changed and then assert commits will change said metrics Conversely my worst work has been done when i have bullshitted and now need to keep up the lie. Pro-tip - don't do this Pro-tip-2 - confidence that you can do something you have not done before, when having a history of success in the field is not the same as bullshitting Anyway it's hard to measure objectively- but you tend to reward the right people when you do. And no, markets don't do that nearly as well as you might think
- khebbie 6y ago
  Actually I think this is what they call psychological safety in the state of DevOps report https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/the-2019-accelerate-state-of-devops-elite-performance-productivity-and-scaling https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/the-2019-a...
- Topolomancer 6y ago
  I couldn't agree more! The hallmark of a good team is to provide an environment where you do not have to be constantly on the lookout for 'losing face' or 'losing status', but in fact, an open and honest environment is being fostered. Thanks for sharing your tips---it's appreciated!
- state_less 6y ago
  > And no, markets don't do that nearly as well as you might think Markets depend on Good information To function well. Market participants can distort the information in the market for profit. In so far as this profiteering can be maintained, markets won’t function so well. Some conjecture that might not be too far off the mark.
  - lifeisstillgood 6y ago
kieckerjan 6y ago
Two telltale signs of a mature mind: if someone readily admits he does not know something, or if someone readily admits he was wrong. Call it metacognitive skills if you want.
visarga 6y ago
Developing a sense of what you know or do not know is a big part of learning. In ML, this is called confidence estimation and is harder than actually learning the task. Most ML models just learn to solve the task and have shit confidence estimations. I presume with humans it takes many years of learning a subject to really know how much you do not know. It's a process of calibration of confidence based on lots of background knowledge on the topic (going from unknown unknowns to known unknowns).
thomk 6y ago
To be clear, simply asking an earnest follow up question is simple and efficient way to do this.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
I worked at a Japanese corporation for most of my career. They are not a “warm and fuzzy” bunch. But they respect apologies. If I screwed up, I quickly learned to cop to it. The absolute worst thing I could do was cover it up. Their attitude was not a punishing one, but we were expected to fix our mistakes, and ensure they did not happen again. If we said we did not know something, it was assumed we would learn, or find someone who did. Lot of “personal responsibility” stuff. Americans, on the other hand, tend to pounce on admissions of failure or ignorance, and engage in shaming and humiliation of the person that admits an issue. I am constantly encountering people that Absolutely. Will. Not. Admit. Ignorance. Or. Fault. Even when it’s quite clear. It’s crazy.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  It’s a standard high school debate tactic to throw someone an argument that shows poor taste to counter, but most people take the bait.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Could you give an example?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      Must forbid encryption to save the children from the pedo...les. But these are grown up people though, using those arguments, not high schoolers.
  - andrewflnr 6y ago
    This only convinces me more that high school debate has negative utility and should be abolished.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
blueboo 6y ago
"The power of admitting ignorance", or, the folly of refusing to learn something you don't know. I dunno. It seems self-evident. The issue here is ego. Self-awareness. Humility.
- Topolomancer 6y ago
  Well, it is now to me---but I started university when I had turned 18, and I like to believe that I learned a little bit of wisdom since then :)
WesternStar 6y ago
There also seems to be this misconception that being intelligent gives you a license and even a propensity to be a jerk. I just don't buy it. Sometimes smart people are jerks. But if you're a jerk the onus is on you in my mind to prove you are smart. I won't make that assumption.
curlcntr 6y ago
I put this on the back of my phone after completing my PhD. "in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few" - Shunryu Suzuki
lostlogin 6y ago
The link to Mathematical Apocrypha does something very strange. I think it’s meant to be this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1262199 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1262199 Edit: now the link works.
DanielBMarkham 6y ago
One of the things I've read from folks who know a lot about startups used to amaze me. Intelligence is not necessarily a critical factor in whether founders will be successful or not. In fact, it can be counter-indicative! The more intelligent you are, you more likely you're one of the people like the author mentions. I've also read that it's not the geniuses, necessarily, that make it. Most times it's just the slow plodders. A genius may become overly-attracted to one of their own ideas. They may stick with it too long, or they may be overly-defensive when they receive honest feedback. A plodder just keeps trudging along, happy to take whatever feedback comes their way, happy to change if needed, happy to learn from others. I captured this concept in my first book with a phrase I call "profound ignorance". It's not just admitting you're ignorant, it's admitting you're probably ignorant about everything. And that's fine. Ignorant people don't know yet, and if they're curious, they go try to find out. Even when they do find out, they're still quite open to being wrong. They are, in fact, ignorant. I found this had a profound impact in my programming and consulting career. Frankly, it's bad for your career and good for your life. People want to hire people that know a bunch of stuff, and to be open, honest, and curious about being profoundly ignorant is not reassuring. Other programmers many times want to play posturing games. It is, after all, part of our social programming. Ignorant people usually don't do so well in these games. But on a personal level? It was liberating. I could find whatever I wanted to and deep dive in it. Since I didn't know much of anything, I was able to talk about topics I have a ton of experience in without feeling like I had to attack or defend any pre-held opinions. It was, in fact, what I consider "growing up", both as a human and as a professional. When we think of how much programming is skewed towards youth, we should keep in mind that most really young people have not had this growing up experience. We should wish them well and cut them a bit of slack if they're acting like we did when we were their age. After all, it's human.
- Rerarom 6y ago
  That's why when stuff is being advertised as "everyone can do it", everyone gets excited but I run away. I don't want to be overcome by hard workers, so I am looking for stuff for which you truly have to be a genius to do it and hard work is not a shortcut.
  - 6y ago
makach 6y ago
Excellent blog post. One of the big issues, unfortunately, is that there are too many of THEM. I just sat through a job interview where they bombarded me with topics and asked me to rate myself on a scale from 1-know nothing, 2-familiar and 3-expert. I immediately understood that this was a pointless exercise for me. I knew That I don't consider myself an expert. I haven't studied any topic long enough to call myself an expert. On the other hand, I like to believe that I don't fall in the "clueless" part either. I have worked in the computer industry form many years now and have overall pretty good problem-solving skills and am able to produce work that generates value for my employers. Still, I learn every day and improve on my skill, but it will require a lot before I dare to call myself an expert. Others call me an expert, a wizard, and other nice things, but this is never anything I would use to describe myself. I never got the job offer. Good riddance! I doubt I would have accepted the job anyway.
- Topolomancer 6y ago
  I feel you; if it helps, have you considered that this maybe raises some 'red flags' about the job itself? Maybe you dodged a bullet there...
- zig 6y ago
  This type of rating system is always disappointing. Candidates and interviewers each have different ideas of what expertise means -- I guess because there is no real context around the question. Maybe it's a trope to say, but it seems like competence and likelihood to rate oneself an expert are inversely correlated (barring hubris or real expertise!). I used to ask candidates to rate themselves from 1-10, e.g., in database performance analysis, and often would get people rating themselves a 9 or a 10 without being able to articulate anything about the topic. It just seems very meaningless, since we were going to have a discussion anyway -- and the conversational part of the interview is more revealing, in any case.
  - cecilpl2 6y ago
    I usually find that (within a broad range of capability) someone's actual knowledge on a given topic is inversely correlated with their self-rating on a 1-10 scale.
jasonv 6y ago
I spend all day in teams where no one will admit to knowing anything...
maire 6y ago
I am surprised nobody is talking about the math part of the story. For me - I had the exact same experience with topology as the author. I was taking a normal math class and in the middle of the normal class the professor started talking about topology. He got the whole class excited about topology to the point that we all enrolled in topology the next quarter. Imagine our disappointment when we discovered our new topology professor did not love topology. He taught the class by rote. Topology is not a subject I could learn on my own. I dropped the class and sadly still wonder what I missed. The lesson for me is that it is not enough to admit ignorance. You also need an enlightened guide and mentor.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
arkanciscan 6y ago
I've always readily admitted when I don't know something. Might be that I was raised in Arkansas, where ignorance is a little more acceptable. It's usually a great benefit for me, for the same reasons the article describes. However the problem I've found is that--as an engineer--if you don't profess complete knowledge, there's a limit to how effective you can be in leadership. Engineers don't take you seriously, if you act as though you have any doubt in yourself. It's a wall I keep hitting and I've about decided I need to start feigning full-bore 10x brogrammer ego just to herd some cats.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  > Engineers don't take you seriously, if you act as though you have any doubt in yourself As an engineer, me and my firsthand experience do not agree with this. On the other hand, where I worked the entire team is involved and onboard with setting goals and prioritizing things that need to be done. We absolutely don't expect our manager to understand more than we do on our service.
  - arkanciscan 6y ago
    I'm not talking about management, I'm talking about leadership. Do you have a tech lead on your team? If not how do technical decisions get made? Is it democratic (everyone votes) or more meritocratic (everyone argues their opinion and the strongest one wins). In my experience it's typically the later, and it's in that case that demonstrating a lack of confidence is likely to defeat your chances of leading the team in the direction you think it should go.
    - Aperocky 6y ago
      It is meritocratic, we don't technically have tech lead, but we do have seniority. However, the most senior engineer doesn't pretend/try to give the impression that he knows everything. Usually each person will have a portion of the project that he knows best and his opinions are the primary driver in that portion. Others give recommendations based on those opinion and not overriding them (normally). There are larger issues in direction but for those I think all of our opinions are fairly similar - being engineers, we dislike complexity and like things maintainable and extendable.
naringas 6y ago
now imagine such an attitude in a non-academic setting where instead of a professor replying to a student it's the division head or president or chief executive replying to a junior staffer: "I don't really know what is going on, maybe you can help figure it out?"
kisanme 6y ago
Wonderful read and very thought provoking :)
DFHippie 6y ago
When I was younger I loved ideas for their own sake and was constantly disappointed when I went to have fun with some idea and found that everyone gathered around it viewed it as an opportunity to assert dominance. I fled so many fields because I believed ultimately I would find some place where people were there for the ideas themselves, not for the zero-sum battle for status. Ultimately I left academia and became a programmer because it seemed the ego battle was less a part of the process. I hate the competition-based culture of early academia -- olympiads and whatnot -- for the same reason. The reward isn't in the ideas themselves or the work but in the ranking.
bluedino 6y ago
I wish any company that outsourced their product support would force their contractors to read this. It is so hard for these people to just admit they don't know and have to ask someone or escalate the case.
mark-r 6y ago
I'm never afraid to make an ignorant statement, especially on a forum like HN. Best case is that someone more knowledgeable will come along and teach me something.
- dang 6y ago
  Cunningham's is one of the more underrated internet laws.
joerickey 6y ago
I have to note this: a typical classroom may have up to a couple hundred students and some kind of schedule to uphold. If everyone asks questions all the time, there would be no progress done, and "fast learners" would be bored out of their minds, while the "slower" ones would still have a hard time. Also, schedule would just be trashed by such approach

316 points by Topolomancer 6y ago

"I do not have enough knowledge of this subject to hold an informed opinion" is a statement that should be respected, not ridiculed. We have a tendency to view people who change their views as "wishy-washy" and "flip-floppers", instead of respecting them for informing themselves and reevaluating their positions.

brenden2 6y ago
The truth is that egomaniacs tend to be the ones who get all the fame and glory. Just look at Musk, Trump, and anyone else who's managed to acquire a massive cult following.

cloudier 6y ago

Thanks for sharing this — I needed it. I think this explains why I often say “I get it” when I really don’t: I don’t want to look stupid. But being able to admit ignorance means that I can test my mental models and make them even better. I need to be able to admit my ignorance to myself to be able to ask myself the questions that strengthen my understanding of new or unfamiliar concepts.

redcalx 6y ago
In my experience it's often quite obvious when someone doesn't understand something and they say they do. Someone who properly understands will typically offer some tidbit of feedback from their understanding as an acknowledgement. And if not forthcoming I will extend the conversation to try and tease out that bit of feedback. I think this works because the people who genuinely understand something are usually keen to demonstrate that understanding in some small way.
claudex 6y ago
If I explain something to a coworker and he doesn't understand it, I think that is because I explain it badly and will try to reformulate or find someone else to explain it. But it only works because I consider my colleagues. If a random person does not undestand, I will react differently.
Topolomancer 6y ago
Glad to help out! I think this is also a cultural thing to some extent: no one wants to 'lose status' in front of their peers. Overcoming this is important to actually learn something---and to me, this displays great confidence.

deathgrips 6y ago

This only demonstrates that people with high status in academia can admit ignorance and get a good result. I can speculate that the author would get very different results if he professed ignorance at his first job--I think coworkers who followed "fake it til you make it" would get promoted faster.

toohotatopic 6y ago
In the light of amelius's comment: Is the first promotion that relevant? If you learn faster by asking questions, you are a more skilled programmer much sooner. If your first employer doesn't honour that, you then have the skills to switch and earn according to your much higher skills at another company.
- deathgrips 6y ago
  Companies cannot perfectly measure your programming skill and most software companies don't conduct in depth algorithm interviews. Most of the hiring decision is based on your likability, social skills, previous job history (including job title and skills listed from that first promotion), and how you handle interview questions. You can bullshit your way very far in most of the software development world even if you're only 80% as good as your peers. If you have "junior developer" or "senior developer" on your resume but aren't as good as a "entry level developer", it's a moot point if you get called for an interview but the other guy doesn't.
- 0DHm2CxO7Lb3 6y ago
  Not only will you learn more but you'll also show your coworkers that you're enthusiastic about learning and that you are an honest person.
- p1necone 6y ago
  I don't know about others but in my experience if I get a new hire who doesn't ask any questions there's a good chance they've got no idea what they're doing. Nothing worse than having to constantly prompt someone to let you know that they're stuck because they refuse to say anything.

amelius 6y ago

> The person who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the person who does not ask is a fool for life. -- Confucius

ooobit2 6y ago
Mandatory notice that should appear with one of those reCAPTCHAs whenever someone opens a social media site or app.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
“The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.” -On the wall of a classroom in my past -can’t remember where.
- cl0rkster 6y ago
  "Even a fool is wise who knows when to keep his mouth shut" -Proverbs "I know it's a much better decision to shut yo' mouth When you don't know what you talkin' 'bout Than to validate what everybody already thinks of you" -Hip hop
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    I don't really care what my classmates think of me. I'm not there to make them happy. I'm there to learn. If I don't understand a subject "to the bone," I am quite tenacious about finding out what makes it tick; even if that means bothering a content expert teacher with questions about fundamentals. The results speak for themselves. I also don't shame or humiliate others; even if they seem to be "intellectually lazy," or willfully ignorant. I get absolutely no benefit from that attitude. None whatsoever. In fact, learning to shame and humiliate others makes me a pretty shoddy team member. No one wants to work with someone that will jump on their weak points and won't help them to fulfill their potential.
    - rumanator 6y ago
      > I don't really care what my classmates think of me. I'm not there tomake them happy. That remark shows a complete lack of understanding of your situation, your best interests, and social awareness. In the very least, your role is to ensure your peers don't become a roadblock on your path to progress. The least you should aim for is to leverage your classmates as facilitators by helping you lower the difficulty curve. By completely disregarding your classmates you are effectively doing the stupidest thing you could do, other than antagonizing both the student body and teachers: make your life harder just because you are totally oblivious to the importance of living in society

saagarjha 6y ago

Similarly, the instructors I really hate are the ones who don’t know the answers to questions but they’ll try to come up with answer on the spot because they think you (or the eavesdropping student) doesn’t know better. Just say you don’t know!

Topolomancer 6y ago
My least favourite instructor, upon being asked whether a certain convergence criterion was just necessary or also sufficient, assumed a very ponderous face and replied sagely---or so he thought---with a simple 'it depends'. The rest of the course went downhill pretty fast from there.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
That's unfortunately a common behaviour among 'experts' and we are witnessing this a lot at the moment.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

I don't know about any research supporting this (see what I did there) but in my experience the best performing teams provide a safe space - where you are not immediately judged or criticised for mistakes, uncertainty or asking questions - but this necessary to bleed upwards to not holding teams to unrealistic deadlines, to careful assessment of quality of definition of work set, even towards what Incall "outcome driven development" where we set metrics to be changed and then assert commits will change said metrics Conversely my worst work has been done when i have bullshitted and now need to keep up the lie. Pro-tip - don't do this Pro-tip-2 - confidence that you can do something you have not done before, when having a history of success in the field is not the same as bullshitting Anyway it's hard to measure objectively- but you tend to reward the right people when you do. And no, markets don't do that nearly as well as you might think

khebbie 6y ago
Actually I think this is what they call psychological safety in the state of DevOps report https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/the-2019-accelerate-state-of-devops-elite-performance-productivity-and-scaling https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/the-2019-a...
Topolomancer 6y ago
I couldn't agree more! The hallmark of a good team is to provide an environment where you do not have to be constantly on the lookout for 'losing face' or 'losing status', but in fact, an open and honest environment is being fostered. Thanks for sharing your tips---it's appreciated!
state_less 6y ago
> And no, markets don't do that nearly as well as you might think Markets depend on Good information To function well. Market participants can distort the information in the market for profit. In so far as this profiteering can be maintained, markets won’t function so well. Some conjecture that might not be too far off the mark.
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago

kieckerjan 6y ago

Two telltale signs of a mature mind: if someone readily admits he does not know something, or if someone readily admits he was wrong. Call it metacognitive skills if you want.

visarga 6y ago

Developing a sense of what you know or do not know is a big part of learning. In ML, this is called confidence estimation and is harder than actually learning the task. Most ML models just learn to solve the task and have shit confidence estimations. I presume with humans it takes many years of learning a subject to really know how much you do not know. It's a process of calibration of confidence based on lots of background knowledge on the topic (going from unknown unknowns to known unknowns).

thomk 6y ago

To be clear, simply asking an earnest follow up question is simple and efficient way to do this.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

I worked at a Japanese corporation for most of my career. They are not a “warm and fuzzy” bunch. But they respect apologies. If I screwed up, I quickly learned to cop to it. The absolute worst thing I could do was cover it up. Their attitude was not a punishing one, but we were expected to fix our mistakes, and ensure they did not happen again. If we said we did not know something, it was assumed we would learn, or find someone who did. Lot of “personal responsibility” stuff. Americans, on the other hand, tend to pounce on admissions of failure or ignorance, and engage in shaming and humiliation of the person that admits an issue. I am constantly encountering people that Absolutely. Will. Not. Admit. Ignorance. Or. Fault. Even when it’s quite clear. It’s crazy.

threatofrain 6y ago
It’s a standard high school debate tactic to throw someone an argument that shows poor taste to counter, but most people take the bait.
- fastball 6y ago
  Could you give an example?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    Must forbid encryption to save the children from the pedo...les. But these are grown up people though, using those arguments, not high schoolers.
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  This only convinces me more that high school debate has negative utility and should be abolished.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

blueboo 6y ago

"The power of admitting ignorance", or, the folly of refusing to learn something you don't know. I dunno. It seems self-evident. The issue here is ego. Self-awareness. Humility.

Topolomancer 6y ago
Well, it is now to me---but I started university when I had turned 18, and I like to believe that I learned a little bit of wisdom since then :)

WesternStar 6y ago

There also seems to be this misconception that being intelligent gives you a license and even a propensity to be a jerk. I just don't buy it. Sometimes smart people are jerks. But if you're a jerk the onus is on you in my mind to prove you are smart. I won't make that assumption.

curlcntr 6y ago

I put this on the back of my phone after completing my PhD. "in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few" - Shunryu Suzuki

lostlogin 6y ago

The link to Mathematical Apocrypha does something very strange. I think it’s meant to be this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1262199 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1262199 Edit: now the link works.

DanielBMarkham 6y ago

One of the things I've read from folks who know a lot about startups used to amaze me. Intelligence is not necessarily a critical factor in whether founders will be successful or not. In fact, it can be counter-indicative! The more intelligent you are, you more likely you're one of the people like the author mentions. I've also read that it's not the geniuses, necessarily, that make it. Most times it's just the slow plodders. A genius may become overly-attracted to one of their own ideas. They may stick with it too long, or they may be overly-defensive when they receive honest feedback. A plodder just keeps trudging along, happy to take whatever feedback comes their way, happy to change if needed, happy to learn from others. I captured this concept in my first book with a phrase I call "profound ignorance". It's not just admitting you're ignorant, it's admitting you're probably ignorant about everything. And that's fine. Ignorant people don't know yet, and if they're curious, they go try to find out. Even when they do find out, they're still quite open to being wrong. They are, in fact, ignorant. I found this had a profound impact in my programming and consulting career. Frankly, it's bad for your career and good for your life. People want to hire people that know a bunch of stuff, and to be open, honest, and curious about being profoundly ignorant is not reassuring. Other programmers many times want to play posturing games. It is, after all, part of our social programming. Ignorant people usually don't do so well in these games. But on a personal level? It was liberating. I could find whatever I wanted to and deep dive in it. Since I didn't know much of anything, I was able to talk about topics I have a ton of experience in without feeling like I had to attack or defend any pre-held opinions. It was, in fact, what I consider "growing up", both as a human and as a professional. When we think of how much programming is skewed towards youth, we should keep in mind that most really young people have not had this growing up experience. We should wish them well and cut them a bit of slack if they're acting like we did when we were their age. After all, it's human.

Rerarom 6y ago
That's why when stuff is being advertised as "everyone can do it", everyone gets excited but I run away. I don't want to be overcome by hard workers, so I am looking for stuff for which you truly have to be a genius to do it and hard work is not a shortcut.
- 6y ago

makach 6y ago

Excellent blog post. One of the big issues, unfortunately, is that there are too many of THEM. I just sat through a job interview where they bombarded me with topics and asked me to rate myself on a scale from 1-know nothing, 2-familiar and 3-expert. I immediately understood that this was a pointless exercise for me. I knew That I don't consider myself an expert. I haven't studied any topic long enough to call myself an expert. On the other hand, I like to believe that I don't fall in the "clueless" part either. I have worked in the computer industry form many years now and have overall pretty good problem-solving skills and am able to produce work that generates value for my employers. Still, I learn every day and improve on my skill, but it will require a lot before I dare to call myself an expert. Others call me an expert, a wizard, and other nice things, but this is never anything I would use to describe myself. I never got the job offer. Good riddance! I doubt I would have accepted the job anyway.

Topolomancer 6y ago
I feel you; if it helps, have you considered that this maybe raises some 'red flags' about the job itself? Maybe you dodged a bullet there...
zig 6y ago
This type of rating system is always disappointing. Candidates and interviewers each have different ideas of what expertise means -- I guess because there is no real context around the question. Maybe it's a trope to say, but it seems like competence and likelihood to rate oneself an expert are inversely correlated (barring hubris or real expertise!). I used to ask candidates to rate themselves from 1-10, e.g., in database performance analysis, and often would get people rating themselves a 9 or a 10 without being able to articulate anything about the topic. It just seems very meaningless, since we were going to have a discussion anyway -- and the conversational part of the interview is more revealing, in any case.
- cecilpl2 6y ago
  I usually find that (within a broad range of capability) someone's actual knowledge on a given topic is inversely correlated with their self-rating on a 1-10 scale.

jasonv 6y ago

I spend all day in teams where no one will admit to knowing anything...

maire 6y ago

I am surprised nobody is talking about the math part of the story. For me - I had the exact same experience with topology as the author. I was taking a normal math class and in the middle of the normal class the professor started talking about topology. He got the whole class excited about topology to the point that we all enrolled in topology the next quarter. Imagine our disappointment when we discovered our new topology professor did not love topology. He taught the class by rote. Topology is not a subject I could learn on my own. I dropped the class and sadly still wonder what I missed. The lesson for me is that it is not enough to admit ignorance. You also need an enlightened guide and mentor.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

arkanciscan 6y ago

I've always readily admitted when I don't know something. Might be that I was raised in Arkansas, where ignorance is a little more acceptable. It's usually a great benefit for me, for the same reasons the article describes. However the problem I've found is that--as an engineer--if you don't profess complete knowledge, there's a limit to how effective you can be in leadership. Engineers don't take you seriously, if you act as though you have any doubt in yourself. It's a wall I keep hitting and I've about decided I need to start feigning full-bore 10x brogrammer ego just to herd some cats.

Aperocky 6y ago
> Engineers don't take you seriously, if you act as though you have any doubt in yourself As an engineer, me and my firsthand experience do not agree with this. On the other hand, where I worked the entire team is involved and onboard with setting goals and prioritizing things that need to be done. We absolutely don't expect our manager to understand more than we do on our service.
- arkanciscan 6y ago
  I'm not talking about management, I'm talking about leadership. Do you have a tech lead on your team? If not how do technical decisions get made? Is it democratic (everyone votes) or more meritocratic (everyone argues their opinion and the strongest one wins). In my experience it's typically the later, and it's in that case that demonstrating a lack of confidence is likely to defeat your chances of leading the team in the direction you think it should go.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    It is meritocratic, we don't technically have tech lead, but we do have seniority. However, the most senior engineer doesn't pretend/try to give the impression that he knows everything. Usually each person will have a portion of the project that he knows best and his opinions are the primary driver in that portion. Others give recommendations based on those opinion and not overriding them (normally). There are larger issues in direction but for those I think all of our opinions are fairly similar - being engineers, we dislike complexity and like things maintainable and extendable.

naringas 6y ago

now imagine such an attitude in a non-academic setting where instead of a professor replying to a student it's the division head or president or chief executive replying to a junior staffer: "I don't really know what is going on, maybe you can help figure it out?"

kisanme 6y ago

Wonderful read and very thought provoking :)

DFHippie 6y ago

When I was younger I loved ideas for their own sake and was constantly disappointed when I went to have fun with some idea and found that everyone gathered around it viewed it as an opportunity to assert dominance. I fled so many fields because I believed ultimately I would find some place where people were there for the ideas themselves, not for the zero-sum battle for status. Ultimately I left academia and became a programmer because it seemed the ego battle was less a part of the process. I hate the competition-based culture of early academia -- olympiads and whatnot -- for the same reason. The reward isn't in the ideas themselves or the work but in the ranking.

bluedino 6y ago

I wish any company that outsourced their product support would force their contractors to read this. It is so hard for these people to just admit they don't know and have to ask someone or escalate the case.

mark-r 6y ago

I'm never afraid to make an ignorant statement, especially on a forum like HN. Best case is that someone more knowledgeable will come along and teach me something.

dang 6y ago
Cunningham's is one of the more underrated internet laws.

joerickey 6y ago

I have to note this: a typical classroom may have up to a couple hundred students and some kind of schedule to uphold. If everyone asks questions all the time, there would be no progress done, and "fast learners" would be bored out of their minds, while the "slower" ones would still have a hard time. Also, schedule would just be trashed by such approach