Comment by tolmasky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tolmasky | Hacker News Reader

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> I've always scratched my head at this, since to me it's no problem to admit ignorance, but I've come to learn this isn't the case for most people, especially in front of others (i.e. a meeting).

Leaving ego aside, there's plenty of societal conditioning that explains this too. The negative feelings you may feel by not knowing something (i.e. in a meeting, or in a class...) can certainly plausibly be connected to being reprimanded for not knowing something. It's definitely the bizarre case that not having an immediate answer for something can result in "losing" an argument. Obviously this isn't the way it should be, but it certainly is the way it is many time, whether that be in low stakes argument about a TV show in a bar or a high stakes discussion about what technology you should use. But it goes back even further than that I think. In many ways, our entire school structure is designed around the idea that your success is tied to your ability to answer questions on the spot. Political debates are the same way, right? The reality is that the answer to every question in a debate should be some version of "well, I'd go and ask my cabinet and consult experts in this area..." So I don't think it should be that surprising that it makes people uncomfortable to not know something.

>Political debates are the same way, right?

I think a debate is something you can only have between parties that have similar goals (axioms) but different methods. Like a scientific debate, everyone shares the same information and same the goal of reaching understanding but they are split on the methods to interpret that information.

Usually in politics, opposing parties enter a debate with irreconcilable goals, so they are are incentivized to disagree with each other no matter what, this leads to a situation where the discussion is centered around "zingers" and rhetoric to give the impression that some side is winning and "gaining ground" against the other. The presidential debate, for example, is not really so much a debate but a platform for candidates to state their viewpoints and signal to their demographics.

It's all foolishness-- to think that we can settle normative questions with positive arguments. I mean, sometimes positive arguments can influence us to change our minds, but the normative doesn't flow from some kind of axiomatic interpretation of positive statements and facts.

We can only start to get close where we can agree on outcomes we want-- then we can start to weigh policies and see whether they get us closer to them.

this is their problem, people should get useful information

Right, good point. I was being a little salty thinking of workplace environments, especially large companies where this "ask more questions" is often said, yet it's not true and can get you in trouble sometimes. I've had experiences with a boss at the time, where asking too many questions on a new task would seem like an avoidance of work or lack of confidence in getting it done. The team had a mindset of "ask anything", yet in some contexts they would interpret questions in a negative light because I guess it can seem like something is wrong and work is not getting done.

The ability to quickly answer a question is related to knowing the answer. The school system teaches students enough facts ("When Boston has been founded?") that the idea of a quick known answer sticks.

Certainly most interesting questions don't have a known answer. Some have answers that can be quickly inferred from known things; the ability to quickly come up with such reasoning chains is also prized.

But a lot of more interesting.questions can only be answered after some thought and consulting with sources. For many people, receiving such a question from a beginner is uncomfortable: they and onlookers expect beginners to ask simple questions with well-known answers.

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