
We Are All Confident Idiots (2014) - who-knows
https://psmag.com/social-justice/confident-idiots-92793
======
ggm
Hey, I built a 40 year career on 'fake it until you have to leave or learn how
to make it' -So don't knock this. And, all you young whippersnappers remember
that its only old fools like me messing up in the code which gives you
meaningful jobs fixing bugs in the future.

~~~
romwell
>Hey, I built a 40 year career on 'fake it until you have to leave or learn
how to make it' -So don't knock this

This comments illustrates the article, which has nothing to do with "fake it
till you make it", and is all about how people often _think_ they know
something, when, in fact, they have little knowledge on the subject (in this
case, the subject being the article in question).

To clarify: "fake it till you make it" is pretending you know something when
_you know_ you don't, the exact opposite of what the article is about ( _not
knowing_ that you really _don 't know_ something, and being confident that you
do).

Not to knock the OP (hey, we all go straight into the comments from time to
time) :)

~~~
jnty
I don't think 'fake it till you make it' is as simple as that. The whole thing
about imposter syndrome is that plenty of fully competent people 'know' they
are incompetent (and conversely plenty of incompetent ones 'know' that they
are the most valuable employee in the company.) Therefore, 'fake it till you
make it' isn't directly about basically being a fraud, it's about presenting
yourself as the competent professional you (hopefully) pretty much are.

Or, at least, the realisation that everyone else is probably faking it too.

~~~
env123
Well, what about the rockstar junior devs who whipped fully functional
applications who are later humbled with experiences and cringes at their
previously ego-maniacally written code? I was one, and I wouldn't say I was
aware of my mistakes, I definitely believed my code was superior (early 20s at
the time)

------
CPAhem
Interestingly those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations
are more prone to depression.

False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism.

~~~
mapcars
>those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations are more prone
to depression.

No, depression comes when you are only applying logic to life and essentially
seeing that there is no meaning to it. Logic can not live without meaning, but
life is tremendously bigger that our limited logic, regardless how fanciful we
make it.

>False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism.

No, this comes from the same point of view. Actually there is no route to
happiness because it's here already. There are only routes away and making
logic dominating in your life is one of them.

~~~
heavenlyblue
>> depression comes when you are only applying logic to life and essentially
seeing that there is no meaning to it.

Depression is not a question of philosophy of your life.

Philosophy may help you approach the depression, but you can’t get depressed
because life is too logical - you may get sad, on the other hand.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> Depression is not a question of philosophy of your life.

Oh I strongly disagree with this assessment. I am not a psychologist, but have
suffered from depression on and off my whole life, and I assert that
depression is indeed a philosophical problem.

Depression, I think, is the experience of one's mind realizing that its model
of reality (philosophy) is too flawed or incomplete to see a concrete path
towards meaningful change in one's life, and attempting to build a better
model.

This is evidenced by:

1) depressive realism. the mind is being careful to make more accurate
assessments.

2) a preference towards inaction. The mind does not trust its model of
reality, and is reluctant to take actions with unpredictable results.

3) similar behavior in children undergoing cognitive schema shifts.

Further, I assert that part of the reason society is unable to effect
meaningful treatment (for lack of a better word) of many cases of depression
is that society's baseline philosophy (empiricism) is part of the model known
by the subject to be flawed, and so it has no pre-existing better model to
guide the individual towards (though I contend such models do exist if
actively sought).

Depression, in my experience, is overcome in only 2 ways:

1) The mind gives up and returns to its previous, known flawed, philosophy and
simply rejects the information that highlighted the flaws. This is an unstable
state prone to relapse for obvious reasons. In the worst cases, the subject
seeks to actively destroy the source of such information. This, I suspect, is
essentially the cause of religious or ideological violence.

2) The mind constructs a better model that allows it to once again place
confidence in its prediction of the outcomes of its actions. This is more
stable, but the new model may still have significant flaws that will ultimate
result in a new round of depression.

Needless to say for anyone who has actually been through severe depression,
the experience is intensely unpleasant. If a mind is unable to resolve the
dissonance between its current model and reality, it may take desperate action
to relieve this suffering.

Anyways, I guess what I'm saying is that if my hypothesis is accurate then you
can indeed become depressed from trying to apply logic to your life and
discovering that logic (empirical logic anyway) alone is not sufficient.

~~~
rewgs
This is the most accurate description of my depression and why it is seemingly
impervious to therapy. It's not debilitating to the point of not being able to
function in daily life, but is instead a constant, low-grade friction
resulting in less drive and confidence and more inaction. Basically, life has
taught me that my self-esteem was misguided, and I'm unsure of how to
meaningfully act without it, so I just sort of fade away.

------
drawkbox
We are all confident idiots and this is why the ego was created in evolution.

Ego is needed to make you think you are better than others at something,
eventhough initially you may not be. Without ego, people would be Marvin The
Paranoid Android but depressed because we didn't have the capabilities or
opportunities to compete with all the smarter people around or in history.
People that are laser focused and don't listen to any naysayers, those people
can become successful more than people that don't even attempt to due to
humbling competition.

The reason why childhood is so nice is that you can dream and imagine on
becoming anything. Reality bites that in the behind, but the ones that can
overcome and pursue, prevail over the ones that do not go beyond their limit.
The trick is to be rooted in the real adult world, but break the rules and
don't listen to others when you have a desire to push in an area with a
beginners or child mind. Just do it says your ego.

The internet is a humbling experience for the ego. Competition was only your
local tribe before the internet, now it is worldwide. This is both humbling
and also allows humans an insight that has never before been able to be
realized, you can see how you need to compete with the entire world. It is
inspiring all the time and seemingly insurmountable at times, but jump start
that ego and you to can be competing. Everyone can be good at something, time
and focus, as well as competition can push you.

Without ego humanity may not have made it this far.

When you convince yourself you can do it, by making iterative gains to fuel
more motivation, it must turn to discipline and professionalism, and that
means blocks of time all the time on your focused goal or project in both the
open (creative / brainstorming / ideas / play) and closed (prototypes / ship
time) mode. The overnight successes are always in a multi-year focused
strategy.

Check out the market, but don't be too focused on chasing what others are
doing, focus on your area that meets your goals. Use that ego motivation and
stay away from getting too beat down because others are far ahead.

 _" Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for
that, you can't expect to become a good writer" \-- Stephen King_

 _" Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and got
to work" \-- Stephen King_

 _" The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." \-- Walt
Disney_

~~~
playing_colours
> Without ego humanity may not have made it this far.

Not sure. Many teachings, religions are addressing removing ego from your
thoughts. I heard that if you take LSD you can actually feel your ego gone
with the feeling of being the one with the universe. Might be a great
experience?

~~~
drawkbox
Agreed. I am a traveler and we are all connected, everything has beauty.

Ego death from psychedelics is realizing ego is a tool, that it isn't truly
you, just a tool or armor you use to navigate reality. We live in a self-
interested world, people must have an ego or you get steamrolled by the
machine and divided by walls. Ego can help you tear down the walls or ignore
them entirely as they are the ego of the real world and others. It helps you
realize the world is nothing, unless you make it something, unless you create
it for yourself.

Ego is "a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance" and "the part of
the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is
responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity".

Awareness of ego is key, psychedelics help you recognize it is an abstraction
to you.

------
blobs
Our school system.. We don't dare to be honest we do not know stuff. For our
entire youth we are punished for that with bad figures and bullying.

Therefore the picture at the top of the article is so fitting. Especially lots
of people that are graduated have some kind of air around them. Our
educational system fucks the mind and ego. Is Einstein not enough prove for
the 'being educated' fallacy? He despised the educational system, and I think
he was also very right about that.

~~~
verinus
But tbh our school system just teaches a baseline of abilities we think our
youths should know. I honestly don't believe pupils are expected to know
everything besides what was agreed on...

~~~
blobs
> But tbh our school system just teaches a baseline of abilities we think our
> youths should know.

Just teaches? You mean forces upon children maybe? So what about being
punished for not reaching that baseline? What do we learn from that? We learn
so much more than the stuff in the textbooks. Our schools and surroundings
teach us to be stupid about so many things, it's completely overlooked.

If the result of schools were to be good, how come this civilization is
characterized by: war, pollution, destruction of species, poverty, etc, etc..
Something must be wrong there, it must be our education not coincidence.

> a baseline of abilities we think our youths should know.

Yes interesting. What 'we' think.. I think differently, for sure.

~~~
freddex
While school can and should be improved in many countries, I think it's not
really fair to make it out as the root of all evil. That assumes school is an
all powerful tool to mold children's minds, when there are so many
environmental and genetic factors influencing behavior. As for the societal
issues you mention: I think they all have massively complex root causes I
couldn't do justice just in a HN comment. But in short: Can world peace be
achieved through education? I don't see how.

------
IAmGraydon
Being perceived as an unintelligent individual can lead to social rejection,
and as with all things that pose the risk of social rejection, it will be
avoided at all costs. When one feels that the group accepts them on their
other merits, this reaction is defused. None of this seems particularly
surprising - we humans have been avoiding social rejection for a very, very
long time.

------
x2f10
How do you work with an individual who _insists_ they understand how it all
works? Even when faced with hard evidence that contradicts their assessments,
I'm still told I don't understand or I misinterpreted their words - basically
gas-lighting me.

Arguing leaves me unmotivated and frustrated. Giving in is the wrong path.
Going to others doesn't seem to move the needle.

Help.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Document, and shut up.

Document every time they say something false - time and date and medium, and
exact words.

Shut up: for each instance, say once that they're wrong, then don't argue.

When it matters, when there's a decision where this person's view is
threatening to sway matters in the wrong direction, go with a massive
documentation dump - everything they've said on the subject, exact words and
date and time and context, and evidence of what reality is.

Or else quit. If you quit, when you go, say why.

~~~
keanzu
This is terrible advice. When you quit you no longer have a stake in the game.
Say NOTHING beyond platitudes.

~~~
andrewflnr
Serious question: What actually goes wrong, in concrete terms, if you explain
that you're leaving because you don't want to work with someone who is
aggressively incompetent? I get that people won't like it, but how am I
actually harmed by speaking the truth? I've heard a lot of wishy-washy answers
about burning bridges, but I have trouble making myself believe that's enough
reason to let someone continue fucking shit up when they might be stopped if
someone just knew what was happening.

Edit: Assume I've already accepted the risk of slightly lower lifetime
earnings due to following principles rather than the money.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Slightly lower lifetime earnings? How would that happen?

It might happen if word ever got back to the aggressively incompetent one, and
he (maybe it's a stereotype, but I'll assume male gender given the description
of the behavior) was in some position of influence at a future job of yours.
Well, people do change, sometimes even for the better, but I'd think twice
before hiring at such a place in the future.

Or, managers believe him instead of you (or choose to keep him in place and
blame you for the message that they didn't like), and those managers wind up
at a future place. Same story - it's your cue to not work there.

If this burns you, it burns you at places you didn't want to work for anyway.

Note well: If it's a small job market, this may be a more costly action.

~~~
andrewflnr
> Slightly lower lifetime earnings? How would that happen?

" _Something something_ burned bridges _something_ opportunities _something_
", I expect. I don't know, it just seems like something the "keep it to
yourself" crowd would warn me about. I really want to believe you, which is
why I'm looking for good counter arguments (I swear I don't _only_ do this in
comment threads about intellectual humility).

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8519764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8519764)

~~~
nealabq
The phrase "well-trained idiot" appeared in an HN comment earlier today:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21123542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21123542)

Although they mean different things -- a confident idiot is uninformed but
convinced he is the opposite; a well-trained idiot has been brought up
(usually in an upper social class) learning how to fake intelligence -- I
wonder if [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=who-
knows](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=who-knows) (who submitted this
post) read this comment and had the notion bouncing around in their head.

In any case, there's also an "educated idiot":
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Educated%20I...](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Educated%20Idiot)

~~~
uoaei
Not to mention the "useful idiot".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot)

------
ukj
I may have been faking it and making it till I caught on.

I was faced with a trade-off I don’t know how to make.

Do I prioritize urgent work or important work when not doing either has tragic
consequences along similar timelines?

Oh! We invented two words that mean the same thing so we can fake our own
inability to prioritize?

 _sigh_

~~~
intarga
Urgent does not mean the same thing as important. Urgent tasks can be
important or unimportant, but what makes them urgent is that they must be done
soon/now rather than later, or that their value drops greatly if left to
later.

Armed with this knowledge, we can categorise tasks in four: urgent-important,
urgent-unimportant, unurgent-important, and unurgent-unimportant. Urgent-
important tasks are always the highest priority, and unurgent-unimportant
tasks the lowest. Where it gets interesting is between unurgent-important and
urgent-unimportant tasks, the former should be prioritised if you do not have
time to complete all the tasks, and the latter should be prioritised if you
do.

~~~
ukj
This is a perfect example of faking it! The very thing this thread is about.

Instead of figuring out how to make the hard choice between Urgent<->Important
in the first place, you've drawn a distinction which lets you kick the can
down the road.

Choosing between Unurgent-Important<->Urgent-Unimportant is exactly the same
problem as choosing between Urgent<->Important.

You have two tasks: A or B. Which one should you work on first?

The one which is most
important/urgent/crucial/paramount/valuable/critical/indispensable/pressing/essential/serious/vital/exigent/burning/paramount/<insert
more synonyms here>, obviously!

Is that task A or task B?

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the
easiest person to fool." \- Richard P. Feynman

If you can't assign relative priorities to things - you can't implement a
priority queue (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_queue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_queue)
).

~~~
intarga
Perhaps its my stupidity, but I don't see what this has to do with faking?

The point was that importance is not the same thing as urgency, which the
parent comment didn't seem to understand.

>Choosing between Unurgent-Important<->Urgent-Unimportant is exactly the same
problem as choosing between Urgent<->Important.

Sure, in the other formulation you simply make the assumption that the
important task is unurgent, and the urgent task is unimportant, and so they
are the same, as long as we're on the same page.

>You have two tasks: A or B. Which one should you work on first?

I actually did address this. If you have time for both the urgent one comes
first, if you may have time for only one the important one comes first.

Urgent is not a synonym for important, and the point of drawing the
distinction is to recognise that relative priorities can be different
depending on context, such as how much time is available.

~~~
ukj
>The point was that importance is not the same thing as urgency, which the
parent comment didn't seem to understand.

There is nothing to understand about that point. It's a linguistic distinction
which makes no practical difference.

The prioritisation problem is like this: When forced to choose which task do
you schedule first?

The Urgent one or the Important one?

If you always lean towards Urgent things, you will neglect the Important. If
you always lean towards Important things, you will neglect the Urgent.

>Sure, in the other formulation you simply make the assumption that the
important task is unurgent, and the urgent task is unimportant, and so they
are the same, as long as we're on the same page.

We are on the same page. It doesn't matter how you label them, if two tasks
have equal priorities you have no way to decide which task to schedule first.

Conversely: if you have a way to decide which task to schedule first, then (to
you) they clearly have different priorities.

The one you've chosen to do is the task with higher priority! Obviously -
because you chose to do it first.

You have no solution to this problem. You are faking the fact that you do. You
are flipping a proverbial coin (like the rest of us).

~~~
intarga
>There is nothing to understand about that point. It's a linguistic
distinction which makes no practical difference.

It does make a practical difference. Important tasks are higher priority under
tighter time constraints and vice versa. I fail to see how this isn't a
practical distinction.

>If you always lean towards Urgent things, you will neglect the Important. If
you always lean towards Important things, you will neglect the Urgent.

If you do this you failed. The point is lean important when time constrained,
urgent when not.

>Conversely: if you have a way to decide which task to schedule first, then
(to you) they clearly have different priorities.

They have different priorities IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS. One is higher when time
constrained, the other higher when not. It is clear from reading your comments
that you have not understood this.

~~~
ukj
In what universe do you live in that you operate under different time
contexts/constraints to the rest of us?

The very fact that you are forced to make a choice between Urgent and
Important indicates that you ARE time-constrained within your context.

If you could do both in parallel it wouldn't be a prioritisation problem.

There is only one time context. It's called The Universe. For each worker
(human!) Time is a finite resource. It is clear form your comments that you do
not understand this.

Having 'different time contexts' means having multiple workers. Multi-
threading.

~~~
intarga
Contrived hypothetical: It's tuesday evening, and I'm updating my to-do's
before tomorrow. I have 3 hours after work, and 3 tasks:

1) A meeting (Important Urgent) 1 or 2 hours

2) Buy a gift for someone's birthday (Important - can be done any time but
must be done) 1 hour

3) Check the marketplace for a limited sale (Urgent - much better if done
immediately, but doesn't matter so much if not done) 1 hour

If task 1 takes only one hour, I do 3 then 2. If it takes two hours, I do 2.

There's two contexts above. Obviously as you pointed out, once you actually
get to doing a task, there's only one context. But the point is that when
adding a task to your to-do list you don't yet necessarily know what that
future context will be.

Your choices here are to either make a priority queue for every possible
future context (reasonable for this simple case, but doesn't scale to a more
complex one), or mark tasks with the relevant information that will let you
easily assemble the appropriate priority queue on the fly, once the context
becomes clear.

~~~
ukj
And what happens if your time-estimates are wrong; or unbounded?

You have two tasks (one Urgent, one Important) and 10 days at your disposal.

If each task takes at least 4 days, which one do you do first?

> But the point is that when adding a task to your to-do list you don't yet
> necessarily know what that future context will be.

I am not talking about pushing tasks on the queue. I am taking about popping
them off the queue.

If you don't know how long a particular task takes how do you decide whether
to pop a task off your Urgent or Important queue?

Just-in-Time prioritisation under uncertainty is hard.

------
fallingfrog
There’s a financial quiz embedded in one of the links in the article. To test
my own false confidence, I decided to try it. So before taking the quiz, I
decided I would describe myself as reasonably well informed amateur, nowhere
close to expert. I got 6 out of 6, but they were fairly easy questions (except
for one question about bond yields which I had to think about). After the quiz
I’m more certain that I really don’t have the kind of deep knowledge that a
quant or someone like that has. So yeah I’d rank myself as a layman.

I’m curious as to how some of the rest of us do? Rank yourself before and
after?

[http://www.usfinancialcapability.org/quiz.php](http://www.usfinancialcapability.org/quiz.php)

------
amriksohata
According to the Gita, there is a fundamental difference between “real” ego
and what it defines as the “false” ego. Real ego is our very essence, the
consciousness that makes us aware and awake to reality. The false ego is a
false identity crafted to preserve the sense of being the most significant and
the most important all the time. In short, it is a narcissistic search for
being loved, validated and appreciated. This is what we generally refer to as
the ego. The Gita further describes the subtleties of the ego and how it
manifests moment to moment in our thoughts, words and deeds.

The concept seems to be stretched too far when we first read about it. But
when we honestly study our own lives, we can clearly isolate various episodes
of how this tendency manifests itself in our personality, either covertly or
explicitly. The events can range from simple conversations on which football
team is the best to intense debates in boardrooms on the next important
decision for the organization. What’s worse is that the ego blinds us from
seeing its own ploy, the ultimate of which is rationalized excuses for
avoiding honest introspection and admittance.

------
known
Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own
incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626367](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626367)

"Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you
with experience" \--Mark Twain

------
shamanreturns
I would say the root of this behaviour is our clinging for the acceptance of
others. It is a pathos fueling our neurosis and it is also the foundation of
society.

------
simonh
What do you expect from a species that has literally only just, barely
achieved enough sentience to scrape together a technological society.

------
hamilyon2
Do people believe evolution has, like, actual agency? Unbelievable. If true,
this phenomenon is worth studying by itself.

------
euske
I've just found this site fascinating and also learned that they were shutting
down as of Aug. 7. Very sad.

------
classified
It's called the Dunning–Kruger effect.

~~~
silvester23
Yes, as mentioned by the linked article. Which was written by David Dunning.

------
youfoundkris
I must be broken, because I am 100% sure I would always respond with letting
the interviewer know I do not know that band.

Could this lying behavior be more present in specific countries?

~~~
onorton
It's probably because they are at a music festival and don't want to come
across as people not "in the know" at said festival in front of thousands of
people. I'm sure if it was just a newspaper reporter or a random person, they
probably would just admit that.

