3 ms·

Sometimes people get shamed for knowing too much about something, being labelled too obsessive, too nerdy, too meticulous, too "privileged" to be able to care a

by mcmoor 3y ago

Sometimes people get shamed for knowing too much about something, being labelled too obsessive, too nerdy, too meticulous, too "privileged" to be able to care about useless things, etc. Consequentially then, the shamer will become proud of not knowing those things, and then extend it to not knowing other things even if it's crucial. Anecdotally, I strive to not know all states of USA and its locations because if I do, it means I have truly consumed American media too much. And I slowly fail at it.

ta1243 3y ago
> the shamer will become proud of not knowing those things, and then extend it to not knowing other things even if it's crucial. I guess I take great pride in not knowing the latest celebrity shenanigans, or whoever the captain of $sportsteam is. Intellectually I don't consider it a quality, but I suspect many would not consider it to be "wilful ignorance". Even when I do know some sports fact (I think Manchester City won the league last year for example) I will pretend I don't when I'm in company. About a decade ago I was on a multi-day training course in some rural area. In the evening I was in the hotel bar with a bunch of sports journalists who clearly knew a lot about football. I was sat in the middle of the sofa and all was good as we talked about something like IEDs or missing limbs. It then moved on to football. I was completely lost, until they mentioned an early 1990s football player who I knew from when I was young and played Championship Manager 93. I could finally interject with an on topic point. That small anecdote did not go well as it then pivoted to conversations about other 1990s football players and I was once again stuck. There's a scene in "Friends" where Joey reads an encyclopedia about words beginning with "V". He then has a (unusually) decent knowledge of things from Volcanos to Vivisection. Then he made the mistake of mentioning the Vietnam war. Immediately the conversation pivoted to Korean war and he was lost. Felt just like that. As such I just live my life pretending football etc doesn't exist. It's easier that way. I won't get dragged into a conversation about the offside rule or whatever. I imagine the same applies to non-computer people who talk about computers. They might interject with some basic thing like "webpages are made of html", but then get lost as people start talking about nodejs frameworks or something. Better to just not have that conversation in the first place.

by mcmoor 3y ago

ta1243 3y ago

> the shamer will become proud of not knowing those things, and then extend it to not knowing other things even if it's crucial. I guess I take great pride in not knowing the latest celebrity shenanigans, or whoever the captain of $sportsteam is. Intellectually I don't consider it a quality, but I suspect many would not consider it to be "wilful ignorance". Even when I do know some sports fact (I think Manchester City won the league last year for example) I will pretend I don't when I'm in company. About a decade ago I was on a multi-day training course in some rural area. In the evening I was in the hotel bar with a bunch of sports journalists who clearly knew a lot about football. I was sat in the middle of the sofa and all was good as we talked about something like IEDs or missing limbs. It then moved on to football. I was completely lost, until they mentioned an early 1990s football player who I knew from when I was young and played Championship Manager 93. I could finally interject with an on topic point. That small anecdote did not go well as it then pivoted to conversations about other 1990s football players and I was once again stuck. There's a scene in "Friends" where Joey reads an encyclopedia about words beginning with "V". He then has a (unusually) decent knowledge of things from Volcanos to Vivisection. Then he made the mistake of mentioning the Vietnam war. Immediately the conversation pivoted to Korean war and he was lost. Felt just like that. As such I just live my life pretending football etc doesn't exist. It's easier that way. I won't get dragged into a conversation about the offside rule or whatever. I imagine the same applies to non-computer people who talk about computers. They might interject with some basic thing like "webpages are made of html", but then get lost as people start talking about nodejs frameworks or something. Better to just not have that conversation in the first place.