If You Were Brilliant When You Were Ten...

My own experiences I consider a brilliant corrective for being really smart at the age of 10. I was always praised for my brilliance at young ages, from the neighbor man talking to me telling me "talking to you is not like talking to any other 12 year old" to the special class I was put in that required an IQ test to get in, skimmed the top 2% of the school district in to a special class in a remote school that met at different school hours to make busses available.

One great thing was to make a friend who was at least as smart as me, but way more unconventional. He applied to Caltech and to MIT (he said as his safety school) and that was it.

But the real corrective is to go to a great academic school. My freshman year at Swarthmore was the hardest academic year I had after 4th grade. Being around other smart 1%'ers is the way to go, to get a little normal or integrated. Bell Labs research area as a technician working for nobel prize winners and Caltech for graduate school planted me firmly in the middle of my peer group.

Also, read Feynman. Not his physics books necessarily but everything else. I was lucky enough to sit in the Physics Lecture every week with Feynman for a few years. He asked questions when he didn't understand things. I even got to tell him something that he admitted wasn't trivial when I was a 2nd year graduate student. (It was that photons in a waveguide have a finite rest mass, whereas it is only photons in free space that have zero rest mass and travel at the speed of light.)

If you are always the smartest guy in the room, chances are you have not worked hard enough to find the right room.

I'm another classic brilliant-at-age-ten kid. The biggest problem I experienced related to being considered smart rather young was that a lot of my sense of self-worth got tied up in being the smartest kid in the room. This is suboptimal-- not only does it lead to the not asking stupid questions issue, but it also means that as soon as I was in a situation in which I wasn't smart about something, I felt like I had no worth as a human being whatsoever. (Possible confounding variable: I had depression.)

The closest thing to a solution I've found is to try to derive my self-worth from multiple sources. I am worth something as a human being not simply because of intellectual achievements, but also because I have friends who like me, I give to charity, I refused to give up. I don't know how well this will work for other people, though.

The other big problem I encountered is that I tended to automatically give up if I wasn't immediately good at something; this is why, among other reasons, I have a roughly ninth-grade understanding of math, even though I've taken calculus. (I've read studies that suggest that that's common among children praised for traits instead of actions; I'm away from JSTOR and my psych textbooks at the moment, but if someone would like a citation then I can dig it up in a week or so.) My solution was to grade myself on process instead of achievement: I defined success not as "learning two new songs" but as "practicing guitar for half an hour every week." My other solution was to work to overcome the ugh fields around activities I'm generally not good at, and to redefine those fields within my brain as "cool stuff I haven't learned yet", not "stuff I can't do."

You can optimize for being smart, you can optimize for seeming smart, but sometimes you need to pick which one to optimize for.

It's important to note that, sometimes, seeming smart can be the right choice. If you need people to trust you in the future on a very important issue, you might want to always seem smart. It's kind of Dark Arts, though.

It may make you uncomfortable to admit to not knowing something. It may make you feel like the people around you will stop thinking you're all-knowing. But if you don't know how to ask stupid questions, and you just keep pretending to understand, you'll fall behind and eventually be outed as being really, really stupid, instead of just pretty normal. Which sounds worse?

This is mainly a social issue. You can "solve" it in your social environment by pointing out that asking questions is indeed the smart move. If you indeed are smart, the quality of your questions in the long term will be a sufficient proof of it.

P.S. Note that I'm answering ignoring the "10 years old" part: I don't think I'm sufficiently qualified to answer it, but the issue is still relevant for grown ups.

to get back to optimizing for being smart instead of for seeming smart?

I wish I could make myself follow this advice more often.

so, what tags go on this post and how would I know?

I usually look at the tag cloud in the sidebar and put in anything that looks right and appears there. I started a new tag when I did the luminosity sequence.

And it's pretty common for that to really mess you up, and then you don't end up reaching your full potential.

Is it? How do you measure the shortfall in someone's potential?

You can optimize for being smart, you can optimize for seeming smart, but sometimes you need to pick which one to optimize for.

I think there is a third option. Make yourself seem smart but especially concentrated in particular subjects and thus naive about most other topics.

There are plenty of precedents for this sort of caricature; for example, Sherlock Holmes.

There are of course costs and benefits to this. For example, if you incorporate such an idea into your identity you may avoid learning too much about topics you consider yourself to be naive about.

So, it seems like most people here are really smart. And a lot of us, I'm betting, will have been identified as smart when we were children, and gotten complimented on it a lot.

I guess I am the big exception here. I completely failed at school. I once took part in an IQ test done by the local jobs employment agency and received a score low enough that the executive didn't want to tell me exactly how I scored to not discourage me (he said much below average but I shouldn't bother and just try my best).

Just a few days ago I finished reading my first non-fiction book, at age 27 (which will hopefully be the first of hundreds to come).

Okay, here is the first stupid question: I once read that some people don't vote because they believe that they can't influence the outcome enough to outweigh the time it takes to vote (decide who to vote for etc.). Other reasons include the perceived inability to judge which candidate will be better. That line of reasoning seems to be even more relevant when it comes to existential risk charities. Not only might your impact turn out to be negligible but it seems even more difficult to judge the best charity. Are people who contribute money to existential risk charities also voting on presidential elections?

Second stupid question: There is a lot of talk about ethics on lesswrong. I still don't understand why people talk about ethics and not just about what they want. Whatever morality is or is not, shouldn't it be implied by what we want and the laws of thought?

Third stupid question: I still don't get how expected utility maximization doesn't lead to the destruction of complex values. Even if your utility-function is complex, some goals will yield more utility than others and don't hit diminishing marginal returns. Bodily sensations like happiness for example don't seem to run into diminishing returns. I don't see how you can avoid world-states where wireheading is the favored outcome. Anecdotal evidence for this outcome is the behavior of people on lesswrong with respect to saving the world, a goal that does currently outweigh most other human values due to its enormous expected utility. I don't see why this wouldn't be the case for wireheading as well, or other narrow goals like leaving the universe or hacking the matrix instead of satisfying all human values like signaling games or procrastination. If you are willing to contribute your money to an existential risk charity now, even given the low probability of its success, then why wouldn't you do the same after the singularity by contributing the computational resources you would be using until the end of the universe to the FAI so that it can figure out how to create a pocket universe or travel back in time to gain more resources to support many more human beings?

Breaking the false dichotomy here.

Asking questions does not make you seem un-smart. In fact, asking good or genuine questions makes you seem intelligent enough to recognize your known unknowns, confident enough to admit it, and implies that you understood everything else they said. (if someone says Confusing Things A, B, C, and D, and you ask an intelligent question about C, then they assume that you understand A, B, and D much more than they otherwise would)

Other benefits:

• Asking questions gives the other person the opportunity to teach you something, which will make them like you more.

• The other person may feel grateful that you asked something they also wanted the answer to.

• People like to have fun. Being good-natured about being laughed at sometimes (in a non-meanspirited way), means that people associate you with positive feelings.

That's not to say that asking questions always has these benefits. I think what's mainly important is HOW you ask a question.

Example- Someone is explaining their thesis. Normally people just nod along, and say "interesting". Instead, do your best to follow what they are talking about. Ask questions to clarify. When you think you understand, state what you think they are saying as a question: "Oh, so the genes you are putting into the bacteria will cause them to stop producing that protein, and you'll know if it works because then they'll turn blue?"

Now, not only does the person actually think that you are smart, but they also are happy because they got a chance to explain their work to someone who understood it, and they will like you more.

Adding to the ideas about asking stupid questions and mwengler's anecdote about being the smartest guy in the room (upvoted btw), I found that the thing I hated most about school was the fact that many of the teachers tended to possess numerous delusions of their own intelligence or other personality malfunctions that made learning (or bothering to go to school at all) quite painful to commit to. They tended to be things that could be solved if the perpetrator exhibitied a little bit more humility (or if the school could afford better qualified teachers, either way...)

Just as examples I had:

A pretentious art teacher that would say "Art is a talent, and thus can not be taught"

A married couple of music teachers who didn't think any child could appreciate music

An english teacher who would rant about her failed dream to be a journalist (-her only qualification to teach English)

Three foreign language teachers who each shouted at their students for being stupid (because they couldn't grasp new concepts)

A vegan Biology teacher who's lessons consisted seemingly of three cycles: "Don't smoke, don't drink, don't cook your food"

A religious ed teacher who once gave me and two of my peers books when she decided we were 'intellectually gifted'. All three books were poorly argued dissertations on the benefits of Christianity which tried to achieve its aims by villifying Judaism and Secularism in particularly unsavoury ways.

Anyway to bring it back on topic, I think that when some people experience characters like these who put them down, or try to show them up, or just distract them from the joy or learning, they begin to fear asking silly questions. And then they equate 'silly questions' with 'questions they don't know the answer to' and then they fear asking any questions at all and then never discover the answer to any of them! (or never discover the confidence to try and answer them themselves).

(I should add that the best loved and respected teachers at the school were all physics, maths and computer science teachers. Perhaps I am lucky that even though it was my linguistic skill for which I was "identified as being smart" at school, poor support in the areas that I was originally interested in (which continue to leave a lingering distaste) pushed me more towards physics, maths and computer science once I left school (something which I'm optimistic will lead to a more satisfying life than any 'romantic notions' I had might have done. Or to clarify, lest we be accused of fitting into the 'zero fun' rationalist stereotype, I have new romantic notions that revolve around the wonders of physics, maths and computer science.)

Adding to the idea of asking stupid questions and mwengler's smartest guy in the room anecdote (upvoted btw), I'd say that what I hated about school was that so many of the teachers seemed to suffer from numerous delusions of their own intelligence or other personal malfunctions that made learning (or even bothering to show up at school) a painful experience. Something that could have been solved if they'd simply practicised a bit more humility (or if the school had managed to afford better qualified teachers, either way...)

Just as examples I had: A pretentious art teacher who claimed, "Art is a talent and thus can't be taught" A married couple of music teachers who thought no child could truly appreciate music A dysfunctional English teacher who would rant about her failed stint in journalism (-her only qualification to teach English) A vegan Biology teacher who's lessons were an endless cycle of "Don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't cook your food" A French teacher a German teacher and a Spanish teacher (three seperate people) who shouted at younger children for failing to understand new concepts An religious ed teacher who once gave me and two of my peers books to read after she determined us as 'intellectually gifted'. All three books were poorly argued dissertations on the benefits of becoming a Christian which tried to achieve this by villifying Judaism and secularism in particularly unsavoury ways.

Anyway to bring this back on-topic, having characters like this that search out for ways to show up students, put them down or at least distract them from the joy of learning can really stop people from asking questions that might make them look silly later in life. And then they equate asking questions that are silly with asking questions that they don't know the answer to, and then they never find out!

(I should add that the best loved and respected teachers consisted of the physics, maths and computer science teachers. Perhaps even though I was "identified as smart" when I was a child for my linguistic ability, am lucky to have had such poor support in areas I was originally interested in (that now leave a lingering distaste) and have now been pushed into a world of physics, maths and computer science (which I feel will lead me to a much more satisfying life than any notions of romanticism I had would have done.)

In practice, tags are only useful in the narrow case where you have a sequence or other set of closely-related posts, and want to be able to provide a link to the whole sequence. People sometimes like to put in lots of tags, on the theory that this gives their post better visibility or makes things better organized somehow, but this doesn't have much of any useful effect.

For tags, I'd suggest "advice" and possibly "social". I got that answer by looking at the tag cloud on the bottom right of this page and telling you the ones that seem to fit the topic. You can also make up you own tags if you want to, but not too many and make sure they're intuitively obvious--hopefully to more than just you. Just in case you don't know this already, you can put them on by clicking the edit button and typing them into the box at the bottom of the edit post page.

As one of the top students in my class, other students are kinda surprised when I ask questions in class. I'm already following this advice, but good job bringing this up.

I tried something similar to get an understanding of basic biology but I didn't do it well, as I didn't get the responses I'd hoped for.

Fucking genes, how do they work?

So, anyone else know of any similar things to do, to get back to optimizing for being smart instead of for seeming smart?

Tentatively offered: Learn to distinguish really understanding a thing rather than just knowing enough to talk about it plausibly. I'm tentative on this one because I'm not sure how to formalize the process, but I suspect the latter is a real temptation for me.

Not tentative at all: Keep track of how you learned what's in your mind. Even if you can't remember an exact source, learn the difference between "I experienced it", "it was in fiction", "I checked it carefully", "everyone says so", "I heard it from a trustworthy source (and why did you think it was trustworthy?)", etc..

So, anyone else know of any similar things to do, to get back to optimizing for being smart instead of for seeming smart?

Arugments are usually understood to be about conflict. Agruments are attacks on beliefs, defend cherished values or otherwise have connations of anger and war. This is grossly in error. Arguments are better seen as a session of debugging. You start in with the assumption that something must be wrong somewhere in your chain and either you prove it right, you correct some small error, or your belief crashes and needs to be replaced. Not only does this metaphore impy more productive arguments, they also fit the classical understanding as all arguments suffer from a halting problem.

I remember back in elementary school, all the teachers would so "there's no such thing as a stupid question. They even had posters of that on the doors.

Ironically, most of my class (IIRC) never bothered to ask questions or clear up confusion during class. They preferred to ask peers. If they went to ask the teacher during some other time, I wouldn't know. I was a frequent go-to person for math and science; this covered my other poor grades (social studies, art) via Halo Effect and made me appear "smart".

I took to Google for Social Studies.

Somewhere between that and now (Junior year) I figured out that nobody actually remembers when someone asks a stupid question in class. Generally, anyway; every now and then there's something ridiculously funny.

My point being is that if one is truly smart, they most likely appear to be too.

There's not much Utility in only seeming smart, anyways.

My problem when I was younger was that teachers would get frustrated very quickly with me- I liked asking questions, and they would call my parents claiming I disrupted the class. I probably did, in some way, but I wanted to actually understand what was being taught, and the teachers either were not used to that, or found that they could not answer me adequately and became annoyed.

In regards to being smart, I remember many adults telling me I was very "articulate" and "smart" for a 12 year-old. I do not think that was necessarily a good thing. Unfortunately, I was not exposed to any real science nor did I have anyone explain math to me in a way that was easily accessible at the time. I would quickly give up on subjects if I did not grasp the material right away. I think part of the problem was that I liked asking questions related to the topics I was learning, but only if I understood what was being taught, like if I were to ask about other stars in the galaxy outside of the sun. However I would not ask the teacher to re-explain something to me. It felt embarrassing and awkward to not know.

Now, I usually look up the subject before I ask questions. If I do not understand something in math, I go back to my dorm room and do the odd problems (which have answers in the back of the book) and see what I am failing to do right. If I still do not understand, I email the teacher, or go to my college's resource center.

I originally thought this post was about material which was too obvious to be worth saying (I didn't downvote it, though), but it has led to some interesting discussion and was probably the inspiration for Stupid Questions Open Thread, which I hope will be an ongoing feature at LW. Upvoted.

It might help to join a group where you're not the smartest. For example, I was the smartest kid around when I was 10. Then I joined a top math school and was freaked out to find myself at the bottom of the pack. Started working hard, won some competitions, got into university and finished it with honors.