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>If I don't know a word I look it up. Have people stopped doing this? You should feel lucky that you are surrounded by curious people because it's not the norm
by AndrewKemendo 4y ago
>If I don't know a word I look it up. Have people stopped doing this?
You should feel lucky that you are surrounded by curious people because it's not the norm for the world - though it's a great thing obviously. The process you describe is only done by an extreme minority of people.
I'd challenge whether most ever did it.
- alexvoda 4y agoI would argue that it should not be a minority of people for a community (HN) which values curiosity as claimed by the guidelines: "the primary use of the site should be for curiosity" "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "
- oblio 4y agoYou're both wrong and not-wrong. Not-wrong in the sense that in practice most adults are not curious about 99% of topics out there. Wrong in the sense that humans are naturally curious. I've seen it now with kids. It seems to me that what happens through childhood is that not only are neural pathways pruned for efficiency, but curiosity is actively stifled and arguably totally destroyed in most kids, by adults. Coupled with adulthood time/money pressures, I'm not surprised that a large number of adults become completely intellectually inert, or worse, fully anti-intellectual.
- AndrewKemendo 4y agoTotally agree here Humans are by nature curious - but agree that the social systems we've built just ablate curiosity