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This is seen even in very technical fields, such as physics. As the saying goes in poker, if you are in academia and can't spot this person, then it's probably

This is seen even in very technical fields, such as physics. As the saying goes in poker, if you are in academia and can't spot this person, then it's probably you. It's also a slightly cynical take on imposter's syndrome, in a way.

threwawasy1228 6y ago
Could you elaborate on this latter point further? I guess maybe I have impostor's syndrome but I have a hard time understanding how you could ever tell if you are that person or not. Imagine the following that I saw on a poker video recently: You have a table full of top-tier poker players and you have a rookie who won a contest to be in a game alongside them. The rookie is playing absolutely terrible, the commentators are cringing at the moves the rookie is making. The other players are clearly doing things to take advantage of the rookies playing style. Yet at the same time, the rookie comes out in 3rd place, up 50k from their buy in at the start of the night. 3 seasoned award winning professionals are all net-negative for the night, some of which are -150k from where they started after 150 hands played. Is this rookie an impostor or not? Does it matter that the rookie is an impostor if he is still beating people who verifiably are not impostors over the average of 150 separate hands? I guess all this is to say that I don't get what value using the impostor's syndrome framing gives us.
- dasudasu 6y ago
  Poker is still a game of chance with beginner's luck being a thing. It's a quote from Buffett, relayed from poker folklore: As they say in poker, “If you’ve been in the game 30 minutes and you don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.”
User23 6y ago
It’s difficult for me to take any discussion of imposter syndrome seriously that doesn’t consider the possibility the subject feels like an imposter because he is. Having been personally acquainted with several such imposters and having never seen such a discussion I’m left to conclude the entire concept is deeply unserious. Edit: sibling is making much the same point. The concept is only useful if actual imposters can be identified.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  You can't have impostor syndrome if you don't care about your ability to do your job. Likewise if you believe - probably correctly - that your failures don't matter because you can bullshit and bluster your way through them. And if that doesn't work, a quick word with your sponsors will sort out your problems. Impostor syndrome is the opposite - caring about quality, feeling you fall short (because quality is hard), and relying on substance not superficiality to get ahead.
  - User23 6y ago
    There are at least three dimensions here: Feels like imposter, is imposter, and cares. I'm not going to enumerate all 8 values since that's trivial, but realize my point is that conflating the first two dimensions is what makes the exercise intellectually empty. There are people who feel like imposters (or aren't), are imposters (or aren't), and still don't care about their ability to do their job. I'm still quite skeptical, but even this simple conversation is far deeper than any discussion I've seen on the subject. I would never have bothered to think about the caring dimension if you hadn't mentioned it.
knzhou 6y ago
I know physics and I know this description is wrong. If there’s a bullshitter here, it’s you.
Finnucane 6y ago
I thought the saying in poker was "if you look around the room and don't know who the mark is, it's you." Which is a little different problem.

threwawasy1228 6y ago

Could you elaborate on this latter point further? I guess maybe I have impostor's syndrome but I have a hard time understanding how you could ever tell if you are that person or not. Imagine the following that I saw on a poker video recently: You have a table full of top-tier poker players and you have a rookie who won a contest to be in a game alongside them. The rookie is playing absolutely terrible, the commentators are cringing at the moves the rookie is making. The other players are clearly doing things to take advantage of the rookies playing style. Yet at the same time, the rookie comes out in 3rd place, up 50k from their buy in at the start of the night. 3 seasoned award winning professionals are all net-negative for the night, some of which are -150k from where they started after 150 hands played. Is this rookie an impostor or not? Does it matter that the rookie is an impostor if he is still beating people who verifiably are not impostors over the average of 150 separate hands? I guess all this is to say that I don't get what value using the impostor's syndrome framing gives us.

dasudasu 6y ago
Poker is still a game of chance with beginner's luck being a thing. It's a quote from Buffett, relayed from poker folklore: As they say in poker, “If you’ve been in the game 30 minutes and you don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.”

User23 6y ago

It’s difficult for me to take any discussion of imposter syndrome seriously that doesn’t consider the possibility the subject feels like an imposter because he is. Having been personally acquainted with several such imposters and having never seen such a discussion I’m left to conclude the entire concept is deeply unserious. Edit: sibling is making much the same point. The concept is only useful if actual imposters can be identified.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
You can't have impostor syndrome if you don't care about your ability to do your job. Likewise if you believe - probably correctly - that your failures don't matter because you can bullshit and bluster your way through them. And if that doesn't work, a quick word with your sponsors will sort out your problems. Impostor syndrome is the opposite - caring about quality, feeling you fall short (because quality is hard), and relying on substance not superficiality to get ahead.
- User23 6y ago
  There are at least three dimensions here: Feels like imposter, is imposter, and cares. I'm not going to enumerate all 8 values since that's trivial, but realize my point is that conflating the first two dimensions is what makes the exercise intellectually empty. There are people who feel like imposters (or aren't), are imposters (or aren't), and still don't care about their ability to do their job. I'm still quite skeptical, but even this simple conversation is far deeper than any discussion I've seen on the subject. I would never have bothered to think about the caring dimension if you hadn't mentioned it.

knzhou 6y ago

I know physics and I know this description is wrong. If there’s a bullshitter here, it’s you.

Finnucane 6y ago

I thought the saying in poker was "if you look around the room and don't know who the mark is, it's you." Which is a little different problem.