> Now I place the concrete over everything else; theory is nice when it can illuminate why the practice works. Otherwise, it’s just words.
That mirrors the trajectory of all humankind, doesn’t it? From lofty Platonic ideals to nitty gritty empiricism and experimentation.
You reference Plato, but you could easily phrase it in the other direction. "From Roman engineering to Wittgenstein blithering on about meaning."
> Because they’ve heard hours and hours from experts, they have a feeling of deep understanding. But talking to them about this topic is extremely frustrating because their knowledge clearly has never had to be applied to the real world, and is grounded in nothingness, so they misunderstand lots, but they feel like they know what they’re talking about as much as you do.
You just gave the most accurate description of HN userbase in two paragraphs.
Now I place the concrete over everything else; theory is nice when it can illuminate why the practice works. Otherwise, it’s just words.
The most frustrating is when I have friends who have derived their entire understanding of a subject I know as a practitioner (typically something tech/programming related) from watching YouTube videos/listening to podcasts.
Because they’ve heard hours and hours from experts, they have a feeling of deep understanding. But talking to them about this topic is extremely frustrating because their knowledge clearly has never had to be applied to the real world, and is grounded in nothingness, so they misunderstand lots, but they feel like they know what they’re talking about as much as you do.