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Comment by Quarrelsome | Hacker News Reader

Earnest is my favourite word for describing that beautiful part during a child's development where they haven't yet had a negative experience from expressing themselves earnestly. That window of time where if you ask if they know something they would proudly reply "no!" because they have no idea that there might be shame in not knowing something.

I seek to try to make myself more earnest and undo the damage of fear of retribution/shame but I'm always a bit sad when I get in trouble because I was straight forward but adult politics is sadly complex sometimes.

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I think you have too much optimism regarding the value of people's earnest expressions. Children are children and so their earnestness is cute and endearing (in most instances)--adults are far less charming and far more petty, self-indulgent, spineless, fickle, fearful.

Social media is a cesspool largely due to all this earnestness. Fear of retribution and shame is helpful in mitigating the self-absorption embedded in most people. We'd all like to think there's something special in all of us and that the world will benefit from the light of our creativity if it was set free. Truth be told, very few people are capable of much past mimicking and repeating what already exists.

People should appreciate the template of conformity that allows them to find a place in the world and not let advertising, that often leverages the idea of uniqueness to sell things, diminish the value of their mediocrity. No, given the proper "freedom" to be "earnest" you wouldn't be the next Picasso or Steve Jobs. We know because if that's who you were, that's who you'd be. Some people seem to find success in art and innovation operating in the same repressive environment, so maybe the environment is not the problem. Maybe earnestness just isn't your thing and fear/conformity is the better strategy.

*grammar edits

No, given the proper "freedom" to be "earnest" you wouldn't be the next Picasso or Steve Jobs. We know because if that's who you were, that's who you'd be.

This statement cannot be allowed to stand uncontested. It suggests that everyone is exactly where they ought to be, that all bullying and harassment and isolation that keeps people from reaching their potential is right and just.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear

The only thing I'm suggesting is that freedom doesn't spare you from mediocrity.

Real oppression, an experience the US professional middle class is largely spared of, the type experienced by the citizens of Venezuela or the people currently being held in Xinjiang re-education camps, is truly insurmountable and requires large macro shifts to institute change. To suggest individual bullying, harassment and isolation are counted as so insurmountable to a person's theoretical "potential" that the environment must change first to prompt it, is an illustration of the deep self-absorption very few people have the privilege to experience.

Nothing is right or just in this context.

I thought it was about becoming the next Steve Jobs, as in billionaire founder. They tend to grow up with great privilege. Evidently there are great obstacles for the middle class, such as favoritism for the already affluent. As in any country, it has little to with actual capability.

Surely Venezuela could have less social mobility, but it isn't actually that great in the west.

> Some people seem to find success in art and innovation operating in the same repressive environment, so maybe the environment is not the problem.

The environment is still a problem, it's just that these people found a way to work past it (through great privilege or uncontested personality)

I find it funny you chose Steve Jobs, a renowned narcissist in what could reasonably be called an argument warning against embracing narcissism.

It isn't so much that people are incapable of doing anything but mimicking what already exists, as most people only notice and appreciate things that conform to what they already know. There's a large amount of art and music just waiting for blessing to get super popular, not because it's good, but because people need to be told what "good" is.

> We'd all like to think there's something special in all of us and that the world will benefit from the light of our creativity if it was set free. Truth be told, very few people are capable of much past mimicking and repeating what already exists. ...

> No, given the proper "freedom" to be "earnest" you wouldn't be the next Picasso or Steve Jobs.

There's a premise here that unless you are Picasso or Steve Jobs, you have nothing to contribute - and that if you aren't changing the world in a significant way, you are mediocre. People change themselves, their families, their communities, their friends and neighbors lives - most of what we get from the world is in those micro, personal interactions. Friends have done infinitely more for me than Jobs or Picasso.

There's also an assumption that "very few people are capable of much past mimicking and repeating what already exists", which doesn't at all match my experience of people.

I find that almost everyone has much to offer, but you need to give them space and confidence to be earnest. You need to listen, and each one has so much to tell - perspectives that open up new worlds. If your attitude is the one you describe, it's self-fulfilling.

So this should be good news to you. Why is it important to you to advocate for bad news?

> People should appreciate the template of conformity that allows them to find a place in the world and not let advertising, that often leverages the idea of uniqueness to sell things, diminish the value of their mediocrity.

Being mediocre is such a scary prospect given the requirement of differentiation for professional and personal attainment, that people seem to ignore its existence entirely. Any minor differentiator is magnified to represent a "uniqueness" which frees the person from the burden of the mediocre. I agree, everyone has something to contribute and the large swaths of mediocre people drive our civilization forward--but why can't they just be mediocre? Why is it bad news?

Twain wrote of this:

   I was glad to be able to answer promptly. "I don't know!" I said.

> I seek to try to make myself more earnest and undo the damage of fear of retribution/shame but I'm always a bit sad when I get in trouble because I was straight forward but adult politics is sadly complex sometimes.

You might enjoy reading these two posts and discussions:

"The power of ignorance" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23041281

"Asking questions" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22729028

I've also written about this effect, called Lampshading: https://www.swyx.io/lampshading/ asking the "stupid question" is a strength when done in taste.

One of the most powerful things you can do as a senior engineer for juniors is to show by example that it's OK to ask questions and to not know all the answers. Especially if you can see that someone else isn't sure but dares not ask that question.

Thanks for introducing me to that term! Right up there with 'bikeshedding' as my top new word this year.

I lampshade frequently. My typical use-case: senior dev says something I think is mistaken, but nobody else questions it. How do I know whether they're just humoring him, or if they are all mentally translating between what he said & what he meant? (Btw, people do this translation often -- nobody wants to be a pedant.) Lampshading is a great way of getting people to "pop the 'why' stack" as well. https://mikebroberts.com/2003/07/29/popping-the-why-stack/

Once in my 20s I hung out with some young teenagers at a summer camp for reasons. One night we were talking and one girl started asking questions and the rest of the group sneered at her "not knowing". She ignored them and kept asking because I was earnest and knowledgeable. Five minutes turned to an hour and I think everyone in that group learned (or at least heard) more about the origins of the universe, stellar evolution, evolution, chemistry, physics, etc, than they had learned in school up to that point.

I sometimes wonder what happened to those people. I suspect the girl who asked questions ended up way more knowledgeable than the other 10 combined.

> Earnest is my favourite word for describing that beautiful part during a child's development where they haven't yet had a negative experience from expressing themselves earnestly. ... but adult politics is sadly complex sometimes.

And we’re narrowing that window by exposing children to social politics earlier on through likes and upvotes and whatnot.

Preschoolers have traditionally been well aware of social politics, carefully choosing what aspects of their home life to reveal to their peers.

This is a different definition of "earnest" from the one pg is using in the article, although there probably is a relationship between them: children at the age you describe are interested in things for the sake of the things themselves and not for what the child can get out of them, and "expressing yourself" is one of those things they're interested in for the sake of the thing itself. It's much easier for young children to be like this because all of the stuff that older people think about that basically boils down to "how is this going to affect what other people think of me?" isn't even visible to the children, so it doesn't clutter up their mental processes.

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