6 ms·

What I've Learned About Smart People.

552 points by tmacwilliam 15y ago

vacri 15y ago
Smart people also: - don't use low-contrast text, which obfuscates their message - have a comments section for feedback, rather than a 'reblogged' section for desperate popularity
tnicola 15y ago
Asking questions is not only a trait of smart people, but it is quite possibly the simplest most effective tool that can set you appart in many things. Think about the last time you bought something where you had a great sales experience. How many questions did the sales person ask? Think about last time you were on a great date? Did the person ask questions about you. Asking questions is a sign of validated learning and active listening and those two concepts are the way we better ourselves and our surroundings.
- uuilly 15y ago
  Agreed. I think asking questions is more a trait of successful people. Most of the very high IQ people I've worked with have been much more likely to make bad decisions by not asking questions than lower IQ people. When I interview people I don't look for intelligence as much as I look for awareness of the the limits of a person's intelligence. Intelligence will not cure hubris. And from what I've experienced, intelligence and hubris are highly correlated. I'm glad to hear that the author of this article has had a different experience. There is nothing more delightful than working with a person with a high horsepower brain who is good at steering it.
ryanwhitney 15y ago
Reminded my of this, from Gladwell's Outliers: "The way you were raised, namely with wealthy or less fortunate parents, also plays a role. Gladwell explains that when wealthy parents drive their children to the doctor, they tell their children things like, “Johnny, now if you have any questions, be sure to ask the doctor. This is your opportunity to talk to him about any health problems you’re having….” And so on. In contrast, the children of poor parents may feel less entitled to this same questioning. Instead, they accept what the doctor tells them straight out, without surfacing concerns or criticisms. Gladwell then uses Chris Langan, a genius with a 195 IQ who wasn’t able to succeed in college, as an example. Langan failed to get a PhD (his goal) not because he lacked intelligence, but because he had a mentality to passively accept the conditions and limitations others imposed on him. Langan ended up dropping out of college because he couldn’t convince his teachers to accommodate a simple change in his schedule (a change he needed because his truck broke and he could no longer get to campus early in the morning)."
- Lambent_Cactus 15y ago
  Which is to say, asking questions isn't so much a marker of intelligence so much as of privilege. More than any particular subject matter, that's what Harvard is instructing its students in.
- Drbble 15y ago
  Gladwell's story is completely made up though. Rich kids are more obedient due to their high class structured environment, whereas as poor kids live in a dog eat dog world where they learn fast to fight for survival. Sociology is fun, any just-so story becomes social science. even.
  - disgruntledphd2 15y ago
    Please don't confuse Gladwell with a social scientist. Its somewhat like confusing Bob the Java book writer with James Gosling. I agree that a lot of social science is garbage, but there are many smart people studying it, and its a much harder area to keep your everyday opinions from affecting.
  - groby_b 15y ago
    > Gladwell's story is completely made up though That seems to be a tautology these days ;)
- dkarl 15y ago
  I have a friend who is a doctor and works two weekends a month at a clinic in a poor area. (I think it's so poor that the clinic is closed on the weekends when he's not there.) Part of his job is having the right demeanor that people will trust him and actually follow his advice. That means projecting authority, the old-fashioned confidence and slightly superior air that people probably expected from a doctor in the 19th century. He interacts differently with educated patients; they ask him all kinds of things, and he doesn't pretend to be any more wise or knowledgeable than his training makes him. The less educated ones are likely to say nothing, nod respectfully, and then possibly not follow his advice at all if he didn't sufficiently impress them. (For example, they might drive ten minutes across the border into Mexico, buy three days' worth of antibiotics, and not interact with a doctor again until their condition gets much worse.) I can only imagine the awkwardness when he mistakes one kind of patient for the other.
75c84fb8 15y ago
So do they ask questions because they're smart, or are they smart because they ask questions?
- epscylonb 15y ago
  I don't think the author implied anything other than correlation, but interesting question none the less.
  - codeonfire 15y ago
    The author is also implying that all 'smart' people ask questions, people who don't ask questions are not smart, and that dumb people don't ask questions. And without any controls, claims that 'smartness' fully explains why questions are asked. He even refers to some anonymous "research and findings" which he forgot to cite.
- ImprovedSilence 15y ago
  I would guess smart because they ask questions. I think there are lots of people out there who just nod to be agreeable. The ones who brave it and ask questions are the ones to gain an understanding. (perhaps this is why nerds are uncool their younger years, they questions things and search for truth, as opposed to just going along with the flow of their peers, thoughts?)
  - 75c84fb8 15y ago
    Interesting. And maybe not even just in the younger years. Having worked in a big corporation, where politics flowed thick, there can be a social perception that one who sticks his head up will likely have it cut off. Asking pointed questions is one way to do that. However I've also noticed—among engineers where solid understanding is perhaps more critical—the culture can be different. There's still a general reluctance to admit you have no clue what a speaker is talking about, but when 'that guy' finally breaks the silence with the questions that were on everyone's mind, you can almost hear the sense of relief spreading through the group.
- 15y ago
jczhang 15y ago
So what do you do if you're in an environment that discourages asking dumb questions you might have?
- ImprovedSilence 15y ago
  Get out of that environment asap? Or ask anyway, maybe you can influence change on your environments attitudes.
- tnicola 15y ago
  If there truly is an enviromnment that discourages asking questions because they deem them as 'dumb', then you need to work to improve such environment. In my experience, the only time questions were discouraged (and almost always in the interest of time) was because it was otherwise possible to get an answer to your questions. Can you give an example of the environment you would be talking about?
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    Any politicized working environment. People will twist your questions to trying to make you look stupid. You can counter it by actually asking other people in the room to explain it and lo-and-behold no-one understands but that's pretty much a downhill slope as then you're potentially making other people look stupid. But to echo the other reply, get out, life's too short to bother with that.
  - judgardner 15y ago
    I see this problem among less experienced developers who have a lot of talent. These devs exude 'know it all' and can back it up on some narrow set of knowledge/skills. Part of maintaining this impossible image requires not asking questions that might show cracks. Pretending to know everything is a sure path to not knowing much of anything given enough time and I've seen developers go down this path.
  - neilparikh 15y ago
    One big one is high school. (I'm in high school right now) If I ask one or two questions, it's fine, but if I ask more questions, all of which are serious questions that I truly want to know the answer for, the teacher usually gets annoyed. It probably is due to the fact that there isn't much time in the class to cover all the material and answer questions, but it irritates me nonetheless.
UK-Al05 15y ago
I think this mostly comes with age. Older people tend to sceptical and challenge everything anyway. Probably because they have been screwed over a few times in their life and ask questions.
daviddaviddavid 15y ago
It's worthy asking "Why do smart people ask questions?" I think the answer is that when they don't fully understand something there is some sort of mental itch that just has to get scratched. Things just don't feel right until all of their questions are answered. Also, I can't help but note how much these endlessly inquisitive smart people sound like the old gadfly Socrates. If philosophy has anything going for it, it is that it teaches one to ask questions about matters that are typically taken for granted.
- larrys 15y ago
  "It's worthy asking "Why do smart people ask questions?"" Smart people also are secure in what they know and what they don't know and aren't afraid to show it. If you asked PG, Fred Wilson or Steve Blank about a company - if they had heard of it - they wouldn't feel self conscious if they hadn't. They would probably assume it just wasn't well known at that point. If you asked the same question to a "newbie" on HN I'm not sure they would be so secure to admit the same because they wouldn't know how ubiquitous the company was. And they would be afraid of showing how clueless they were. I mean if you are in a meeting and are an expert on the subject matter you feel pretty secure that if you have a question it's not a dumb question. Nobody likes to ask the dumb question. I've notice with customers that call us that an overwhelming number of (at least smart sounding) people start the conversation with "this might be a dumb question". It's like laying down with your belly exposed to acknowledge what you don't know.
  - tnicola 15y ago
    > If you asked the same question to a "newbie" on HN I'm not sure they would be so secure to admit the same because they wouldn't know how ubiquitous the company was. And they would be afraid of showing how clueless they were. This would only hold true if they were conditioned to fear the reaction of them not knowing. If someone had never heard of Google and they admitted that, if someone simply said 'it's a commonly used search engine' without much negative connotation, they will not be afraid to admit not knowing something similar in the future. However, if you laugh, point, call them a 'newbie' and make them leave the room with their heads hung in shame, then yes, they may be more careful next time. It boils down to respect. If you respect people, even if they don't know the obvious, then they will have an opportunity to learn and thrive. If PG acted immaturely every time someone admitted they did not know something that was obvious to him, he quite possibly would not be able to do what he does.
aDemoUzer 15y ago
The article made a good point and I agree with it. In most of my classes, I was usually one of the or the only person who would either ask questions or attempt to give an answer. Equally important trait of a smart person is the willingness to answer a question - even when you are not fully sure. It is a great mean to understand new concepts. 1. If I am right, it validates my understanding of the concept. 2. If I am wrong, it bring misinformation to surface and gives me a reason to go over previously discussed material. If I never had experience where I was wrong, it puts me in the cycle of "I know everything, so I don't need to study." 3. It keeps me awake in class because asking and answering questions requires paying attention in class.
Confusion 15y ago
Smart people challenge everything. I don't understand why that is offered as the take-away, because the article does not support it. It supports the take-away that smart people ask questions. The examples do not mention questions that challenge what has been said, but rather questions that result in a better understanding of what has been said. Challenging people is not always the optimal way of exchanging information. When you think someone is wrong, asking questions to understand why they think something will work or is correct is sometimes much more constructive. This is in cases when it leads you to discover a different underlying assumption, a different main goal, a piece of information you missed, ...
- cj 15y ago
  I disagree. Asking questions is most often a way of challenging something. For example, in the lecture hall example the students thought they understood the guest lecture and the only person to ask a genuine question was the tenured professor. The way I interpreted it was that the students accepted their understanding of the subject as "good enough" while the professor wanted to be 100% certain he understood the subject correctly. The professor challenged his own understanding.
j45 15y ago
Truly smart people have always come across to me as not needing to prove how smart they are Smart people don't care to convert me to their way of seeing the world. Be it using Ruby, Apple, or not, they are able to see a bigger, wider picture where everything is possible with the right amount of understanding and well placed effort. Smart people see the patterns and similarities in everything that unite, instead of the differences and exceptions that divide. Smart people aren't righteous. They don't seek external validation / conversion to fuel their own beliefs. Smart people don't add to a situation if they're merely replacing one set of confusing concepts with another (theirs). They are driven by clarity. Smart people are genuinely, insatiably curious about everything. Smart people know how to take the good from everything, and deeply understand little knowledge is new, or truly unique. Smart people I've met live in a mindset of possibility, not doubt or skepticism. One fuels creativity, and the other douses.
- pestaa 15y ago
  Bookmarked, thank you. May I ask the source?
  - j45 15y ago
    Um, I wrote it. Flattered, though, thanks. :)
- VMG 15y ago
  > Smart people see the patterns and similarities in everything that unite, instead of the differences and exceptions that divide. Smart people know that their brain recognizes patterns where there aren't any. They know that they should not fool themselves. > Smart people I've met live in a mindset of possibility, not doubt or skepticism. One fuels creativity, and the other douses. Then they are the opposite of what the article is describing. Smart people I know constantly question their own beliefs.
  - j45 15y ago
    Agreed all around. I didn't say I agreed with the article, haha. ;) Constantly questioning your beliefs can lead to constantly doubting everything. Over time there is risk of only believing in doubts. Developing a healthy curiosity that tests, clarifies and strengthens your current understanding is that. If there's one thing I would have added to the post above, it would be that Smart people know that developing a correct mindset for the journey of learning is far more important than the destination of feeling that they have "arrived" with their level of understanding. Too many people, think they're done once they arrive at their conclusions, or hang onto them so dearly and fanatically based on all the work they've done. Smart people, for me, are ready to piss everything they've believed into the wind every day because of possibility.
espeed 15y ago
Humility is the key to understanding, but hubris often prevents people from growing because they believe their understanding is right from the beginning. For a while I have understood that people see the world in fundamentally different ways, but about two years ago I had an epiphany that really crystallized it for me. Now I see people existing in either one of two camps: 1. Those who believe the world is the way they see it. 2. Those who realize how limited their perspective is. Alan Kay (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alan_kay_shares_a_powerful_idea_about_ideas.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alan_kay_shares_a_powerful...) has a developed a similar view. He often quotes the Talmud saying, "We see things not as they are, but as we are.” And he often says, "We can't learn to see until we admit we are blind". When Jim Collins was doing his research for "How the Mighty Fall", he identified hubris as being the first stage of decline for great enterprises (http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10565 http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10565). This is the concept of "pride goes before the fall," and I believe one of the reasons for this is because we stop asking questions and begin to "lean on our own understanding." We become complacent with our picture of the world and continue on whatever trajectory we were on when we stopped recalibrating. Unless we were right from the start (which almost never happens in a dynamically changing world), we'll veer farther off course. A better way to go is to constantly be asking questions -- continually adding to your perspective, refining it, and recalibrating your path based on what you learn. As the saying goes, "you don't know what you don't know". This seems so simple, but admitting you don't know everything and continually asking questions requires humility.
- itmag 15y ago
  Some things that hammered home this understanding for me (in order of reputability): LessWrong.com, Myers-Briggs Type Indicators, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, PUA. These days, I mostly understand that there are always many perspectives and try to see wisdom as the art of picking between perspectives. But sometimes I get stuck in my old ways and search in vain for the "right" opinion/perspective/paradigm/whatever. This no-one-true-perspective meta-perspective means that life experience and hard-earned wisdom become much more important factors for the good life.
  - 15y ago
juiceandjuice 15y ago
Smart people ask questions because they are smart enough to know what they don't know. You can't know until you don't know.
kevinalexbrown 15y ago
What the article doesn't mention is that the smartest of people perpetually ask themselves questions regarding what they believe they understand. It is remarkably easy to convince yourself you understand something - a mathematical proof, the Halting Problem, advantages of some programming framework/style/language, when you're really just going through the motions and remembering what others have said, kind of memorizing the proof rather than reproducing it. "Of course I understand how genetics work, there are genes and codons and RNA, and DNA helicase, etc" - I can say that, without any ounce of extra understanding. Often I see this in mathematically oriented people who know how to perform X data mining trick, but have no idea how it works. That's perfectly fine - you don't always need to understand everything to use it - but sometimes it breeds an arrogance. When people have a lot of success without knowing the inner workings, they'll sometimes view questions about them as pedantic at best. But the article does hit dead on that smart people don't just ask questions about things they don't understand themselves. They ask questions that challenge what the world believes to be settled, 'obvious' and extremely clear. My favorite How-To-Be-A-Smart-Person-By-Asking-Questions story, about Wittgenstein, from Bertrand Russell: When I was still doubtful as to his ability, I asked G. E. Moore for his opinion. Moore replied, ‘I think very well of him indeed.’ When I enquired the reason for his opinion, he said that it was because Wittgenstein was the only man who looked puzzled at his lectures. [1] Incidentally, on the same page, I found perhaps my favorite genius quotation: The genius is always puzzled by answers, it is the fool who is satisfied by them. [1] http://readingmarksonreading.tumblr.com/post/2565799967/pg-40-of-david-marksons-copy-of-fly-and-the http://readingmarksonreading.tumblr.com/post/2565799967/pg-4...
- csallen 15y ago
  > What the article doesn't mention is that the smartest of people perpetually ask themselves questions regarding what they believe they understand. It is remarkably easy to convince yourself you understand something... when you're really just going through the motions This reminds reminds me of a good quote from Charlie Munger: "Above all, never fool yourself, and remember that you are the easiest person to fool."
  - redschell 15y ago
kenjackson 15y ago
A lot also has to do with comfort. If I'm the smartest person in the class I feel a lot more comfortable asking questions. I know that if I have a question then a good percentage of other people do too. But if I'm not the smartest in the class (or simply not familiar with the material) I may be more inclined to look on Google or follow-up afterwards with the presenter. I don't know if the question I have is worth the time of the 20 or 200 other people in the room. I just don't have the context to know. So to me it's unclear if smart people ask questions because they're comfortable or because that's what they naturally do. A good experiment -- take these same Turning Award winners to a basketball court and have them run through some plays. See if they start asking questions like, "OK, I go left here, but what if someone is setting a pick, should I switch?" or do they nod their head...
- samirahmed 15y ago
  what you say is very true. Asking questions in an environment of peers tends to depend on confidence. Questioning everything and asking questions are often different things in a classroom environment. A key premise of the Khan Academy is that students learning in the intimacy of their own space enables slower students to learn and excel
  - ZeroGravitas 15y ago
    In Sal Khan's TED talk he displays a graph and claims they repeatedly saw "slower" students catch up and excel. He then asked himself whether he (and the audience) had benefited not by being better than their classmates but more by luck that they didn't misunderstand (or simply miss) some early lesson and then get left behind as the class moved on before they had a chance to grasp it.
- phillmv 15y ago
  Whenever I find myself thinking that I'm the smartest person in the room I like to take a deep breath and look around me more carefully. Always a poor assumption to make, in my experience.
  - 15y ago
makronized 15y ago
Not asking questions may also mean that we're losing our contact with teachers (in this case specifically), not meant as those trying to teach you how to do something, but as people who can teach something that's not written inside a book.
mmaunder 15y ago
Asking questions and knowing what you don't know and being honest about it is super important. But so is moving forward, getting things done and leadership and sometimes constantly questioning your world with fresh eyes every morning can mess with these things. It's also exhausting. I find folks who have been surrounded by extremely smart hands-on analytical types most of their lives are slow moving and not great leaders because they question absolutely everything. It's a reflex that develops because if you're working with 20 other engineers building a rocket you don't want to be the guy who said "lets just assume" or "screw it, lets just get it out the door". Sometimes though, it's useful to have an arrogant ass around that makes a few assumptions and keeps kicking the can down the road. Steve Jobs comes to mind.
- lightcatcher 15y ago
  I completely agree with this sentiment. I think this blog post mostly described the characteristics of a skeptic, and many "smart" people are skeptics. However, I don't necessarily correlate skeptics with getting lots of things done, like Steve Jobs did. Ideally, there is some balance between making assumptions and asking questions that leads to great leadership and innovation. I think this balance occurs when one questions everything within a certain domain they wish to control (for instance, Apple and how people interact with computers), but then just accepts the common views for topics outside of their domain.
  - itmag 15y ago
    The people who get things done in this world are often, but not always, cocksure bastards who never second-guess themselves. They may live their entire lives in epistemological error but they don't give a rat's ass since they succeed at laying wenches, closing sales, advancing up the corpolitical greasepole, etc. Hell, they don't even actively not-care about the truth. The thought that they may be wrong doesn't even enter their minds in the first place. They are at philosophical unconscious incompetence. They just don't care. We can learn from this. Smart people should be winning! at life, after all. Maybe a combo of strategical luminosity and tactical cocksurity can be found? :) As a matter of fact, this struggle to avoid the extremes of reckless delusion on one hand and self-sabotage on the other, is one of my major life motifs.
edw519 15y ago
Going to Harvard means I have the very unique opportunity to be around a lot of smart people. Good for you. Even better for you is the fact that you recognize your opportunity. How sad that so many people in your situation never do until it's too late. Now, when I say “smart people,” I don’t mean that guy who always wins trivia night. I mean, blazingly intelligent individuals who are regarded as the pre-eminent scholars in their field. There are many vectors of smartness in both magnitude and direction. Some of the smartest people I've ever known never went to college. You don't have to be a "pre-eminent scholar" to be smart and there's nothing wrong with winning trivia night. It’s pretty amazing to pass by Turing Award winners and leading political science scholars grabbing a sandwich. The smarter you get the less amazing that will feel. Before I go anywhere, let me make one thing clear: I am not one of these smart people. Hmmm, not sure I like the sound of that. Where are you going with this? This is perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned after 3 years here. Then it's a good thing you have one more year. Hopefully you'll learn a bigger lesson. (Read on...) There is an absolutely incredible number of smart people in the world, and I can name a whole bunch of students and professors alike who I know for a fact I will never ever ever be as smart as, no matter how hard I try. How sad to hear you say that... The purpose of college is not to become a greater repository of data. The purpose of college is not to become a better accumulator of data. The purpose of college is not to become better than anyone or anything else. The purpose of college is to see the possibilities and put yourself in position to go after them. You may not believe me now, but you are probably a whole lot smarter than many people, including the smart ones you cite, at something, perhaps many things. And once you put yourself on the shoulders of giants, including your own, you can geometrically catapult yourself into much higher spheres of measure, including "smartness". But even then, so what? It's now how smart you are, you rich you are, or even you good you are, it's what you can imagine doing with all those "assets" and how you can positively affect the lives of others. If you learn nothing else in college, I sincerely hope that you come away with this mindset. ...but I have noticed one overarching theme among smart people: they ask questions. Wow. It sounds like you learned something in college that I didn't learn until years later. And I thought I was so smart. After all, I don’t want this person to think I’m a moron. Smart people don't care about that. The intonation of the question and the intensity with which the professor listened to the response definitively suggested that the professor’s question was genuine, and that the answer was of great importance. What a great lesson. Which reminds me that two of the smartest things you can ever do is keep learning and keep teaching. Thank you. Smart people challenge the very limit of human understanding, and push the envelope of what’s possible farther than many people would argue it’s meant to be pushed. Smart people don’t take claims at face value, and smart people don’t rest until they find an explanation they’re comfortable accepting and understanding. Therefore, you become smarter simply by claiming that you're smarter, right? (Notice this is the opposite of "I know for a fact I will never ever ever be as smart as, no matter how hard I try.".) Smart people challenge everything. Hmmm, I wonder if "challenge everything" = "see the possibilities". I think I've learned something. (You know who taught me that? A smart person.) That's great, but please don't overlook all that you can learn from people that may not seem so smart. Maybe someday, people will call me a smart person. The smartest thing you can ever do is stop caring how smart others think you are. For now, I’m going to keep asking them questions. I take back what I said before. It sounds like you've already learned more in 3 years than many learn in a lifetime. But you probably already knew that, being as smart as you are. Thanks for the great post and the chance for interesting discussion. I feel smarter already. [EDIT: Any notion that I was making fun or teasing OP was most definitely unintended. This was a great post! (Sounds like I now need a <NoSarcasm> tag.)]
zinnaglism 15y ago
I agree and I've written about this in 2012: http://lukas.zinnagl.com/2010/12/asking-questions/ http://lukas.zinnagl.com/2010/12/asking-questions/
mattmcegg 15y ago
Smart people might ask questions, but I also know a lot of dumb people that ask questions, too.
Joss451 15y ago
I've noticed the pseudo-smart are quite annoyed by questions. RTFM, they reply. That's pseudo-smart for "I don't know".
- westicle 15y ago
  Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish for himself and he'll have fish for the rest of his life. There is a time and a place for asking questions, and if you regularly need to ask questions to which you can easily find an accurate/complete answer to without help you'll probably learn more from "learning to fish".
- groby_b 15y ago
  RTFM usually means: I answered that question substantially, and at length, several times already. If you had bothered to do the tiniest bit of research, you would have found those or similar answers on your own. Now, please, go away and only come back when you've at least done the homework.
csomar 15y ago
Is there a difference (or some way to differentiate) a smart person from a very skilled professional? I'm asking this question to see if a Smart Person is the byproduct of getting skilled in a different set of areas, and getting very professional and focused in one or two. I'm certainly not as smart as some fellow HNers here. But, few minutes ago, I have been reading blog posts and emails I wrote 6 years ago. "What a retard I was!"
- rokhayakebe 15y ago
  >I'm certainly not as smart as some fellow HNers here. I tell the following to my roommate weekly: "These guys (referring to HN) are 'wicked smart'". HN certainly makes me humble about what I think of myself. >What a retard I was No, you've grown a lot. I got back to my writings of even 1 year ago and I can see the difference.
- calinet6 15y ago
  > I have been reading blog posts and emails I wrote 6 years ago. "What a retard I was!" I think you should consider your life in many ways successful if you say that every year.
jcdietrich 15y ago
What did you learn about smart people?
jroseattle 15y ago
In thinking about "smart" in the abstract sense or in relation to others, I draw on the logic of Forrest Gump: smart is as smart does. (Forrest said "stupid is as stupid does", but same corollary applies.)
kmfrk 15y ago
Don't get caught writing "very unique" at Harvard. Being unique is binary. :) I don't like words like "smart" - and "stupid" - but I can recognize some of the qualities associated with them. One of the biggest is to know what you don't know, to not be complacent and arrogant. The people I respect the most are humble people, and I think it comes down to this. I don't know what the definition of "smart" is, but I think you sound like a smart person for knowing that you don't have it all figured out - and want to fill in the gaps, even though it means telling other people.
- itmag 15y ago
  Yeah, it's better to write "remarkable", which is an analog property.
- gallamine 15y ago
  > Being unique is binary What is the probability of being unique?
  - mturmon 15y ago
    You can layer a probability on almost any property, and that has nothing to do with whether it is a yes-or-no proposition. A coin being heads-up is a binary property, yet it could be associated with a probability.
codeonfire 15y ago
I think you have to be careful about making blanket statements and whether you are saying that smart people ask questions or are trying to imply that people that ask questions are smart. It is in the interest of the speaker to claim that audience members who ask questions are in some way smarter. Being asked a question implies that the speaker has knowledge that the audience doesn't. So of course the speaker is going to claim those people are smart. It is also not a good thing to presume that audience members are not asking questions simply to draw attention to themselves and to impress other audience members. People with awards are more probably than not to be smart, but they needed a lot of visibility to get those awards. An important question would be to ask, "which non famous person is asking lots of questions, and is that person smart?" Since the author seems to define smart as having won awards and being well known in a field, this question fails immediately. Personally, unless it is unpublished research, I can get most of my questions answered immediately by surfing along while listening and without disrupting the talk. It's also funny when I pull up wikipedia and it either turns out to have the same content as the talk, or directly contradicts the talk.
iskander 15y ago
I would like to ban the word smart from common discourse. It looks like it describes something, but actually masks the reality of the how someone can look 'smart' in a situation.
davidf18 15y ago
IMHO much of asking questions is largely cultural. For instance, at the Passover Seder the youngest child asks (with prior coaching from their parents) the "four questions." My father is a prof at a "top university" and in my family we were always encourage to ask questions and discuss issues. My friends grew up in similar households. But I don't think these were typical households. My perception is that in some Asian cultures the children are less likely to be encouraged to question than the environment that I grew up in. Also, many women are more shy than men and perhaps less likely to ask a question that was on their mind. Regarding hiring decisions, the one thing I look for is whether people will argue with me or not. I look for the people that question and argue with passion.
saulrh 15y ago
So far I've been one of those smart people (though I'm finally finding people that are smarter than I am, and it's a great feeling), and I have my parents to thank for it. As far as I can tell, one of the big things they did was answer my questions. Without fail. Even through the entire "why?" stage, I cannot consciously remember a single instance in which my parents didn't at least provide at least a hook that I could use to keep looking on my own.
afterburner 15y ago
"After all, I don’t want this person to think I’m a moron." Kudos for him recognizing that in himself. It is the single most problematic and annoying aspect of most middle and upper managers. Fear of looking dumb feeds on itself.
jarrett 15y ago
It's not so meaningful to compare the relative intelligence of people within the upper echelons of intelligence--which is where you appear to be, along with those award-winners you mention. Which is not to disagree with any of your points. Rather, I'm just saying you don't need to worry about being less smart than all those eminent Harvard professors, because you're already in a league where such comparisons don't work. What defines this league, and how can people in it be compared? I think its boundaries have something to do with a general ability and desire to learn, and a breadth and depth of knowledge about important things in the world at large. (The knowledge criterion has to take into account age. You know less now than you will at 50, but that's obviously not a mark against you.) Amongst such people, the only meaningful comparisons are far more specific than "more smart" and "less smart" can capture. You can meaningfully talk about, say, one's ability to solve an electrical engineering dilemma, or to pleasingly arrange the samples in a hip-hop song. But not relative smartness, not in this league. This is one case where the truth is actually more comfortable than the myths we tell ourselves.
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gbhn 15y ago
Another thing I've learned about smart people is that they're basically always willing to tell you what they know. This is super-encouraging to me as someone who is nowhere near as smart as them. Another way to think about this: the smart people are happy to tell me what I need to know to succeed, so I don't have to be disadvantaged by not being as smart. I do, however, have to be humble enough to be a good listener, and have some discernment to know who to listen to.
c0riander 15y ago
Smart people ask questions because they have enough confidence that they are smart to expose their ignorance. Acting like you know everything doesn't come from a place of intelligence - it comes from a place of fear, that the other person knows more than you, that they will judge you, that a "smart person" would know what you don't know. I've forced myself to ask questions many times in meetings when I thought the answer was probably obvious to everyone else - only to discover that others had been wondering the same thing.
zeynalov 15y ago
I think it's a paradox. What does smart mean? Smart = knowing as much information as possible (or knowing how and where to get information when it's needed) + gifted with normal logic. So if smart knows best, why does he/she need to ask? If he's smart enough, doesn't it mean that he/she must be least asking one?! Edit: I remembered something. There was a man called Said Nursi in Ottoman Empire in 20th century. He is recognized as one of smartest people ever. When he was in his 20s, after graduating 4 universities he opened a bureau in Istanbul and wrote on it's door "Here will be all questions answered and no questions asked" After answering most paradoxal questions ever he was already famous in Europe. In first days of Turkish republic people invited him to parliament, and then to be the president of Turkey. He rejected and started to write his famous books. Nowadays there are 300 millions of his students calling themselves "Nurcular" in turkish.
sagantio 15y ago
How are intelligence and knowledge related? I perceive that for many people intelligence depends on how much do you know about something.
stretchwithme 15y ago
Another reason to answer every question your child asks and reward them with useful information no matter how probing the question might be. And also take care that schools reward this to, to the extent possible.
stretchwithme 15y ago
Knowledge is built from the ground up. The more knowledge (and experience) you integrate into your brain, the smarter it is. There is an innate ability to do this integration and some people do it more easily. But those who use their abilities most often and without fear build their brains faster.
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- rryan 15y ago
  http://web.mit.edu/sfs/financial_aid/financial_aid_background.html http://web.mit.edu/sfs/financial_aid/financial_aid_backgroun... MIT is actually pretty great with financial aid. 76% of students receive need-based aid. ALL financial aid is need-based. Merit and abilities don't even enter into the equation. 99% of students in 0-50k income bracket get a full ride. 98% of students in 50-100k bracket get mostly covered 94% of students in 100-150k get a lot of help. The average debt upon graduation is 18k.
FredBrach 15y ago
"The important thing is to not stop questionning" - Albert Einstein
MrJagil 15y ago
The one quote that has led me on to _greater smartness_ is that of (i believe) Socrates: "The only thing I know, is that I don't know anything." Remind yourself of that whenever you feel smart, and you will soon feel your mind expanding.
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omerta 15y ago
I think the author of the article is pretty inaccurate in his analysis of students at Harvard. I think the article reflects poorly on Harvard, to be honest. The author is about as smart as my shoe. Usually, the ones who continually ask questions and run their mouths in class are the ones who are extremely interested in their respective field of study. Interest creates curiosity and excitement, and both are required for someone to continually want to ask questions and learn more about whatever subject. The other students who do not continually ask questions are either shy or are just going through the motions at college, so they do not really care. If you are a student at Harvard, you probably have above-average fluid-intelligence, regardless of what you accomplish with it. The more you ask questions and the more interest you have in a subject, the more knowledge you will gain in that said subject (crystallized intelligence). But it doesn't mean people who do not continually ask questions have any less fluid intelligence.
hnmember 15y ago
smart people may or may not ask questions, that depends on the situation. professors, however, usually do ask questions; most of the time just to announce their presence and attract attention.
rlf 15y ago
(yawn)
yason 15y ago
I don't necessarily want to be around smart people but around wise people. However, there's no specific place to go. They're both all around but also in very small quantities.
mangoman 15y ago
I ask questions... if only correlation implied causation...
wisty 15y ago
I think it's a hasty generalization to say "smart people ask questions". It's more general to say "smart people get to the bottom of things, unless it's obviously an intellectual tarpit (hello postmodernists)." That's why they ask questions. Even if they hate doing it, they have to find out, at just about any cost.
drstrangevibes 15y ago
if correlation does not imply causation, then asking questions will not necessarily make you any smarter, no?
Mordor 15y ago
Unfortunately, this also means 'stupid' people accept everything they're given :-(
Craiggybear 15y ago
Sigh. Define "smart people". A lot of people I've seen described as smart are either a) actually good at making money (not necessarily legally) or b) good at manipulating people to get what they want. I describe this as cunning, rather than smart. Although they may be smart, too -- but that's quite rare in my experience. But, yes, smart people tend not take anything at face value or believe everything they are told by the media. Going to institutions like Harvard is not in itself a measure of smart, necessarily. All it usually represents is a disposable income.
- Gustomaximus 15y ago
  People also confuse "smart" with ability to memorise. I've had this when I read some history book and the topic comes up and you suddenly have loads of information on an obscure topic. People will say how smart you are. But IMO this has nothing to do with smart. My definition of smart is more a brains ability to ad insight to facts with thought, not just recall them by rote.
ramses 15y ago
One point the author may be missing, is that smart people do not learn to ask question. Instead, asking questions is a side-effect of being extremely curious, which is a core characteristic of smart people. Similarly, how can someone learn to ask questions without being sufficiently curious, or at least sufficiently motivated to learn about a particular subject? I guess the answer is: with a lot of work.
lurker17 15y ago
> Going to Harvard means I have the very unique opportunity to be around a lot of smart people. My high school English teacher mocked Harvard students who used term "very unique". "uniqueness" is a binary (not continuous/leveled) attribute (and "very" is a near-meaningless word).
thewisedude 15y ago
Somebody told me once, if you ask a question - you may appear to be a fool for a minute. If you dont ask the question, you are a fool for the rest of your life. Of course, this saying cant be taken too literally, but I think the idea is: to learn something new, keep your ego aside, ask questions and improve your understanding!
arvind_bhat1 15y ago
There was a similar post posted on Friday I think which spoke of the concept of 'Flow'(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)) and how to achieve. It also referenced Gladwell's 10000 hours theory. Does anyone remember what the link was? Please post it here if you do. Thanks :)
analyst74 15y ago
While I agree to the notion that asking question is important to get smarter knowledge-wise, I think we programmers tend to over-estimate the importance of intelligence in real life. For example, when you need to convince others (need high confidence in whatever you believe in), to gain trust(depends on your audience), to increase social ranking (asking lot of question is sign of being a good protege), to hide weakness (sometimes you don't want the other party to know how much you know/don't know), etc etc

552 points by tmacwilliam 15y ago

vacri 15y ago

Smart people also: - don't use low-contrast text, which obfuscates their message - have a comments section for feedback, rather than a 'reblogged' section for desperate popularity

tnicola 15y ago

Asking questions is not only a trait of smart people, but it is quite possibly the simplest most effective tool that can set you appart in many things. Think about the last time you bought something where you had a great sales experience. How many questions did the sales person ask? Think about last time you were on a great date? Did the person ask questions about you. Asking questions is a sign of validated learning and active listening and those two concepts are the way we better ourselves and our surroundings.

uuilly 15y ago
Agreed. I think asking questions is more a trait of successful people. Most of the very high IQ people I've worked with have been much more likely to make bad decisions by not asking questions than lower IQ people. When I interview people I don't look for intelligence as much as I look for awareness of the the limits of a person's intelligence. Intelligence will not cure hubris. And from what I've experienced, intelligence and hubris are highly correlated. I'm glad to hear that the author of this article has had a different experience. There is nothing more delightful than working with a person with a high horsepower brain who is good at steering it.

ryanwhitney 15y ago

Reminded my of this, from Gladwell's Outliers: "The way you were raised, namely with wealthy or less fortunate parents, also plays a role. Gladwell explains that when wealthy parents drive their children to the doctor, they tell their children things like, “Johnny, now if you have any questions, be sure to ask the doctor. This is your opportunity to talk to him about any health problems you’re having….” And so on. In contrast, the children of poor parents may feel less entitled to this same questioning. Instead, they accept what the doctor tells them straight out, without surfacing concerns or criticisms. Gladwell then uses Chris Langan, a genius with a 195 IQ who wasn’t able to succeed in college, as an example. Langan failed to get a PhD (his goal) not because he lacked intelligence, but because he had a mentality to passively accept the conditions and limitations others imposed on him. Langan ended up dropping out of college because he couldn’t convince his teachers to accommodate a simple change in his schedule (a change he needed because his truck broke and he could no longer get to campus early in the morning)."

Lambent_Cactus 15y ago
Which is to say, asking questions isn't so much a marker of intelligence so much as of privilege. More than any particular subject matter, that's what Harvard is instructing its students in.
Drbble 15y ago
Gladwell's story is completely made up though. Rich kids are more obedient due to their high class structured environment, whereas as poor kids live in a dog eat dog world where they learn fast to fight for survival. Sociology is fun, any just-so story becomes social science. even.
- disgruntledphd2 15y ago
  Please don't confuse Gladwell with a social scientist. Its somewhat like confusing Bob the Java book writer with James Gosling. I agree that a lot of social science is garbage, but there are many smart people studying it, and its a much harder area to keep your everyday opinions from affecting.
- groby_b 15y ago
  > Gladwell's story is completely made up though That seems to be a tautology these days ;)
dkarl 15y ago
I have a friend who is a doctor and works two weekends a month at a clinic in a poor area. (I think it's so poor that the clinic is closed on the weekends when he's not there.) Part of his job is having the right demeanor that people will trust him and actually follow his advice. That means projecting authority, the old-fashioned confidence and slightly superior air that people probably expected from a doctor in the 19th century. He interacts differently with educated patients; they ask him all kinds of things, and he doesn't pretend to be any more wise or knowledgeable than his training makes him. The less educated ones are likely to say nothing, nod respectfully, and then possibly not follow his advice at all if he didn't sufficiently impress them. (For example, they might drive ten minutes across the border into Mexico, buy three days' worth of antibiotics, and not interact with a doctor again until their condition gets much worse.) I can only imagine the awkwardness when he mistakes one kind of patient for the other.

75c84fb8 15y ago

So do they ask questions because they're smart, or are they smart because they ask questions?

epscylonb 15y ago
I don't think the author implied anything other than correlation, but interesting question none the less.
- codeonfire 15y ago
  The author is also implying that all 'smart' people ask questions, people who don't ask questions are not smart, and that dumb people don't ask questions. And without any controls, claims that 'smartness' fully explains why questions are asked. He even refers to some anonymous "research and findings" which he forgot to cite.
ImprovedSilence 15y ago
I would guess smart because they ask questions. I think there are lots of people out there who just nod to be agreeable. The ones who brave it and ask questions are the ones to gain an understanding. (perhaps this is why nerds are uncool their younger years, they questions things and search for truth, as opposed to just going along with the flow of their peers, thoughts?)
- 75c84fb8 15y ago
  Interesting. And maybe not even just in the younger years. Having worked in a big corporation, where politics flowed thick, there can be a social perception that one who sticks his head up will likely have it cut off. Asking pointed questions is one way to do that. However I've also noticed—among engineers where solid understanding is perhaps more critical—the culture can be different. There's still a general reluctance to admit you have no clue what a speaker is talking about, but when 'that guy' finally breaks the silence with the questions that were on everyone's mind, you can almost hear the sense of relief spreading through the group.
15y ago

jczhang 15y ago

So what do you do if you're in an environment that discourages asking dumb questions you might have?

ImprovedSilence 15y ago
Get out of that environment asap? Or ask anyway, maybe you can influence change on your environments attitudes.
tnicola 15y ago
If there truly is an enviromnment that discourages asking questions because they deem them as 'dumb', then you need to work to improve such environment. In my experience, the only time questions were discouraged (and almost always in the interest of time) was because it was otherwise possible to get an answer to your questions. Can you give an example of the environment you would be talking about?
- mattmanser 15y ago
  Any politicized working environment. People will twist your questions to trying to make you look stupid. You can counter it by actually asking other people in the room to explain it and lo-and-behold no-one understands but that's pretty much a downhill slope as then you're potentially making other people look stupid. But to echo the other reply, get out, life's too short to bother with that.
- judgardner 15y ago
  I see this problem among less experienced developers who have a lot of talent. These devs exude 'know it all' and can back it up on some narrow set of knowledge/skills. Part of maintaining this impossible image requires not asking questions that might show cracks. Pretending to know everything is a sure path to not knowing much of anything given enough time and I've seen developers go down this path.
- neilparikh 15y ago
  One big one is high school. (I'm in high school right now) If I ask one or two questions, it's fine, but if I ask more questions, all of which are serious questions that I truly want to know the answer for, the teacher usually gets annoyed. It probably is due to the fact that there isn't much time in the class to cover all the material and answer questions, but it irritates me nonetheless.

UK-Al05 15y ago

I think this mostly comes with age. Older people tend to sceptical and challenge everything anyway. Probably because they have been screwed over a few times in their life and ask questions.

daviddaviddavid 15y ago

It's worthy asking "Why do smart people ask questions?" I think the answer is that when they don't fully understand something there is some sort of mental itch that just has to get scratched. Things just don't feel right until all of their questions are answered. Also, I can't help but note how much these endlessly inquisitive smart people sound like the old gadfly Socrates. If philosophy has anything going for it, it is that it teaches one to ask questions about matters that are typically taken for granted.

larrys 15y ago
"It's worthy asking "Why do smart people ask questions?"" Smart people also are secure in what they know and what they don't know and aren't afraid to show it. If you asked PG, Fred Wilson or Steve Blank about a company - if they had heard of it - they wouldn't feel self conscious if they hadn't. They would probably assume it just wasn't well known at that point. If you asked the same question to a "newbie" on HN I'm not sure they would be so secure to admit the same because they wouldn't know how ubiquitous the company was. And they would be afraid of showing how clueless they were. I mean if you are in a meeting and are an expert on the subject matter you feel pretty secure that if you have a question it's not a dumb question. Nobody likes to ask the dumb question. I've notice with customers that call us that an overwhelming number of (at least smart sounding) people start the conversation with "this might be a dumb question". It's like laying down with your belly exposed to acknowledge what you don't know.
- tnicola 15y ago
  > If you asked the same question to a "newbie" on HN I'm not sure they would be so secure to admit the same because they wouldn't know how ubiquitous the company was. And they would be afraid of showing how clueless they were. This would only hold true if they were conditioned to fear the reaction of them not knowing. If someone had never heard of Google and they admitted that, if someone simply said 'it's a commonly used search engine' without much negative connotation, they will not be afraid to admit not knowing something similar in the future. However, if you laugh, point, call them a 'newbie' and make them leave the room with their heads hung in shame, then yes, they may be more careful next time. It boils down to respect. If you respect people, even if they don't know the obvious, then they will have an opportunity to learn and thrive. If PG acted immaturely every time someone admitted they did not know something that was obvious to him, he quite possibly would not be able to do what he does.

aDemoUzer 15y ago

The article made a good point and I agree with it. In most of my classes, I was usually one of the or the only person who would either ask questions or attempt to give an answer. Equally important trait of a smart person is the willingness to answer a question - even when you are not fully sure. It is a great mean to understand new concepts. 1. If I am right, it validates my understanding of the concept. 2. If I am wrong, it bring misinformation to surface and gives me a reason to go over previously discussed material. If I never had experience where I was wrong, it puts me in the cycle of "I know everything, so I don't need to study." 3. It keeps me awake in class because asking and answering questions requires paying attention in class.

Confusion 15y ago

Smart people challenge everything. I don't understand why that is offered as the take-away, because the article does not support it. It supports the take-away that smart people ask questions. The examples do not mention questions that challenge what has been said, but rather questions that result in a better understanding of what has been said. Challenging people is not always the optimal way of exchanging information. When you think someone is wrong, asking questions to understand why they think something will work or is correct is sometimes much more constructive. This is in cases when it leads you to discover a different underlying assumption, a different main goal, a piece of information you missed, ...

cj 15y ago
I disagree. Asking questions is most often a way of challenging something. For example, in the lecture hall example the students thought they understood the guest lecture and the only person to ask a genuine question was the tenured professor. The way I interpreted it was that the students accepted their understanding of the subject as "good enough" while the professor wanted to be 100% certain he understood the subject correctly. The professor challenged his own understanding.

j45 15y ago

Truly smart people have always come across to me as not needing to prove how smart they are Smart people don't care to convert me to their way of seeing the world. Be it using Ruby, Apple, or not, they are able to see a bigger, wider picture where everything is possible with the right amount of understanding and well placed effort. Smart people see the patterns and similarities in everything that unite, instead of the differences and exceptions that divide. Smart people aren't righteous. They don't seek external validation / conversion to fuel their own beliefs. Smart people don't add to a situation if they're merely replacing one set of confusing concepts with another (theirs). They are driven by clarity. Smart people are genuinely, insatiably curious about everything. Smart people know how to take the good from everything, and deeply understand little knowledge is new, or truly unique. Smart people I've met live in a mindset of possibility, not doubt or skepticism. One fuels creativity, and the other douses.

pestaa 15y ago
Bookmarked, thank you. May I ask the source?
- j45 15y ago
  Um, I wrote it. Flattered, though, thanks. :)
VMG 15y ago
> Smart people see the patterns and similarities in everything that unite, instead of the differences and exceptions that divide. Smart people know that their brain recognizes patterns where there aren't any. They know that they should not fool themselves. > Smart people I've met live in a mindset of possibility, not doubt or skepticism. One fuels creativity, and the other douses. Then they are the opposite of what the article is describing. Smart people I know constantly question their own beliefs.
- j45 15y ago
  Agreed all around. I didn't say I agreed with the article, haha. ;) Constantly questioning your beliefs can lead to constantly doubting everything. Over time there is risk of only believing in doubts. Developing a healthy curiosity that tests, clarifies and strengthens your current understanding is that. If there's one thing I would have added to the post above, it would be that Smart people know that developing a correct mindset for the journey of learning is far more important than the destination of feeling that they have "arrived" with their level of understanding. Too many people, think they're done once they arrive at their conclusions, or hang onto them so dearly and fanatically based on all the work they've done. Smart people, for me, are ready to piss everything they've believed into the wind every day because of possibility.

espeed 15y ago

Humility is the key to understanding, but hubris often prevents people from growing because they believe their understanding is right from the beginning. For a while I have understood that people see the world in fundamentally different ways, but about two years ago I had an epiphany that really crystallized it for me. Now I see people existing in either one of two camps: 1. Those who believe the world is the way they see it. 2. Those who realize how limited their perspective is. Alan Kay (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alan_kay_shares_a_powerful_idea_about_ideas.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alan_kay_shares_a_powerful...) has a developed a similar view. He often quotes the Talmud saying, "We see things not as they are, but as we are.” And he often says, "We can't learn to see until we admit we are blind". When Jim Collins was doing his research for "How the Mighty Fall", he identified hubris as being the first stage of decline for great enterprises (http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10565 http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10565). This is the concept of "pride goes before the fall," and I believe one of the reasons for this is because we stop asking questions and begin to "lean on our own understanding." We become complacent with our picture of the world and continue on whatever trajectory we were on when we stopped recalibrating. Unless we were right from the start (which almost never happens in a dynamically changing world), we'll veer farther off course. A better way to go is to constantly be asking questions -- continually adding to your perspective, refining it, and recalibrating your path based on what you learn. As the saying goes, "you don't know what you don't know". This seems so simple, but admitting you don't know everything and continually asking questions requires humility.

itmag 15y ago
Some things that hammered home this understanding for me (in order of reputability): LessWrong.com, Myers-Briggs Type Indicators, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, PUA. These days, I mostly understand that there are always many perspectives and try to see wisdom as the art of picking between perspectives. But sometimes I get stuck in my old ways and search in vain for the "right" opinion/perspective/paradigm/whatever. This no-one-true-perspective meta-perspective means that life experience and hard-earned wisdom become much more important factors for the good life.
- 15y ago

juiceandjuice 15y ago

Smart people ask questions because they are smart enough to know what they don't know. You can't know until you don't know.

kevinalexbrown 15y ago

What the article doesn't mention is that the smartest of people perpetually ask themselves questions regarding what they believe they understand. It is remarkably easy to convince yourself you understand something - a mathematical proof, the Halting Problem, advantages of some programming framework/style/language, when you're really just going through the motions and remembering what others have said, kind of memorizing the proof rather than reproducing it. "Of course I understand how genetics work, there are genes and codons and RNA, and DNA helicase, etc" - I can say that, without any ounce of extra understanding. Often I see this in mathematically oriented people who know how to perform X data mining trick, but have no idea how it works. That's perfectly fine - you don't always need to understand everything to use it - but sometimes it breeds an arrogance. When people have a lot of success without knowing the inner workings, they'll sometimes view questions about them as pedantic at best. But the article does hit dead on that smart people don't just ask questions about things they don't understand themselves. They ask questions that challenge what the world believes to be settled, 'obvious' and extremely clear. My favorite How-To-Be-A-Smart-Person-By-Asking-Questions story, about Wittgenstein, from Bertrand Russell: When I was still doubtful as to his ability, I asked G. E. Moore for his opinion. Moore replied, ‘I think very well of him indeed.’ When I enquired the reason for his opinion, he said that it was because Wittgenstein was the only man who looked puzzled at his lectures. [1] Incidentally, on the same page, I found perhaps my favorite genius quotation: The genius is always puzzled by answers, it is the fool who is satisfied by them. [1] http://readingmarksonreading.tumblr.com/post/2565799967/pg-40-of-david-marksons-copy-of-fly-and-the http://readingmarksonreading.tumblr.com/post/2565799967/pg-4...

csallen 15y ago
> What the article doesn't mention is that the smartest of people perpetually ask themselves questions regarding what they believe they understand. It is remarkably easy to convince yourself you understand something... when you're really just going through the motions This reminds reminds me of a good quote from Charlie Munger: "Above all, never fool yourself, and remember that you are the easiest person to fool."
- redschell 15y ago

kenjackson 15y ago

A lot also has to do with comfort. If I'm the smartest person in the class I feel a lot more comfortable asking questions. I know that if I have a question then a good percentage of other people do too. But if I'm not the smartest in the class (or simply not familiar with the material) I may be more inclined to look on Google or follow-up afterwards with the presenter. I don't know if the question I have is worth the time of the 20 or 200 other people in the room. I just don't have the context to know. So to me it's unclear if smart people ask questions because they're comfortable or because that's what they naturally do. A good experiment -- take these same Turning Award winners to a basketball court and have them run through some plays. See if they start asking questions like, "OK, I go left here, but what if someone is setting a pick, should I switch?" or do they nod their head...

samirahmed 15y ago
what you say is very true. Asking questions in an environment of peers tends to depend on confidence. Questioning everything and asking questions are often different things in a classroom environment. A key premise of the Khan Academy is that students learning in the intimacy of their own space enables slower students to learn and excel
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  In Sal Khan's TED talk he displays a graph and claims they repeatedly saw "slower" students catch up and excel. He then asked himself whether he (and the audience) had benefited not by being better than their classmates but more by luck that they didn't misunderstand (or simply miss) some early lesson and then get left behind as the class moved on before they had a chance to grasp it.
phillmv 15y ago
Whenever I find myself thinking that I'm the smartest person in the room I like to take a deep breath and look around me more carefully. Always a poor assumption to make, in my experience.
- 15y ago

makronized 15y ago

Not asking questions may also mean that we're losing our contact with teachers (in this case specifically), not meant as those trying to teach you how to do something, but as people who can teach something that's not written inside a book.

mmaunder 15y ago

Asking questions and knowing what you don't know and being honest about it is super important. But so is moving forward, getting things done and leadership and sometimes constantly questioning your world with fresh eyes every morning can mess with these things. It's also exhausting. I find folks who have been surrounded by extremely smart hands-on analytical types most of their lives are slow moving and not great leaders because they question absolutely everything. It's a reflex that develops because if you're working with 20 other engineers building a rocket you don't want to be the guy who said "lets just assume" or "screw it, lets just get it out the door". Sometimes though, it's useful to have an arrogant ass around that makes a few assumptions and keeps kicking the can down the road. Steve Jobs comes to mind.

lightcatcher 15y ago
I completely agree with this sentiment. I think this blog post mostly described the characteristics of a skeptic, and many "smart" people are skeptics. However, I don't necessarily correlate skeptics with getting lots of things done, like Steve Jobs did. Ideally, there is some balance between making assumptions and asking questions that leads to great leadership and innovation. I think this balance occurs when one questions everything within a certain domain they wish to control (for instance, Apple and how people interact with computers), but then just accepts the common views for topics outside of their domain.
- itmag 15y ago
  The people who get things done in this world are often, but not always, cocksure bastards who never second-guess themselves. They may live their entire lives in epistemological error but they don't give a rat's ass since they succeed at laying wenches, closing sales, advancing up the corpolitical greasepole, etc. Hell, they don't even actively not-care about the truth. The thought that they may be wrong doesn't even enter their minds in the first place. They are at philosophical unconscious incompetence. They just don't care. We can learn from this. Smart people should be winning! at life, after all. Maybe a combo of strategical luminosity and tactical cocksurity can be found? :) As a matter of fact, this struggle to avoid the extremes of reckless delusion on one hand and self-sabotage on the other, is one of my major life motifs.

edw519 15y ago

Going to Harvard means I have the very unique opportunity to be around a lot of smart people. Good for you. Even better for you is the fact that you recognize your opportunity. How sad that so many people in your situation never do until it's too late. Now, when I say “smart people,” I don’t mean that guy who always wins trivia night. I mean, blazingly intelligent individuals who are regarded as the pre-eminent scholars in their field. There are many vectors of smartness in both magnitude and direction. Some of the smartest people I've ever known never went to college. You don't have to be a "pre-eminent scholar" to be smart and there's nothing wrong with winning trivia night. It’s pretty amazing to pass by Turing Award winners and leading political science scholars grabbing a sandwich. The smarter you get the less amazing that will feel. Before I go anywhere, let me make one thing clear: I am not one of these smart people. Hmmm, not sure I like the sound of that. Where are you going with this? This is perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned after 3 years here. Then it's a good thing you have one more year. Hopefully you'll learn a bigger lesson. (Read on...) There is an absolutely incredible number of smart people in the world, and I can name a whole bunch of students and professors alike who I know for a fact I will never ever ever be as smart as, no matter how hard I try. How sad to hear you say that... The purpose of college is not to become a greater repository of data. The purpose of college is not to become a better accumulator of data. The purpose of college is not to become better than anyone or anything else. The purpose of college is to see the possibilities and put yourself in position to go after them. You may not believe me now, but you are probably a whole lot smarter than many people, including the smart ones you cite, at something, perhaps many things. And once you put yourself on the shoulders of giants, including your own, you can geometrically catapult yourself into much higher spheres of measure, including "smartness". But even then, so what? It's now how smart you are, you rich you are, or even you good you are, it's what you can imagine doing with all those "assets" and how you can positively affect the lives of others. If you learn nothing else in college, I sincerely hope that you come away with this mindset. ...but I have noticed one overarching theme among smart people: they ask questions. Wow. It sounds like you learned something in college that I didn't learn until years later. And I thought I was so smart. After all, I don’t want this person to think I’m a moron. Smart people don't care about that. The intonation of the question and the intensity with which the professor listened to the response definitively suggested that the professor’s question was genuine, and that the answer was of great importance. What a great lesson. Which reminds me that two of the smartest things you can ever do is keep learning and keep teaching. Thank you. Smart people challenge the very limit of human understanding, and push the envelope of what’s possible farther than many people would argue it’s meant to be pushed. Smart people don’t take claims at face value, and smart people don’t rest until they find an explanation they’re comfortable accepting and understanding. Therefore, you become smarter simply by claiming that you're smarter, right? (Notice this is the opposite of "I know for a fact I will never ever ever be as smart as, no matter how hard I try.".) Smart people challenge everything. Hmmm, I wonder if "challenge everything" = "see the possibilities". I think I've learned something. (You know who taught me that? A smart person.) That's great, but please don't overlook all that you can learn from people that may not seem so smart. Maybe someday, people will call me a smart person. The smartest thing you can ever do is stop caring how smart others think you are. For now, I’m going to keep asking them questions. I take back what I said before. It sounds like you've already learned more in 3 years than many learn in a lifetime. But you probably already knew that, being as smart as you are. Thanks for the great post and the chance for interesting discussion. I feel smarter already. [EDIT: Any notion that I was making fun or teasing OP was most definitely unintended. This was a great post! (Sounds like I now need a <NoSarcasm> tag.)]

zinnaglism 15y ago

I agree and I've written about this in 2012: http://lukas.zinnagl.com/2010/12/asking-questions/ http://lukas.zinnagl.com/2010/12/asking-questions/

mattmcegg 15y ago

Smart people might ask questions, but I also know a lot of dumb people that ask questions, too.

Joss451 15y ago

I've noticed the pseudo-smart are quite annoyed by questions. RTFM, they reply. That's pseudo-smart for "I don't know".

westicle 15y ago
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish for himself and he'll have fish for the rest of his life. There is a time and a place for asking questions, and if you regularly need to ask questions to which you can easily find an accurate/complete answer to without help you'll probably learn more from "learning to fish".
groby_b 15y ago
RTFM usually means: I answered that question substantially, and at length, several times already. If you had bothered to do the tiniest bit of research, you would have found those or similar answers on your own. Now, please, go away and only come back when you've at least done the homework.

csomar 15y ago

Is there a difference (or some way to differentiate) a smart person from a very skilled professional? I'm asking this question to see if a Smart Person is the byproduct of getting skilled in a different set of areas, and getting very professional and focused in one or two. I'm certainly not as smart as some fellow HNers here. But, few minutes ago, I have been reading blog posts and emails I wrote 6 years ago. "What a retard I was!"

rokhayakebe 15y ago
>I'm certainly not as smart as some fellow HNers here. I tell the following to my roommate weekly: "These guys (referring to HN) are 'wicked smart'". HN certainly makes me humble about what I think of myself. >What a retard I was No, you've grown a lot. I got back to my writings of even 1 year ago and I can see the difference.
calinet6 15y ago
> I have been reading blog posts and emails I wrote 6 years ago. "What a retard I was!" I think you should consider your life in many ways successful if you say that every year.

jcdietrich 15y ago

What did you learn about smart people?

jroseattle 15y ago

In thinking about "smart" in the abstract sense or in relation to others, I draw on the logic of Forrest Gump: smart is as smart does. (Forrest said "stupid is as stupid does", but same corollary applies.)

kmfrk 15y ago

Don't get caught writing "very unique" at Harvard. Being unique is binary. :) I don't like words like "smart" - and "stupid" - but I can recognize some of the qualities associated with them. One of the biggest is to know what you don't know, to not be complacent and arrogant. The people I respect the most are humble people, and I think it comes down to this. I don't know what the definition of "smart" is, but I think you sound like a smart person for knowing that you don't have it all figured out - and want to fill in the gaps, even though it means telling other people.

itmag 15y ago
Yeah, it's better to write "remarkable", which is an analog property.
gallamine 15y ago
> Being unique is binary What is the probability of being unique?
- mturmon 15y ago
  You can layer a probability on almost any property, and that has nothing to do with whether it is a yes-or-no proposition. A coin being heads-up is a binary property, yet it could be associated with a probability.

codeonfire 15y ago

I think you have to be careful about making blanket statements and whether you are saying that smart people ask questions or are trying to imply that people that ask questions are smart. It is in the interest of the speaker to claim that audience members who ask questions are in some way smarter. Being asked a question implies that the speaker has knowledge that the audience doesn't. So of course the speaker is going to claim those people are smart. It is also not a good thing to presume that audience members are not asking questions simply to draw attention to themselves and to impress other audience members. People with awards are more probably than not to be smart, but they needed a lot of visibility to get those awards. An important question would be to ask, "which non famous person is asking lots of questions, and is that person smart?" Since the author seems to define smart as having won awards and being well known in a field, this question fails immediately. Personally, unless it is unpublished research, I can get most of my questions answered immediately by surfing along while listening and without disrupting the talk. It's also funny when I pull up wikipedia and it either turns out to have the same content as the talk, or directly contradicts the talk.

iskander 15y ago

I would like to ban the word smart from common discourse. It looks like it describes something, but actually masks the reality of the how someone can look 'smart' in a situation.

davidf18 15y ago

IMHO much of asking questions is largely cultural. For instance, at the Passover Seder the youngest child asks (with prior coaching from their parents) the "four questions." My father is a prof at a "top university" and in my family we were always encourage to ask questions and discuss issues. My friends grew up in similar households. But I don't think these were typical households. My perception is that in some Asian cultures the children are less likely to be encouraged to question than the environment that I grew up in. Also, many women are more shy than men and perhaps less likely to ask a question that was on their mind. Regarding hiring decisions, the one thing I look for is whether people will argue with me or not. I look for the people that question and argue with passion.

saulrh 15y ago

So far I've been one of those smart people (though I'm finally finding people that are smarter than I am, and it's a great feeling), and I have my parents to thank for it. As far as I can tell, one of the big things they did was answer my questions. Without fail. Even through the entire "why?" stage, I cannot consciously remember a single instance in which my parents didn't at least provide at least a hook that I could use to keep looking on my own.

afterburner 15y ago

"After all, I don’t want this person to think I’m a moron." Kudos for him recognizing that in himself. It is the single most problematic and annoying aspect of most middle and upper managers. Fear of looking dumb feeds on itself.

jarrett 15y ago

It's not so meaningful to compare the relative intelligence of people within the upper echelons of intelligence--which is where you appear to be, along with those award-winners you mention. Which is not to disagree with any of your points. Rather, I'm just saying you don't need to worry about being less smart than all those eminent Harvard professors, because you're already in a league where such comparisons don't work. What defines this league, and how can people in it be compared? I think its boundaries have something to do with a general ability and desire to learn, and a breadth and depth of knowledge about important things in the world at large. (The knowledge criterion has to take into account age. You know less now than you will at 50, but that's obviously not a mark against you.) Amongst such people, the only meaningful comparisons are far more specific than "more smart" and "less smart" can capture. You can meaningfully talk about, say, one's ability to solve an electrical engineering dilemma, or to pleasingly arrange the samples in a hip-hop song. But not relative smartness, not in this league. This is one case where the truth is actually more comfortable than the myths we tell ourselves.

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gbhn 15y ago

Another thing I've learned about smart people is that they're basically always willing to tell you what they know. This is super-encouraging to me as someone who is nowhere near as smart as them. Another way to think about this: the smart people are happy to tell me what I need to know to succeed, so I don't have to be disadvantaged by not being as smart. I do, however, have to be humble enough to be a good listener, and have some discernment to know who to listen to.

c0riander 15y ago

Smart people ask questions because they have enough confidence that they are smart to expose their ignorance. Acting like you know everything doesn't come from a place of intelligence - it comes from a place of fear, that the other person knows more than you, that they will judge you, that a "smart person" would know what you don't know. I've forced myself to ask questions many times in meetings when I thought the answer was probably obvious to everyone else - only to discover that others had been wondering the same thing.

zeynalov 15y ago

I think it's a paradox. What does smart mean? Smart = knowing as much information as possible (or knowing how and where to get information when it's needed) + gifted with normal logic. So if smart knows best, why does he/she need to ask? If he's smart enough, doesn't it mean that he/she must be least asking one?! Edit: I remembered something. There was a man called Said Nursi in Ottoman Empire in 20th century. He is recognized as one of smartest people ever. When he was in his 20s, after graduating 4 universities he opened a bureau in Istanbul and wrote on it's door "Here will be all questions answered and no questions asked" After answering most paradoxal questions ever he was already famous in Europe. In first days of Turkish republic people invited him to parliament, and then to be the president of Turkey. He rejected and started to write his famous books. Nowadays there are 300 millions of his students calling themselves "Nurcular" in turkish.

sagantio 15y ago

How are intelligence and knowledge related? I perceive that for many people intelligence depends on how much do you know about something.

stretchwithme 15y ago

Another reason to answer every question your child asks and reward them with useful information no matter how probing the question might be. And also take care that schools reward this to, to the extent possible.

stretchwithme 15y ago

Knowledge is built from the ground up. The more knowledge (and experience) you integrate into your brain, the smarter it is. There is an innate ability to do this integration and some people do it more easily. But those who use their abilities most often and without fear build their brains faster.

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rryan 15y ago
http://web.mit.edu/sfs/financial_aid/financial_aid_background.html http://web.mit.edu/sfs/financial_aid/financial_aid_backgroun... MIT is actually pretty great with financial aid. 76% of students receive need-based aid. ALL financial aid is need-based. Merit and abilities don't even enter into the equation. 99% of students in 0-50k income bracket get a full ride. 98% of students in 50-100k bracket get mostly covered 94% of students in 100-150k get a lot of help. The average debt upon graduation is 18k.

FredBrach 15y ago

"The important thing is to not stop questionning" - Albert Einstein

MrJagil 15y ago

The one quote that has led me on to _greater smartness_ is that of (i believe) Socrates: "The only thing I know, is that I don't know anything." Remind yourself of that whenever you feel smart, and you will soon feel your mind expanding.

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omerta 15y ago

I think the author of the article is pretty inaccurate in his analysis of students at Harvard. I think the article reflects poorly on Harvard, to be honest. The author is about as smart as my shoe. Usually, the ones who continually ask questions and run their mouths in class are the ones who are extremely interested in their respective field of study. Interest creates curiosity and excitement, and both are required for someone to continually want to ask questions and learn more about whatever subject. The other students who do not continually ask questions are either shy or are just going through the motions at college, so they do not really care. If you are a student at Harvard, you probably have above-average fluid-intelligence, regardless of what you accomplish with it. The more you ask questions and the more interest you have in a subject, the more knowledge you will gain in that said subject (crystallized intelligence). But it doesn't mean people who do not continually ask questions have any less fluid intelligence.

hnmember 15y ago

smart people may or may not ask questions, that depends on the situation. professors, however, usually do ask questions; most of the time just to announce their presence and attract attention.

rlf 15y ago

(yawn)

yason 15y ago

I don't necessarily want to be around smart people but around wise people. However, there's no specific place to go. They're both all around but also in very small quantities.

mangoman 15y ago

I ask questions... if only correlation implied causation...

wisty 15y ago

I think it's a hasty generalization to say "smart people ask questions". It's more general to say "smart people get to the bottom of things, unless it's obviously an intellectual tarpit (hello postmodernists)." That's why they ask questions. Even if they hate doing it, they have to find out, at just about any cost.

drstrangevibes 15y ago

if correlation does not imply causation, then asking questions will not necessarily make you any smarter, no?

Mordor 15y ago

Unfortunately, this also means 'stupid' people accept everything they're given :-(

Craiggybear 15y ago

Sigh. Define "smart people". A lot of people I've seen described as smart are either a) actually good at making money (not necessarily legally) or b) good at manipulating people to get what they want. I describe this as cunning, rather than smart. Although they may be smart, too -- but that's quite rare in my experience. But, yes, smart people tend not take anything at face value or believe everything they are told by the media. Going to institutions like Harvard is not in itself a measure of smart, necessarily. All it usually represents is a disposable income.

Gustomaximus 15y ago
People also confuse "smart" with ability to memorise. I've had this when I read some history book and the topic comes up and you suddenly have loads of information on an obscure topic. People will say how smart you are. But IMO this has nothing to do with smart. My definition of smart is more a brains ability to ad insight to facts with thought, not just recall them by rote.

ramses 15y ago

One point the author may be missing, is that smart people do not learn to ask question. Instead, asking questions is a side-effect of being extremely curious, which is a core characteristic of smart people. Similarly, how can someone learn to ask questions without being sufficiently curious, or at least sufficiently motivated to learn about a particular subject? I guess the answer is: with a lot of work.

lurker17 15y ago

> Going to Harvard means I have the very unique opportunity to be around a lot of smart people. My high school English teacher mocked Harvard students who used term "very unique". "uniqueness" is a binary (not continuous/leveled) attribute (and "very" is a near-meaningless word).

thewisedude 15y ago

Somebody told me once, if you ask a question - you may appear to be a fool for a minute. If you dont ask the question, you are a fool for the rest of your life. Of course, this saying cant be taken too literally, but I think the idea is: to learn something new, keep your ego aside, ask questions and improve your understanding!

arvind_bhat1 15y ago

There was a similar post posted on Friday I think which spoke of the concept of 'Flow'(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)) and how to achieve. It also referenced Gladwell's 10000 hours theory. Does anyone remember what the link was? Please post it here if you do. Thanks :)

analyst74 15y ago

While I agree to the notion that asking question is important to get smarter knowledge-wise, I think we programmers tend to over-estimate the importance of intelligence in real life. For example, when you need to convince others (need high confidence in whatever you believe in), to gain trust(depends on your audience), to increase social ranking (asking lot of question is sign of being a good protege), to hide weakness (sometimes you don't want the other party to know how much you know/don't know), etc etc