
Intellectual Humility - axiomdata316
https://www.shanesnow.com/articles/intellectual-humility
======
RobertRoberts
I found that as a father teaching my children to confidently, and
respectfully, challenge me has brought a tremendous amount of peace to the
family.

Sometimes you are wrong and you really need help to overcome the emotional
baggage that blocks you from admitting it.

Having people in your life that are strong enough to deal with the discomfort
of confrontation with the singular goal of peace is more valuable than your
pride.

But it also allows the same interaction to be reciprocated when others are
wrong in the family and it's a self supporting system to overcome arrogance,
angst and many other negative events and emotions.

~~~
EdwardDiego
> Sometimes you are wrong and you really need help to overcome the emotional
> baggage that blocks you from admitting it.

Teaching my children that it's okay (and indeed desirable) to admit when you
were wrong, and if need be, to make amends, by direct example, is one of the
best things I do as a parent, I think.

But I'm also upfront with the reasoning around it - 1) I consider it a moral
imperative of a good member of a society and 2) being willing to acknowledge
and own my mistakes has been a major factor in my success in life - especially
in IT where there's a lot of intellectual pride, it can really take people by
surprise.

And likewise, I have to model the behaviour I want them to show in their
actions within my family. And I'll admit my heart swelled with love and pride
when my 15 year old son who had a rather big row with his step-Mum wherein
both said things that were hurtful to the other out of anger, initiated a
conversation soon after to apologise for what he said, and she apologised what
she said, and they both agreed to work harder. I know how much guts that took
him, and I think it surprised my partner - she was going to take that
initiative later that day when there were less younger siblings interrupting,
but it was obviously weighing on his mind.

I like to think that my teaching and example were reflected in his bravery in
initiating what is a hard conversation for grown adults, let alone teenaged
boys.

~~~
RobertRoberts
That is a great story, and I agree that it seems your son following your
example. I have never seen a child successfully change a behavior that the
parent refuses to change first, unless they have some kind of personal
epiphany, which I've only really seen from teens or young adults that have
just left home.

I have had the same experience in IT, it's brutal to have false accusations of
system failures so causally thrown my way. (It's what got me to put GIT on all
template editors) But it's also good experience to have so I don't repeat to
back towards others because it feels so debilitating.

I appreciate the "desirable" part of your statement, as it certainly is better
to give up on a false premise quickly than to try and defend it only to have
fail on you later.

------
grabbalacious
_> On the other hand, philosophers agree_

That's hilarious. I've never noticed philosophers agreeing about anything.

One thing I would question is the necessity of having viewpoints _at all_
about things which aren't connected to some problem in my life. I don't need
to take a position about whether triangles are better than octagons, for
instance, unless I'm trying to build something out of octagons. Sometimes
opinions are necessary, e.g. a physician must make a diagnosis, but on the
whole progress depends upon solving problems and not upon debating them.
Furthermore, the best way to persuade others you have solved a problem is to
ignore them and use your solution to make further progress.

~~~
hu3
> the best way to persuade others you have solved a problem is to ignore them
> and use your solution to make further progress.

While I don't generaly recommend doing this with superiors at work, it got me
a promotion once.

I was a middle level developer and was tasked with building the authentication
layer of our monolithic application.

Our team lead insisted that I created a microservice for that for
"futureproofness sake". I argued that keeping the code inside our monolith
would have many benefits like shaving dev time and being simpler to mantain.

By chance the CTO was nearby, got interested in our discussion, and gave me
the choice as long as I could deliver the promisses and demonstrate the
benefits.

I went home and wrote the authentication layer in a sleepless night. It was
finished next day, included some tests and the code was trivial to understand.

A month later my team lead was downgraded and transfered to another team (he
left the company not long after) and I was promoted to team lead senior dev.

Be careful when pulling stuff like this because often your superior has more
experience and does know better.

In my case the team lead was a bit too much hype driven and it resulted in his
downfall.

~~~
mewpmewp2
I love that. It seems to me that people around me can be so tunnel visioned
and obsessed with micro services which in the end just creates so much
complexity and it will be just much more difficult to maintain and debug in
the future.

------
robocat
Beware dark pattern: the humility “test” asks for your email at the end rather
than give you a score - sad.

~~~
mkl
It does mention that before you start - I backed out right away.

Someone who knows about psychology: Is this article anything more than
advertising for his "academy"?

~~~
netsharc
I can't bear reading it, just the "pre-roll" paragraphs read like a Tim
Robbins motivational speech where each paragraph is a soundbite that is
supposed to be profound or move you.

Or to say it with a 4chan meme:
[https://i.imgur.com/94LyLm1.png](https://i.imgur.com/94LyLm1.png)

------
vemv
I have the impression that most 'smart' people (at least, college-smart) have
lived most of their lives thinking (quite rightfully) that they're the
smartest person in any given room.

Such mentality may work quite well for the first 25-30 years of their lives.
But then they'll be put to work with other people just as smart as them, and
they'll be unable to collaborate constructively.

Some people are able to realise this breakthrough moment in their careers, and
improve on their own. For the rest, I wish college had prepared them more
specifically for intellectual humility.

~~~
foobar_
Smart people collaborate. Scientists collaborate. Flat earthers don't.

~~~
mewpmewp2
What? Some flat earthers do collaborate with each other. Some scientists do
not collaborate. Collaboration is one aspect of being smart. It is definitely
not a full indicator of intelligence.

------
neonate
Isn't "Intellectual Humility: The Ultimate Guide" a bit oxymoronic?

~~~
SllX
If the author has a sense of humor anything like mine, yes but it is worth it.

------
kristianc
On the topic of Intellectual Humility...

> In his entertaining and provocative keynote presentations, Shane Snow
> shatters common wisdom through gripping stories and surprising research on
> innovation and human behavior. The BBC says that his ideas, "could change
> your life," and Maxim adds, "Snow is not telling you how to succeed; he's
> daring you to do it."

------
fuball63
I work for a company where intellectual humility is a core value. It is
expected of all of us to be curious and also accepting of being wrong
sometimes. I'm in tech, and compared to other places I've worked, there are
significantly fewer of the stereotypical pretentious nerd types that are tough
to get along with.

Strong opinions, loosely held, is a mantra I use.

~~~
b0afc375b5
How does one go about finding such companies?

~~~
EdwardDiego
Hmm, good question. I think I work for such a company, I guess an easy tell
would be during an interview coding exercise, if they explicitly invite you to
use a search engine or API documentation etc.

In a company where people take excessive pride in their intellect, I find that
it often manifests in the "What, you don't know this exact thing I don't
know?!" attitude you can find in some interviewers (to quote the infamous
tweet: "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew),
but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off.")

Likewise, if they want you to write actual code, their culture of intellectual
humility will manifest in asking beforehand if you have a preferred tool and
making it available, or inviting you to bring your laptop etc. instead of
forcing you to write code on a whiteboard (bonus points if they point out
every semi-colon you missed), or in their arbitrary editor of choice, complete
with customised key-bindings that combine the "best" of Emacs AND Vim.

~~~
fuball63
I think this is a good start for sure. I had a take home assignment. Also, a
lot of the interviewing was personality based, so that was a good sign too.

------
friendlybus
Too much of this is a simple retelling of haidt's book and Malcolm. Read the
original sources and skip the self-promoting dross of the 'intellectually
humble'.

