The Only True Wisdom Is Knowing That You Can’t Draw a Bicycle | Hacker News Reader

The Only True Wisdom Is Knowing That You Can’t Draw a Bicycle

slimemoldtimemold.com

9 pointslarsiusprime8 comments

I don’t understand why everyone can’t draw a bicycle. I can draw you a near mechanical sketch from memory. We did this in college, CompSci, and most of the drawings didn’t even make sense. Do most people just not actually look at how the world around them works?

This strikes some kind of nerve with me every time it comes up.

Most people do not ride or interact with bicycles. The ones that do likely do not understand how bicycles work. I would say 1 in 4 bike owners (those who have a bike and rode it in the past year) put heavy thought into or looked into how bicycle components go together.

I don't understand this either. I have no trouble drawing an accurate bike, helicopter, or chainsaw, and can't imagine how people move in the world and can't.

I have to think that people just don't care about physical objects.

But most people who can draw a bike cannot accurately describe how they stay up, or how to ride one. When they teach a child they tell them it all wrong, and the child takes a long time physically unlearning what they were told; but asked to explain, they will repeat what they were told instead of what they actually do when they ride.

I have multiple experiences of teaching small children to ride in, literally, seconds, just by saying correctly what one really does. Learning to ride really is as easy as riding, if you don't need to unlearn falsehoods first.

What do you say to small children to teach them to ride?

Tell them to stay up with the handlebars, and lean to steer. They figure out very quickly, on their own, using the handlebars to tip, instead of leaning.

Its for "normies".

A very insightful read. I enjoyed it.

One exception stands out to me though. In technology when one competitor is able to achieve something in secrecy, and then only reveals its existence by demonstration.

For example, during WW2 America possessed high quality fuel refining techniques. This enabled American planes to have capabilities that German planes could not duplicate. Americans could make a 27L engine like the V1650 Merlin with the same output as a German 41L engine like the BMW 139. And then even when they captured a V1650 they couldn't reproduce the results due to their technical debt (that's an ironic statement to describe Germany during that time but fuel was never really their wheelhouse).

From a pre-globalized, pre-information age German perspective the proof that this was possible could only be in the pudding. What about when you are confronted with something that you cannot explain and cannot reproduce. Then you would have no choice but to iterate your methodology and understanding and, in many ways, become the expert you never wanted to be. By cooking enough times you eventually learn how thin a "thinly sliced onion" should be.

I remember stuff like this from AP Psychology in high school. Also reminds me of the You Are Not So Smart podcast (and later, books). I am a bicycle mechanic, so the title task is not difficult. Drawing a penny, though, is a challenge; it is something that feels familiar but it has been a long time since I've given significant attention to what a penny looks like.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com