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Comment by gregwebs | Hacker News Reader

I use the advice of PG (which he observed from RTM) http://paulgraham.com/heroes.html

    Don't say anything unless you're fairly sure of it. If you're not omniscient, you just don't end up saying much.

    ... the trick is to pay careful attention to how you qualify what you say.

Start qualifying everything. Eventually you will stop commenting on subjects you don't know about when your qualification becomes: "well, I don't really know anything about this, but..."

The other aspect of this is to dig deeper into subjects. People think they know something about a topic because they read a couple of blog posts. Dig deeper- look at primary sources. Look at citations. If there aren't citations the statement is suspect, and you will qualify the knowledge as suspect when it comes into your brain, increasing your chances of qualifying when it comes out of your mouth.

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> Start qualifying everything.

For some reason I find it annoying when people do that. For example I often hear something like ("I don't know but, the library you are using is bloated compared to library X").

I frequently catch myself saying "I don't know" in front of assertions I make. This is an issue when talking to a less knowledgeable person, because the "I don't know" puts the more knowledgeable person at an immediate disadvantage, and lets the person with less knowledge have more of a say in how things should be run.

I find better just to confidently state something, and get called out for inaccuracies (it's certainly more memorable). Also think about what you said at the end of the day. It's better to recognize and admit inaccuracies than to hang onto your pride (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...).

> I find better just to confidently state something, and get called out for inaccuracies (it's certainly more memorable).

Of course this is dangerous when talking to people who know less than you about something, since they may not have the ability to call you out.

To that, if you do see something wrong with something you said in the past, it is morally imperative that you correct the mistake.

Try turning the statements into genuine questions. For example: "I don't know but, the library you are using is bloated compared to library X". That could be turned into "Isn't library X much smaller than the library you're using? Do you need that big of a library?" Or even "I thought the library you're using is considered bloated compared to library X." It's a gentle way to get the other person to explain themselves.

Those are good ways of bringing up the point.

"I don't know..." is not a real qualification. Qualifying things also means working at doing proper qualifications. "I read a comparison of library X and Y a while ago that stated (qualification) library X is bloated to library Y, so we should investigate that before making a decision as too which one to use"

It is a great point that people don't qualify because it makes them sound less confident, and people that sound more confident end up being more convincing to most people. So there is a cultural problem there (hopefully confidence does not sway a scientific group).

Cultural problems are tough- to maintain your stance you have to try to change the culture (sometimes impossible) or move to a different culture. But you can change the culture a little by asking "where did you read that?", or "so you have used/did that yourself?". Obviously you have to do this in a way that doesn't annoy.

You have to work at finding the middle road between qualifying and giving an impression of relative confidence.

Let me qualify this by saying these are just what comes to my mind on this issue. I would very much appreciate the pragmatic advice of others on this concept.

> So there is a cultural problem there (hopefully confidence does not sway a scientific group)

Isn't this the norm though? Given all things equal, it's been my experience that people who make quick and strong judgement tend to have more control over a social situation.

Of course somebody who is wrong often will have less reputation. However, being wrong is not always bad, especially if it leads to further thought and exploration to find the truth and the person is willing to change one proven wrong.

> It is a great point that people don't qualify because it makes them sound less confident, and people that sound more confident end up being more convincing to most people.

Your qualification about reading the comparison instill confidence on the rest of the statement. Maybe it's the self-deprecating qualifications that should be avoided...

> You have to work at finding the middle road between qualifying and giving an impression of relative confidence.

True.

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Some meta thoughts. I would have to expend lots of energy and time to be able to properly qualify some of my statements. I find the time/accuracy trade-off to skew toward time, here, with the hopes that a well educated and astute crowd (such as HN commenters), can point any flaws or provide validation to my statements.

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