Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc
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I think the perception of what is easy and what is hard and the contrast against what is (subjectively) easy or hard is pretty interesting.
For me I usually think it's strange when people say computers or most tech gadgets are hard because in my mind, they just do what you tell them to and you can usually just google what's up but to many people computers are still spooky magic boxes.
I also personally find arithmetic, algebra and geometry to be easy but once you get to calculus my intuitive understanding just fails me and it can take severe effort to untangle how things work and what an expression means.
One of the things I dabble in is fighting games, just looking at them it can be easy to think they're easy. After all you just move around in a 2D plane and activate one move at a time, combos are only pressing the correct buttons in the correct tempo, no different from playing the piano. If you've ever tried to get decent at one, you'll quickly learn you have to make split second decisions that require high manual dexterity and top players are the ones willing and able to spend hours and hours each and every day to achieve perfection.
If you're looking at a boat or plane captain while they're cruising, you can trick yourself into thinking they have an easy job, all they have to do is let the auto-pilot steer the craft and chill. What you don't see is all the training they have for all the situations where something goes wrong.
Something easy to overlook is also the difference between mastering a specific skill like say being able to dunk a basketball and the kind of mastery you need to get paid dunking basketballs which requires mastering all the skills involved in a basketball game like dribbling, passing, game sense etc.
Being able to do something very specific better then a professional is not necessarily hard, something I keep seeing referenced lately is Gordon Ramseys Grilled Cheese Sandwich. Does being able to make a better sandwich then that make you a Michelin star chef? Obviously not, it just makes you someone able to make a decent sandwich, being a head chef is a complete skillset that does not as a rule involve cooking sandwiches over open flame.
It's easy I think to underestimate what something involves but to me learning the basics of various crafts makes me appreciate their depths. For instance earlier this year I spent something like a week trying to figure out how to move a character model in Blender (animation software) and it made me all the more appreciate the work of animators and modelers.
What is obvious to you may not be obvious to me and vice versa.
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@groth said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
It's easy I think to underestimate what something involves but to me learning the basics of various crafts makes me appreciate their depths.
You'll forgive me if I choke on the irony if this is a genuine statement.
That said, I concur. I try not to judge how easy or hard something is based on my own ease or difficulty. I've learned to listen to others about their thoughts on a topic. I do not think, for instance, that I will ever fully understand how to code, but I do enjoy reading the topics in this forum about it.
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@ganymede said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
You'll forgive me if I choke on the irony if this is a genuine statement.
What my opinion is and what people think my opinion is can often be wildly divergent because of my bad habit of focusing on very specific things and the specificity getting lost in translation. I need to learn to stop doing it because I practically never actually encounter anyone who cares about or thinks about it in the way I do.
That said, I concur. I try not to judge how easy or hard something is based on my own ease or difficulty. I've learned to listen to others about their thoughts on a topic. I do not think, for instance, that I will ever fully understand how to code, but I do enjoy reading the topics in this forum about it.
I think the mistake people do with coding specifically is that they think of 'coding' as if it's this one thing, like riding a bicycle or something along those lines.
Coding is more like cooking, baking or chemistry in that what you're trying to do is tell a computer system to do something by giving it instructions, however there's countless ways to give those instructions to achieve countless different things.
If you ever wrote down a recipe, you know how to 'code' in its most basic sense and if you want you can call yourself a coder just like someone making a muffin can call themselves a baker if they like.
However if you want to make something more complicated, it'll take proportionally more time and effort to figure out what ingredients you need, how to put them together into a coherent whole etc and with an enterprise project you might have 100+ bakers who all might have different ideas about the One True Way of baking.
So ultimately 'understanding code' is more of a spectrum of knowledge where ultimate mastery is impossible and you always have to continually learn new things.
The main thing I get the impression people with no understanding of coding get wrong is that they think of it as some kind of magic where code just makes things happen and they expect unrealistic results. Code is just a long list of instructions executed in order.
What is obvious to you may not be obvious to me and vice versa.
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@groth said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
So ultimately 'understanding code' is more of a spectrum of knowledge where ultimate mastery is impossible and you always have to continually learn new things.
I love cooking and baking and, based on your analogy, I have lost my will to try to learn to code.
Fucking mixers and ovens, fuckers.
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@groth One of the videos I really love to watch is the "how stuff is made" kind.
It makes me feel... humble. In my chosen industry we get a bit cocky about just how damn smart everyone is; we architect, design, implement, troubleshoot and maintain these ever-evolving pieces of infrastructure, then do the same for the applications we run on them. We're so smart!
Then I see how something like... those hard tips are put on shoelaces, or how bottlecaps go on bottles are actually made. Or how carpenters put tables together without using a single nail.
The world is full of really smart, capable people. It's awe inspiring.
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@arkandel said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
@groth One of the videos I really love to watch is the "how stuff is made" kind.
"How stuff is made" videos are fascinating, it's astonishing how much work goes into the things we can then buy for just a few cents. Often when I see some of those specialized machines I end up thinking 'How did they even think of doing that?'.
On the subject of Dunning-Kruger I think it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you understand something if you're not challenged to it. One thing that happened to me recently was that I had watched a video on induced current from a moving magnetic field and I thought I had a grasp on how it worked, however after getting into a discussion with a physicist, I quickly realized that no, I don't actually understand it at all.
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@groth said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
On the subject of Dunning-Kruger I think it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you understand something if you're not challenged to it. One thing that happened to me recently was that I had watched a video on induced current from a moving magnetic field and I thought I had a grasp on how it worked, however after getting into a discussion with a physicist, I quickly realized that no, I don't actually understand it at all.
One of the things I've found most helpful in avoiding DKing myself is practicing a discipline of assuming I'm wrong in most* conversations in which someone disagrees with me. It doesn't mean that's where I finish, it's just where I start. If I start from "I'm wrong" then my learn all the things mechanism takes over and I'm likelier to treat someone more like a generous teacher/sharer of knowledge than "that asshole that disagrees with me."
If I can't resolve what I learn from them with stuff I've previously learned - because I'm not in school anymore, it isn't anybody's job to teach me - I'll usually ask for a recommendation for further reading. And sometimes it turns out I was wrong, and I learn something. Sometimes it turns out I was right, and I still learn something.
* Obvious or not so obvious, I don't do this in conversations about my own personal experience, because I take as a given that I am the authority on that.
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I’m my profession, DK is not as much of an issue as impostor syndrome. Your positions are challenged constantly and exhaustively.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
I’m my profession, DK is not as much of an issue as impostor syndrome. Your positions are challenged constantly and exhaustively.
Omg I just listened to a whole podcast on this today!
Legal Speak - How to Kick Imposter Syndrome Out of the Legal Profession
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@ganymede I didn’t suspect you of struggling with it.
Hence replying to Groth. -
Assuming you are wrong is a good strategy I have seen many people use successfully. In most internet discussions I will be wrong even in areas I have studied, either because I remember something wrong, made a misinterpretation or missed a key piece of context.
In terms of impostor syndrome, I have never felt that kind of self doubt. I have always felt entirely comfortable with knowing what I know and not knowing what I don't know so things like tests and examinations have never been a source of stress for me. In most activities I have ever pursued I consider myself mediocre, I have always considered anything I can do something anyone could do if they ever tried.
What is obvious to you may not be obvious to me and vice versa.
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@derp said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
@ganymede said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
I’m my profession, DK is not as much of an issue as impostor syndrome. Your positions are challenged constantly and exhaustively.
Omg I just listened to a whole podcast on this today!
Legal Speak - How to Kick Imposter Syndrome Out of the Legal Profession
Definitely need that in the education and 'helping professional' spheres too.
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@thhppbbbt said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
I didn’t suspect you of struggling with it.
Hence replying to Groth.I understand that. I was simply adding to it.
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@groth said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
Assuming you are wrong is a good strategy I have seen many people use successfully.
I disagree... to a point. Assuming that you can be wrong is important. Generally assuming that anything you know/say/think/feel/believe is wrong can destroy your self-confidence. Be open to the potential to being corrected, and check up on what you think is true before you say it to a large room of people, but try to avoid constant self-doubt when you're able.
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I have found that there are plenty of DK poster children in the profession. Imposter syndrome only affects people willing to consider that they might be wrong.
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@tinuviel said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
I disagree... to a point. Assuming that you can be wrong is important. Generally assuming that anything you know/say/think/feel/believe is wrong can destroy your self-confidence. Be open to the potential to being corrected, and check up on what you think is true before you say it to a large room of people, but try to avoid constant self-doubt when you're able.
The way I see it used is not so much as a means to throw yourself into a cascade of self-doubt but rather as a way to frame a conversation in a way that makes it more likely to get a constructive response.
For instance instead of asserting that X is the case. You can frame it something along the lines of "My interpretation of this is X, please let me know what you think."
That way there's less of an implication your interpretation is inherently better then theirs.
What is obvious to you may not be obvious to me and vice versa.
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@rinel said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
I have found that there are plenty of DK poster children in the profession. Imposter syndrome only affects people willing to consider that they might be wrong.
This is true. Very true.
Okay, so among good and reputable lawyers you can trust, imposter syndrome is more common.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
imposter syndrome
Also, alcoholism.
If you stalk your attorney after work and they look stressed as hell with a drink in their hand?
Those are probably the good ones.
Yay!
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@derp said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
If you stalk your attorney after work and they look stressed as hell with a drink in their hand?
Those are probably the good ones.
Amusingly, this is how I picked up my weekend job. I was just standing around drinking, waiting for my turn in karaoke, when I started to clean up tables and helping the bar staff. Now I'm the bar-back / door-person.
Huh.
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@groth said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc.:
The way I see it used is not so much as a means to throw yourself into a cascade of self-doubt but rather as a way to frame a conversation in a way that makes it more likely to get a constructive response.
Aye, that's the ideal.
But when we're talking about imposter syndrome and related mental conditions (anxiety, executive dysfunction, etc.), you need to be far more explicit with what you mean when you speak on the subject - especially when online (Mullangi & Jagsi, 2019).
@groth said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:
For instance instead of asserting that X is the case. You can frame it something along the lines of "My interpretation of this is X, please let me know what you think."
This runs the risk of having one's self being misunderstood as cowardly, or plagued with indecision. When one has a fact at one's disposal and has researched it properly, confidence in delivery is as much a part of overcoming imposter syndrome as actually knowing the fact (Wilkinson, 2020).
References
Mullangi, S., & Jagsi, R. (2019). Imposter Syndrome. JAMA, 322(5), 403. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2019.9788Wilkinson, C. (2020). Imposter syndrome and the accidental academic: An autoethnographic account. International Journal for Academic Development, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144x.2020.1762087
