Aside from computer programming and related technical skills, if I had to name a small set of general life skills that I have found the most useful, I think it would be the ability to say:
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know how long it will take me to do that.” (a special case, but a very important one)
“That’s none of my business.”
I have found these are indeed skills, but I’m not sure off the top of my head how to articulate methods for picking them up.
I quite often find myself wishing others had the opposite and in my opinion more valuable skill of being able to give me their best guess rather than retreat into “I don’t know” or some other similar statement—I actually spent a good chunk of last Sunday trying to coax someone into making guesses and there are few things more infuriating then someone who won’t give you a number because “they don’t know” when you know damn well they have a lot more information than you do, and they’re often doing it (as Eliezer said) for political reasons—they don’t want to be wrong.
That’s not to say that knowing when to say “I don’t know” isn’t useful, it is, and if you never use it when you do in fact know quite a bit more than the person you’re speaking to my guess is that either you’re managing to keep far more rational company than I can or you’re getting in a lot more trouble than it’s worth getting into.
Aside from computer programming and related technical skills, if I had to name a small set of general life skills that I have found the most useful, I think it would be the ability to say:
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know how long it will take me to do that.” (a special case, but a very important one)
“That’s none of my business.”
I have found these are indeed skills, but I’m not sure off the top of my head how to articulate methods for picking them up.
Do you use those even when you do know?
Of course not—the trick is to resist the temptation to make up guesses when one does not in fact know the answer.
I quite often find myself wishing others had the opposite and in my opinion more valuable skill of being able to give me their best guess rather than retreat into “I don’t know” or some other similar statement—I actually spent a good chunk of last Sunday trying to coax someone into making guesses and there are few things more infuriating then someone who won’t give you a number because “they don’t know” when you know damn well they have a lot more information than you do, and they’re often doing it (as Eliezer said) for political reasons—they don’t want to be wrong.
That’s not to say that knowing when to say “I don’t know” isn’t useful, it is, and if you never use it when you do in fact know quite a bit more than the person you’re speaking to my guess is that either you’re managing to keep far more rational company than I can or you’re getting in a lot more trouble than it’s worth getting into.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gs/i_dont_know/
Yes, you may correctly deduce that I here disagree with Eliezer :-)