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Comment by likeabatterycar | Hacker News Reader

Educated people tend to overestimate their abilities outside their domain. We've all known someone with an "I can do anything" complex. Anyone can do anything... poorly. He likely deluded himself into believing he already outsmarted the cops so why even bother. Having two degrees doesn't make one a competent plumber, electrician, or in this case, criminal.

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>Educated people tend to overestimate their abilities outside their domain.

This. And HN is the perfect example to observe this phenomenon.

I lost track how many highly confident but incorrect takes I read here on semiconductor topics from people who assumed they know everything about any tech topic because they earn sich figures from writing crud web software.

Go one step further. Why does that happen?

People on HN skew young, smart (in one domain), and tend to live in a bubble of similar people. If you know you're smart, the smart people you talk to validate your smartness (in one domain), society validates it some more by paying you massive amounts, and you're not experienced enough to know better, you're bound to overestimate your abilities and knowledge.

It needn't be most, or even many on HN, and people of all kinds vastly overestimate their abilities. It's just that on HN it's overestimating with great ambition.

(I say this very confidently, don't I?)

So funny to jump to the "they're just kids" explanation for this when we are literally talking on a forum hosted by a VC incubator.

Is it not Occam's razor that people are like this because this world of startups, "cutting edge tech", "move fast and break things", etc. gives quite clear incentives to be like this? The entire of financial world of tech is quite significantly propped up by the inertia of unearned confidence!

> If you know you're smart, the smart people you talk to validate your smartness (in one domain), society validates it some more by paying you massive amounts, and you're not experienced enough to know better, you're bound to overestimate your abilities and knowledge.

And then you become the richest man in the world and buy Twitter and show everyone that you're kind of just clueless outside of your area of expertise, but putting up with you is profitable enough that people just go with it.

Also, lets not discount the fact that people can have a lot of success stepping out of their core domain.

People can do this repeatedly with positive feedback and increasing scope until eventually it doesn't work.

You sound like an expert in psychology.

Eh, I'm nothing of the sort, I'm only advancing in years and have made it a point to exist in as many segments of society as I could. I was that cocky engineer once, my words are only anecdote from first-hand experience and observation. I never expect to be right, only hopefully more right than wrong.

How would discourse change to eliminate this problem? Should we only speak about topics we are employed in? Lead each comment with a summary of our qualifications, or a proclamation of humility where we signal how little we know?

I know you jest, but I think it wouldn't be a bad idea at all. There are languages whose grammar forces the speaker to explicitly clarify the source of information; Eastern Pomo, for example, has different verb forms for whether it's something you know first hand, saw, are repeating, or deducing. I imagine it's not only useful for the listener, it also helps the speaker realise if maybe they are building a shaky argument to make a point. I, for one, would be interested to see that system in English, it could lead to interesting developments.

I mean, hypothetically MS or Meta could already automatically do this...

See, you put the caveat at the bottom, but I think you are just having a normal discussion. You aren't speaking "very confidently," you are just making an argument.

What I think happens is people who are very knowledgeable about a subject are hyper-sensitive to slightly incorrect information. And to boost their egos they like to diminish the people making the incorrect statements as not just incorrect, but confidently incorrect, a la Dunning Kruger.

See how confidently I made the exaggerative statement above? I don't necessarily mean it to be completely true, but I am making an argument. I think an assessment of confidence requires more than seeing no mollifying qualifiers like "I think" or "it might be". There's no verbal tone on the web.

It was a little meta-joke, but I think the world could use a lot more expressions of doubt. Very few things are certain or universally true, and those that do tend to have Greek letters in them. I find highly confident people highly suspicious, and a culture that rewards overconfidence and punishes doubt both exhausting and dangerous.

Probably because people on the internet like to hear opinions on things like psychological and sociological factors from people who have simply stated an expertise in semiconductors...

Institutionalization of engineers and physicists thinking they are smarter than others.

overconfidence leads to participation which results in measurable statements and artefacts, under confidence does not. people are loud and (mostly) incorrect or silent.

But why would those "measurable statements and artefacts" lead one to believe they are competent? Presumably, wouldn't they also provide evidence of one's ignorance if they were evaluated objectively?

(If it wasn't clear, I'm poking at the idea that we have numerous biases that prevent objective evaluation)

My (unpopular) take--programmers have been 'gassed up' by a decade of overcompensation + title inflation.

People think the high pay and the fancy titles* they're (often) given reflects their value or intellect*, even subconsciously, and they behave in such a manner.

*Sorry, I don't consider web programming (which comprises a majority of modern software development) "engineering"

*Many are some of the most intelligent people quite literally on Earth, or are otherwise exceptional.

heh yeah i think we're coming up now on two generations of our brightest minds being spent on making us more isolated from each other and clicking on ads.

Ivy Leaguers are trained, often from birth, that they are better than the rest of us plebs because of their “merit” and represent a superhuman caste. This guy was most likely the same way.

If you’re told that you’re a superhuman, then why not think you can get away with it?

Oh, it's not just Ivy League although of course that usually comes with a background of privilege and prestige that further compounds on this tendency. STEM people in general heavily demonstrate this tendency. MBA types too, although they tend to think the solution always comes down to treating everything as a business or privatization.

This is a good overview of some of your biases, but I don't think it generalises to reality.

You're aware that zingy one-liners only make for good conversation on the screen, not real life, right?

> MBA types too, although they tend to think the solution always comes down to

treating everything as a market or something to be solved with a market mechanism

Intelligent people are not any less likely to be delusional than anyone. They are however, much better at convincing themselves and others of their delusions.

People that have logic training such as lawyers and engineers even more so.

Michael Shermer's book Why Smart People Believe Weird Things.

I like coming here to remind myself how many things I know almost nothing about.

Or just take this story, where people who haven't even punched a CEO are making up detailed "theories" about the actions and motivations of someone who shot one dead.

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/luigis-manifesto

Read his manifesto, then read this whole thread again. It's hilarious.

Being educated isn't really representative of Hacker News. There are very clear dynamics here where being more knowledgeable makes the discussions irrelevant.

There are generally two ways of doing hard things. Either you are knowledgeable enough to be aware of the challenges and work around, or overcome, them. Or you are unaware, or shameless, enough to do it anyway. The later is much easier than the former. (Then you also have those who believe they could do something but never does because they can't). (Also not entirely mutually exclusive).

Sometimes this is a feature of education, but most of the time it is just a feature of ignorance. Being educated doesn't also prevent you from being ignorant. It is very much expected that most willing to do something hard are smart enough to do it, but not smart enough to do it well. Unless it's been made easier, but then it is no longer as hard.

It is also perception. Knowing both software and hardware would make you a technologist, or when talking about hardware someone who knows hardware but also knows software. Not knowing hardware but talking about it would more likely make you perceived as someone who knows software. And going back to the beginning, it is easier to think you know software than to actually know it.

Looking at his tweets he looks like a perfect example of a smug “TPOT” postrationalist that identifies themselves as “gray tribe” and then mainlines figures like Bret and Eric Weinstein and has retrograde views.

Thinking he’s smarter than the rest of us is most likely a big part of his identity.

I don't understand most of these terms, and I'm curious how much of that is me being a dummy, or just not consuming a generous amount of some very specific bubble's jargon.

Edit: to clarify, when you go down the rabbit hole of certain bubbles, you come across terms that nobody will know unless they've gone down those same rabbit holes. Occasionally when you come up for air, you might find yourself using those terms as if they're broadly known.

They seem to be rather recent terms, say the last year or so. I found this just posted article helpful: https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-tpot-twit...

yeah this is person is talking about a very particular Twitter "for you" social algorithmic tarpit

He's definitely fitting the cliché of "STEM graduate who thinks they have all the answers to social problems without reading any previous works on the subject". E.g. he thinks Japan's cultural problems are a bigger issue than its birth rate itself (correct) but thinks part of the solution involves banning conveyer belt sushi bars because they enforce social isolation by having machines instead of workers (incorrect). He clearly takes inspiration from the Unabomber Manifesto but seems to focus on the primitivism instead of trying to understand the underlying social dynamics and power structures (which you might expect if he were a "leftist" as many initially assumed).

You can take a person out of his ivy league STEM background but you can't take the ivy league STEM background out of a person, or something.

> but thinks part of the solution involves banning conveyer belt sushi bars because they enforce social isolation by having machines instead of workers (incorrect)

Why are you thinking he's incorrect? I mean, a debate can be had if bans are the correct tool, but there is a massive trend in hospitality in general (both restaurants and lodging) to de-personalize the entire experience, to take the human service out of the loop and make it invisible where it still needs to take place:

- hotel booking? no travel agents, no phone calls, anyone can just do that themselves with bookingdotcom and other aggregator service.

- hotel on-site service? no check-in at the reception, you go to a terminal, enter your booking id, get a keycard and that's it. when you check out, you close the door, dispose of the key card, and you haven't seen or interacted with any human during the entirety of your stay.

- food ordering? you sit alone at home, scroll through a list of restaurants that might not even exist ("ghost kitchens"), a computer orders a human to make the food, said anonymous person (and maybe some colleagues) makes your food, another anonymous person gets ordered by a computer to deliver it to your doorstep, and if you specify a non-contact delivery you didn't have to interact with a single human for anything. And I think it won't take long for the cooks to be replaced by machines as well, delivery robots are already a thing.

- on site food eating: you don't order at a server any more, you order at a terminal, a tablet or even your own phone, the computer dispatches cooks and servers, some even don't have human servers any more but only robots or running-sushi-style conveyor belts, and in the end you pay at a machine.

So yes, "running sushi" is definitely a good example how human to human interactions are outright eliminated from our lives.

Fwiw, the conveyor belt sushi place I last went to did not feel any less personal than a typical restaurant, and did not seem to have fewer interactions with people than any place below a relatively fancy date spot

That was my point. It's an evocative image if you don't think about it too long but if you've ever seen one it's no different from any other fast food place. Unless you're a frequent customer, you're probably not going to develop any meaningful relationships with service workers - this is especially true for chain/franchise establishments and the rare exceptions I can think of are "mom and pop" style places which have all but vanished. You go to a places operated by service workers to socialize with other patrons (especially if they accompany you there, like on a date or group event), not the staff. In many cases the staff are literally required not to have genuine human interactions with you because they're being paid to be nice to you.

An Ivy League STEM background is not capable of educating him on the issues he's grappling with. Now an Ivy League Arts background might.

Unfortunately there's just not enough time in the day to really dig into the issues he's grappling with when there's an overwelming course load of databases and physics etc.

I hope he's not right about Japan because since covid I talk to even less people. Restaurants have automated not just ordering, but reservations and payment too now.

Of course he's right. The influence of conveyor belt sushi specifically seems very dubious (isn't it just an unusual novelty?) but any social trend that has people meeting and talking to others less frequently will have people meeting potential partners less frequently. What is the advice always given to people looking for a partner? Go out and meet people. Meet as many people as you can to increase your odds. Any aspect of Japanese society that reinforces or facilitates social isolation has a share of the blame for their demographic problem.

Surely the issue in Japan (and the West, tbh) is that people don't actually WANT to meet each other.

Well, this is the defining trend of our technological progress. People getting what they want makes them unhappy in the long, multigenerational term.

We innovate because we like being comfortable. We don’t want to tend to a fire constantly to be warm. We don’t want to depend on the randomness of hunting/foraging to have a full belly. We don’t want to take days and days of travel to go a few towns over. We don’t want to have to deal with people we don’t know because that’s anxiety inducing.

So we invent all those things that means many modern humans can just stay comfy, warm and fed at home with all their basic needs met without having to go through all this discomfort.

The problem now is that we’re all unhealthy, lonely, feel purposeless (and to top it all the planet is on fire).

> The problem now is that we’re all unhealthy, lonely, feel purposeless (and to top it all the planet is on fire).

None of that is true. You're projecting what some people struggle with onto everyone, when the data indicates people are better off today. And mental health issues aren't unique to the industrialized world. Also, the planet is warming, but it's not on fire. Total exaggeration.

> when the data indicates people are better off today

And what "data" would that be?

https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-genera...

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/24/10/wha...

https://www.bib.bund.de/EN/News/2024/2024-05-29-FReDA-Policy...

And what "purpose" are people looking forward to?

> Also, the planet is warming, but it's not on fire. Total exaggeration.

What does that even mean? It's not literally burning, so it's fine? Because you say so?

But some billionaire did a TED talk where he said that the global poverty rate has been constantly declining, which is true, even if it is not meaningful if you remove it from the real-world context of purchasing power, social safety nets, support networks and shared commons, and only a positive if you think sweatshops are good because they create job opportunities.

> And what "purpose" are people looking forward to?

What, you don't find increasing shareholder value compelling?

> It's not literally burning, so it's fine?

Presumably they think the climage catastrophe is not a big deal. "On fire" is clearly hyperbole but the point is that we're on a fast track to total global economic collapse (to say nothing about the death and destruction itself) as long as the answer is to carefully do some ineffective reductions and give more money to the industry to spend on "carbon capture" technology that creates more emissions in the process of being built, maintained and operated than it could ever hope to capture, but I digress.

There is plenty of data saying the average person is more unhealthy, lonely and unhappy than 50 years ago, at least in the developed world.

The less you meet people, the less comfortable you are with meeting people, the less you want to meet people. It's a death spiral.

It's not just about exposure to other people. It's also about facilitating genuine human connections. Japan's work culture is detrimental to life outside the workplace but the cultural problems extend far beyond that. It shouldn't need saying but Japanese culture is also extremely sexist and literally patriarchic in ways that should be obvious even to those claiming "Western culture" (which as a European is a ridiculous notion given the vast differences in attitude across the continent - or even within individual countries - alone) isn't at all.

On the one hand you have overblown expectations of success and commitment to work for men, on the other you have an expectation of submissiveness, docility and youthful purity for women, but in reality most men can't be high earners, most women need to work the same grueling hours to make a living and it all just ends up making everyone unhappy and lonely because nobody can live up to the expectations both instilled in them from a young age and placed on them by their peers and failure is not an option. Not to mention that the concept of dedication to your employer has become completely detached from the previously implied reward of the company's loyalty to their lifelong committed workers, too.

The situation in "the West" (let's say the US) is comparable in some ways, certainly, but the gendered expectations are much less intense and there are at least some options to socialize outside the work environment and as bad as labor protections are, people don't literally die at work.

> then mainlines figures like Bret and Eric Weinstein

I’m sorry are these supposed to be extremists? These are status quo western liberals, secular humanists, and science enthusiasts.

> retrograde

Is this a derogatory term in the human progress narrative?

Yes, they’re both very credulous.

This reads like word salad

TPOT?

Yes, that part of Twitter, tpot.

"many of those who participate were formerly part of the Rationalist and Effective Altruism movements. [...] What makes TPOT a "post-rational" community is an interest in topics that are not traditionally rationalist, such as spirituality, occultism and conspiracy theories."

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/tpot-postrat

Back in my day we just called these people crackpots.

This is supposed to be his ”manifesto”.

https://x.com/SyeClops/status/1866353712148685002

Doesn’t seem to me like he has a superiority complex. He is devastated by his mother’s illness and the actions of United Healthcare.

I don’t know that I would trust that to be his manifesto. The BBC article says it was handwritten.

Why would someone post a typed version rather than a photo of the real thing (which they would need to have to be able to type it up)?

Here's the handwritten one that was found on him.

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/luigis-manifesto

Wasn't his family incredibly wealthy? Wouldn't they be able to pay for healthcare out of pocket?

All signs point to this being fake.

i wouldn't be sharing stuff like that unless you know for sure

To be fair, if you are very smart / quite determined to pick up a skill / have a good mentor, you can get good enough in a lot of skills, that you can pass off your work as professional quality.

I have seen this happen people do this with programming / CAD / 3D modeling / various crafts etc.

The reverse where people project insane complexity onto everything they don't understand is also true and common.

You see this all the time where people on HN, Reddit, wherever, will act as though roughing in the plumbing and electrical for a home addition is comparable in complexity and fraught with similar nuances as doing all the process electrical and plumbing for an industrial facility when it very much not.

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