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Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

Do you want to be "book smart" and only know a lot about what someone else thinks and tells you, or actually learn something yourself and gain the intuition and detailed understanding that you get from forming your own knowledge?

You can read books till the cows come home, but don't expect to become an expert from reading alone. I can't imagine anyone on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time reading on the toilet Vs actually practicing a skill.

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Lol. Read my first line.

I'm a software engineer posting on Hacker news. I know how to learn a skill.

This is something else, that you can have, if you read lots of books and learn more languages.

Becoming smart is, in part, about being exposed to lots of others thoughts, and lots of facts, and discussing those things and thinking through them yourself.

I think you are conflating knowledge with being "smart"/intelligent.

One does not beget the other.

Not even close.

Every time I hear someone bring up the “book smart” versus “street smart” false dichotomy it often comes off as someone trying to justify their own inadequacies.

I am not calling out the previous reply.

You are right of course, I experienced that growing up, but a good mix of both doesn't hurt!

What’s another good label for these types of knowledge so that we can avoid the cliche?

Is it as simple as having information and experience?

I have read everything on being a carpenter but I have never practiced, so therefore I am “book smart” when it comes to carpentry?

I guess this doesn’t really cut it because when someone claims their “steet smart” as a way to combat feeling inferior to someone else they have credited as “book smart” what they’re really trying to say is that they have knowledge that’s more useful in different situations? Or more practical situations?

The more I think about this the more it seems like claiming to be “street smart” is just saying “hey, I’m smart too, just in a different way” when you’re feeling a bit less than someone.

There's an obvious example in programming: one might read a lot about machine learning, without becoming a practitioner. Without actually doing some work, one's opinions about building AIs wouldn't be worth much.

What breaks down is thinking this dichotomy captures the state of play wrt knowing lots of things. One of course has to practice knowledge, if that knowledge involves practicable skills, if one wants mastery.

If one wants to know history, or philosophy, or... many of the actual large bodies of knowledge that exist... one needs to get comfortable very regularly opening books. That doesn't mean it's all that's required!

"Well-versed" https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/well-ver...

I only used "book smart" as it is an Americanism and this site has a large American and/or people who learnt to speak en-US. I don't think anyone else would use that term.

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