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Comment by arp242 | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't connect with that video or my commentary about it in the slightest.

If I did something wrong with a flofof in public, and people comment and ask my about my wrong usage of a flofof for years, and I respond with "bitch, I don't know what a flofof is, and I don't want to know, looollll, keepin' it real bro!" then I'd be a right idiot – not for doing something wrong with a flofof, or not immediately knowing what a flofof is, but for not WANTING to know and making a show out of not knowing.

This is performative idiocy.

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>"bitch, I don't know what a flofof is, and I don't want to know, looollll, keepin' it real bro!"

It seems like you're getting some kind of racial McGurk effect here? Kelly Rowland does not talk anything like this in the linked video. Here is what she actually says:

"Here's the sitch. I don't know what that is. I don't know what Microsoft Excel is. I don't know. I don't have a clue. So when I saw all these memes, I was like 'I don't care'."

Apart from 'sitch' and 'like' (which are both very common usages in informal conversation) this is all fully standard American English. You're getting worked up about someone saying that (i) they don't know what Microsoft Excel is and (ii) that they don't care about some memes. The "performative idiocy" exists only in your imagination.

The irony is that you're doing your own version of performative idiocy in your attempt to (I guess?) imitate Black American English.

Well this is HN, where every white dude with green hair behind a keyboard who has a shiny tech job thinks that the entire world should know all the things they know, regardless of profession, background, or interest.

It implies that directly. I work in cloud consulting. I have my specialties and I know a little about the other areas.

Heck, I just did a CI/CD proof of concept where the company was using Java Docker containers. I don’t know Java at all and haven’t done anything in Java in two decades (I’m a .Net, Python, JavaScript guy)

I used ChatGPT to help me create a simple Java Spring Boot app in a Docker container with JUnit tests. I freely admitted I don’t know Java and that I used ChatGPT to do Java parts. That’s not what I was brought in for just like she wasn’t brought in to do Excel.

ChatGPT propped me up just like her producers propped her up and brought her in to do a role.

If I found out that my little dummy POC HelloWorld Java/Springboot Docker container “did something wrong”, do you think I would give two fucks? Do you think I would care enough to learn Java? My job to be done was not to write a Java app, it was to teach them how to implement a CI/CD process to deliver their apps to production.

Your comment is still totally irrelevant what others are talking about. It’s fine to admit that you don’t know about something no matter its relevance. It’s not fine to be proud of it no matter its relevance to anybody.

I am proud to admit that I don’t know astrophysics, how to do brain surgery, fly a plain, do a slam dunk from the three point line, and many other things.

If the pilot on Delta had a heart attack and the flight attendant ask me to fly the plane, I would say “here’s the ‘sitch, I don’t know anything about flying a plane”

I have no idea why geeks are getting their panties all twisted because a famous singer doesn’t know Excel.

Nobody cares here that she doesn’t know, or what you doesn’t know, or even what you know.

We care about that you and Kelly preach ignorance, which is proven to be damaging to you or for the society at large.

Btw, for your Delta example: you don’t need to be proud of your lack of knowledge to admit that you don’t know anything. In your example, there is no sign of proudness.

Is there absolutely nothing in the cornucopia of human knowledge that you don’t know or have no desire to learn? What was she suppose to do go out and take an extension course on Microsoft Office?

If she asked you to be one of her backup dancers would you expect people to tsk tsk on their high horse if you laughed and said “I can’t dance. I have no desire to learn how to dance and I have two left feet”?

What’s the difference?

and while you say that’s a crazy example and dismiss it like you do the others, I actually was a part time fitness instructor about a decade ago and I did learn some about choreography, staying on beat to music, creating choreography that changed with the 32 count phrase of music, how to mix my own 32 count music with what is now Adobe Audition, etc and I had plenty of geeks come to my classes bragging about their ignorance when it came to having rythym.

Is that the same in your eyes - being proud of their ignorance?

The difference is that Microsoft Excel is more important than dancing, and we won’t stop until all of humanity is subjugated to the wonders of Excel 24/7! /s

> Is there absolutely nothing in the cornucopia of human knowledge that you don’t know or have no desire to learn?

Totally irrelevant to the topic what I desire.

> What was she suppose to do go out and take an extension course on Microsoft Office?

No. She could just simply admit that she didn’t and doesn’t know what is Excel. She didn’t just do that. She was cocky about it.

> If she asked you to be one of her backup dancers would you expect people to tsk tsk on their high horse if you laughed and said “I can’t dance. I have no desire to learn how to dance and I have two left feet”?

Yeah, because this is cocky. You can say the same thing without being asshole.

> Is that the same in your eyes - being proud of their ignorance?

Yes, if they really bragged about it. You can convey the same information without bragging and being cocky.

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