Letting myself look foolish
I prefer to avoid saying things that I suspect might make me look stupid. Over the last couple of years, however, I’ve made a conscious effort to write publicly about what I’m thinking about, even if I’m afraid it might sound dumb.
Sometimes I have this feeling, like:
I have an observation about the world, about something that doesn’t seem to add up. Probably I’m missing something, and everyone but me can easily see what’s going on, and if I bring it up, then everyone will know how foolish I am for missing this obvious thing.
Sometimes I’m right, and I really was missing something obvious. But some of my most well-received writings turned out to be ones where I had this feeling, and I was ambivalent about whether it was worth saying anything.
Lately, I’m making more of an effort to overcome that feeling, and say the stupid thing anyway, because it might turn out not to be stupid.
However, it’s not as simple as “be willing to say the stupid thing, because you might turn out to be right.” Maybe my stupid-sounding thoughts are wrong, actually. But that’s fine too. If I say them out loud, one of two things will happen:
- My stupid thoughts turn out to be right, in which case I’ve said something useful.
- I’m missing something obvious and my stupid thoughts really are stupid. In that case, people will see that they’re stupid. Nobody will be swayed by my stupidity. (At least they’re less likely to be swayed by it.)
I want people to hold true beliefs and do good things. If I make a transparently stupid argument, I won’t lead anybody astray because they will all be able to see how bad my argument is. Not that I want people to see me making stupid arguments, but as long as nobody’s convinced, I haven’t done any harm. And that’s ultimately what matters. My feelings might be hurt, but at least I didn’t lead anybody astray.
Perhaps I should be concerned about the possibility that I make a stupid argument, but I accidentally convince people that I’m right. I do worry about that sometimes. I can mitigate the risk by making my arguments clear, and avoiding “debate tactics”. I should straightforwardly lay out my reasoning so that if it’s bad, people can see through it. Not that I don’t fall into debate-style rhetoric from time to time, but I try to avoid it.
My stupid thought might be something that’s obviously wrong, and everyone sees it but me. Another flavor of stupid thought is the one that’s so obviously right that it’s not even worth mentioning. But something that’s obvious to you might not be obvious to everyone. Even if an argument is readily apparent to most of your audience, they might still appreciate that someone took the time to put it in writing.
My last post was inspired by Katja Grace’s recent post, AI pause: the case for ASAP. Everything in her post was something I had already thought of. All the ideas in it seemed “obvious”. But I didn’t write the post, and she did,1 and it’s one of my favorite posts I’ve seen recently because it takes the time to point out something obvious that nobody had ever pointed out so directly before.
I did Inkhaven in part to force myself to ignore the voice in my head saying my ideas are stupid. Since then,2 I’ve committed to a goal of writing a post every week, in part to force myself to keep thinking, but also to overcome the inner critic that doesn’t want to publish my thoughts.
Even if you’re committed to saying obvious or obviously-wrong things, it’s still not easy to notice those thoughts. Case in point: The concept of “force yourself to write down your foolish ideas” has been in my head for two years now, but I never thought to write a post about it until today.
Is this post stupid? Probably a bit, yeah. But I’m publishing it anyway.