And they don't seem much interested in the answer when I provide it, actually.
I'm the sort of person who would happily spend an entire conversation trying to guess the population of Greece and frown upon anybody who tried to Google it. I like the fun, social 'game' of trying to work out random stuff from a few first principles . Having someone Google for it and tell me is like someone telling me the ending of a movie. Sure it saves me the two hours having to sit though the movie, but it kind of misses the point. It's not like I actually care about what the population of Greece is.
That's interesting. I didn't know people would think like that. Your post explains a lot, now the world makes much more sense. Thanks for posting it :)
Now I wish people online would put a huge disclaimer saying "I'm only interested in arguing for the fun of it, not in finding an actual solution" before their posts. That would have saved countless hours of online typing wasted for nothing.
I mean, nothing wrong with finding it fun to discuss. But I wish I could accurately tell when that's the person's goal, versus whether it's a person who actually finds solving real problems more fun than talking, like I do.
Well, anyway, already learned something new today. My day is complete.
edit: wow this is bigger than I thought, now I've been reading through older HN posts where I was mind-blown about "why would he even post that? What's his motivation?". Now I feel like I can finally make sense out of it. I feel so stupid for never noticing something so simple. The world is different now.
"Now I wish people online would put a huge disclaimer saying "I'm only interested in arguing for the fun of it, not in finding an actual solution" before their posts. That would have saved countless hours of online typing wasted for nothing."
there's many things that get expressed "between the lines". arguing for the fun of it has benefits. for one, ideas get exchanged, validated and who knows: maybe something useful comes out of it.
> But I wish I could accurately tell when that's the person's goal, versus whether it's a person who actually finds solving real problems more fun than talking, like I do.
I think you're still missing it. Have you never enjoyed a movie with a surprise ending (as the GP pointed out)? Would it have been just as fun if someone had given you a 30-second summary of the plot? What about working out puzzles, brain-teasers, etc.? I like all of this stuff; I also solving real-world problems. I think the point is not that there are different kinds of people [1], but that there are different kinds of discussions. And, yes, it is good to know what kind one is involved in.
I think there may be a generation gap. Most older people I know don't even think to look it up. Many younger people instinctively look it up
I'm not denying it can be fun to debate and guess but there are plenty of times it just better to look it up and then move on to deeper more meaningful conversation
There's a difference between bandying around ideas and simple facts. 'Population of Greece' is a simple fact. 'Ramifications of overpopulation of Greece' is an idea. Making a conversation out of trying to guess at simple facts is like making small talk, in my opinion. Sure, it can grease the wheels if you don't know someone well, but among friends, it's a waste of time.
That's nice if the purpose of the conversation is only to figure out the population of Greece and to pass the time.
I hope that you don't take the same line of thought into conversations that have other purposes though, where Googling clearly has benefit to help the conversation achieve its goals faster.
I say this not to you, but to people on the board in general. Given that I've seen self-centred comments like "I considered the project a success because I got paid and I had fun doing it", rather than thinking about the bigger picture, I can totally see people thinking thoughts like "Don't tell me how long it would take them to make and deliver 15 pizzas, I want to figure out on my own when is the latest we should give them a call, who cares what time people will arrive for the party? The important thing is having fun figuring out how late I can call the pizza place."
It's also useful for exercising and perhaps improving ones ability to postulate based upon limited information. In a situation where you can subsequently check the result.
In the "real world", people end up doing a lot of such postulation. Or, they end up being pushed around by those who do or who have inside information.
P.S. Addressing the OP article itself, my version is/was "don't memorize what you can deduce in 30 seconds". For example, in physics, many of my classmates seemed to spend a lot of time memorizing all the formulae in the three chapters being tested. I would be familiar with them but also recall the few, um, "fundamental" formulae. Or, put another way, those formulae or expressions in which the relevant fields were usually summarized. During a test, it was trivial to start with these and manipulate to what I needed. But many of my classmate either had that variant memorized cold, or they got stuck.
The problem in the computer/tech world is that much of the detail we need to get things done, is partially or entirely arbitrary. What flag(s) did author/programmer X choose for their utility that I'm using? Maybe it was purely a personal choice. Or maybe they were influenced by environment/mentor/community Y. (In turn influenced by Z...)
Where you can track those influences, or simple memonics ("r" for "recurse" -- but wait, is it "r" or "R"...), there may be some rhyme and reason that builds up particularly over time and with increasing familiarity and breadth.
In other cases, though, X seemingly simply liked to use e.g. "s", and there may be no way to "deduce" or "infer" this.
If you're in a conversation where you will get pushed around by people who have inside information, and that matters, I hope that you're prepared with your own inside information and game theory predictions before you enter into the conversation.
I hope that you don't take the same line of thought into conversations that have other purposes though
If I'm in a situation where the demographics of Greece actually matter to an important decision, then chances are I knew I'd be in this situation beforehand and have spent plenty of time collecting, verifying and correlating every nugget of demographic fact and statistic I could lay my hand on.
But obviously sometimes haste if of the essence and then Google is great, but if I'm hanging out the pub with my mates, haste is almost never of the essence.
That's interesting, thanks for the link. Apparently I'm not like most people, as I guessed 20 million. Maybe the fact that you made me aware of potential cognitive bias affected the outcome, I don't know.
If we discuss an issue that depends on the size of the population of Greece but isn't about the Greece population, there's no point to waste time for a guess. We should get the right number from Google in a second, and move on to the core issue.
Most of my conversation are about ideas and strategies, not characteristics. Like 98% of them. Maybe a little less, let say 96.5%. Or 95%, what do you think?
This reminds me of a book we used in grad school in the mid-90s. Taught us methods of estimation without knowing all the facts. Something about a cow, etc. FWIW, Google didn't help me find the book. The book discussed techniques of estimation that sound like the typical Google/MS/Facebook interview. This was pre-Google, so we had to use our intuition and estimation skills. Very valuable
I can see your point but I noticed a problem with this (at least with my friends circle).
The problem is that I find my friends (and girlfriend) will often come up with the wrong answer and use it as fact from that point on. Unless I make an effort to show them they are wrong it will become the truth and I will forever have to tell them they are wrong.
It is incredibly annoying when I hear them repeating the wrong information later on.
I'm obviously not advocating willful ignorance or refusing to check your work. All I'm saying that I find value to trying to solve a problem "by hand" first, instead of instantly looking up the answer, no matter how easy it might be to look up the answer.
I'm the sort of person who would happily spend an entire conversation trying to guess the population of Greece and frown upon anybody who tried to Google it. I like the fun, social 'game' of trying to work out random stuff from a few first principles . Having someone Google for it and tell me is like someone telling me the ending of a movie. Sure it saves me the two hours having to sit though the movie, but it kind of misses the point. It's not like I actually care about what the population of Greece is.