The problem isn't people not admitting ignorance online. The problem is that the internet might be the cause of people not admitting ignorance in real life.

As a person who basically made it through college without internet, I can tell you that I had just as much trouble admitting I was wrong when I didn't have access to the internet, perhaps more because I was younger and more hotheaded.

I've sometimes had the problem as well. Usually because my self esteem had been based heavily on believing that I'm really smart.

It sounds like you had equated being smart with knowing things.

My self esteem has also been heavily based on believing that I'm really smart, but I never had a problem admitting I didn't know something. "Smart" to me means my ability to learn, problem solve, and make connections.

One of the most significant factors in my success to date has been my almost eager willingness to admit my lack of knowledge, and to ask others to share their knowledge.

How else are you going to learn new things?

Not everyone gets there in one step. A lot of people have the problem described by the parent because they don't have these insights yet.

Don't blame yourself. Go read argument culture. Everything is positioned as a debate rather then a discussion ; take an opposing side and it's about winning not understanding. As an example If you've caught yourself ever leveraging syntax in a discussion to derail someone's ideas

I've always hated debate because of that and could never understand why it was valued. It is always about winning and never about getting to the bottom of what could be the truth.

That's a great point.

Even the very word discussion comes from late Middle English (in the sense ‘dispel, disperse’, also ‘examine by argument’): from Latin discuss- ‘dashed to pieces’, later ‘investigated’, from the verb discutere, from dis- ‘apart’ + quatere ‘shake’.

We generally don't do a very good job of talking about things in way that brings those things, or us each other, closer together.

Unfortunately, I find this to be a similar case with office/workplace politics pretty often as well.

Can you elaborate on “leveraging syntax”? Like commenting on the structure of their argument?

I think the author is talking about making bad-faith but very defensible interpretations. You can accomplish that by purposely taking hyperbole too literally, or by intentionally overlooking that a statement was meant as a metaphor. (Just a couple of examples.)

Very often, English-language experts can appear to defeat subject-matter experts in debates. When this happens it's usually because of footwork on the "language layer."

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense.

You reminded me of this comment (www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/19qonw/any_advice_on_how_to_get_remotivated_for_studying/c8qia6b) on reddit. I wish I'd have read that sooner.

After relating an anecdote, that comment mentions Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck "In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.[3] This is important because (1) individuals with a "growth" theory are more likely to continue working hard despite setbacks and (2) individuals' theories of intelligence can be affected by subtle environmental cues. For example, children given praise such as "good job, you're very smart" are much more likely to develop a fixed mindset, whereas if given compliments like "good job, you worked very hard" they are likely to develop a growth mindset. In other words, it is possible to encourage students, for example, to persist despite failure by encouraging them to think about learning in a certain way."

> the internet might be the cause of people not admitting ignorance in real life.

I remember the good old days, before the internet, when people would always admit their ignorance in real life and the Dunning–Kruger effect didn't exist.

It is absurd how people actually do this all the time in Amazon product questions. Will it work with my Samsung phone? "I don't know." Does it come with batteries? "I think it did."

I'm guessing that's because Amazon sends out emails explicitly asking people to answer questions on their past purchases. And for some reason, this makes some subset of people feel obligated to reply even though it makes no sense.

I think you're right. That sounds exactly like something amazon would do and how people would respond. I must have turned those emails off, which makes seeing the answers utterly stupefying.

To give customers the benefit of the doubt: Some may know exactly what's going on, and enjoy making Amazon look stupid by posting those replies.

That reply doesn’t suit your handle at all ;)

Amazon sent me questions about a product I gave a one star review to. I really should have sent it back.

Their system isn’t too bright.

It's because Amazon emails everyone (who bought that product) every time someone asks a question. The subject is "John Doe: Can you answer this question about ...". I've had this email a few times. Some people (I'm guessing old/non-tech savvy) assume someone has asked them directly, and so feel the need to reply.

That makes sense. The answers I refer to read just like a slightly annoyed text message reply to a family member who should know better than to ask.

My personal favourite is "I bought this three years ago and don't have it anymore. I don't remember."

I always find it sort of charming and refreshing when people respond as if it was a face-to-face conversation

Of course one shouldn't jump into a thread to say "I don't know", but if someone receives a response to a statement they made in a thread that points out a fact or point of view they hadn't considered, they should be willing to admit that they didn't know that, they were wrong, or that they realize they need to think more deeply about the topic.

Well, I too jump into threads where I think I know some part of what's being discussed.

But I'll often bookend a comment like that with points about what I don't know. And here, there are points I think someone might know - frame those as questions. But also there are point I doubt either myself or the person I'm replying to knows, frame those as problems of knowledge, statistics and so-forth.

Obviously, I think I know a general framework, that our beliefs are areas of semi-certainty bordered by heuristics, myth, ignorance and lack of awareness. But this is a belief that will often about what I or we, don't know.

I agree that there is no value of saying "I don't know" in general. But sometime people would say "I don't know" as an emphasis on his "understanding" that there are something deeper than the current common understanding, and that is reasonable.

I doubt gp is encouraging people to jump into threads to say they don't know something. I imagine the insight is that online communication lends itself too well to an unfavorable s/n, one that militates against reasoned discussion.

There should be more eagerness to identify when problems and issues are more difficult and less well understood, as well as the nature of this difficulty/complexity -- even in online discussions. That is a valuable contribution.

Excluding reddit