Why Technical Smart Asses are Technically Dumb Asses

I am torn on this issue. I try not to be like this, but words have meaning. And if words don't have meaning or have arbitrary meaning then we can't communicate. Some words have more specific meaning than others.<p>One thing that drives me absolutely nuts is when people (my girlfriend) use supposedly to not mean anything. My girlfriend uses it when someone else told her something. So she might say, "Supposedly, She went into town today to buy food." and that just means someone told her she went into town.To me this is an empty meaning and "supposedly" implies that maybe she didn't go into town or maybe she went into town to meet her lover and not really to buy food.

For me HE IS the technically dumb ass.<p>Wow!!, writing in his blog that his friend is a dumb ass because he wants to be right all the time!! My passive aggressive sensor just goes off scale. He NEEDS to be right because his internal insecurities so he gets angry with his friend and then ridicules his friend in his blog.<p>BTW, his friend is totally right, consistency has nothing to do with self discipline(discipline means you have to do constant effort against something), you really do not need that much effort to change something once you integrate it on a routine, he is the one that does not get it, but is in denial, because he does not want to be wrong.

Being consistent means learning new habits. You might require some self discipline initially, but as time goes along, it becomes a habit and you don't need as much discipline, especially when you start to see tangible progress. So I can see why he would be anal about it.

I believe the term he's looking for is pedantic.<p><i>pushes glasses up on nose</i>

When I find myself in a situation like this, I say "we're being pedantic, take a drink".<p>It works great. It makes us both realize we're acting stupid, and the next day neither of us is going to write a blog post about how our pedantry didn't line up with someone else's.

They both seem like they are thinking the same way to me. Both of them are wrong in some ways (self-discipline != consistency, and consistency alone was unlikely the key to the weight loss).<p>See also: <a href="http://www.despair.com/consistency.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.despair.com/consistency.html</a>

I love that this made it on Hackernews so as to prove the non-techies point! :-D<p>He is right too - when dealing with the hard sciences it's most important to BE RIGHT (it's either a 0 or 1 - and it matters), but when dealing with relationships it's much more important to BE EMPATHETIC.<p>If you aren't - you'll be seen as a contrarian/confrontational.<p>I think we need to practice "being ok with being wrong" when the relationship matters more than the subject matter. Cheers!

One common problem I see is that some people tend to turn every conversation into an adversarial situation because they focus on poking holes in whatever the other person says. A more pleasant and fruitful way to talk to people is to try to see things from their perspective -- ask questions instead of saying "no". Finding common ground and learning from other people is far more important than ironing out whatever flaws you see in their logic.

As a technical person, am I allowed to complain when non-technical people follow sloppy reasoning to faulty conclusions?

So... you got into an argument with your friend because he could have just said "whatever". Or you could have done the same thing.

It's a matter of perspective. Self discipline has a certain connotation and evokes certain emotions. For some people it may be associated with negative feelings built up over years of failure.<p>Maybe your friend realized this and decided to change the game. Thinking about it in terms of "consistency" instead of the dreaded "self-discipline" evidently worked for him, and he may be sticking to his guns in the argument because he doesn't want to fuck up the mental hack that been working so well.

@AznHisoka hit the nail on the head. It's ironic that the author missed the bigger picture of what his/her friend was trying to say when that was the point of his/her post.

Smart ass posts article about how smart asses drive him nuts...<p>...irony missed.

It's interesting to see how the OP approached the argument: telling his friend straight out that consistency and self discipline are the same thing, rather than saying that self-discipline breeds consistency.<p>Had he gone with the latter, the argument likely would not have happened. Instead, he misspoke, and then when his friend corrected him (they aren't exactly the same thing, after all), his ego got the better of him and he pushed on into a pissing match rather than clarifying his position. And then be blogged about what a dumb ass his friend is.<p>There are many lessons on relationships to be learned here, and the OP has pretty much missed all of them.

I don't talk in technical terms with people who won't understand them. I would never get in that kind of semantic debate if I were the friend who had lost weight. I would however most definitely get into a discussion like that if we were both translators, linguists, behavioral scientists or something like that.<p>Consistency means self-discipline in his case. But many 'consistent behaviors' in living and non-living agents mean something else entirely.<p>That said, this made me think of one particular type of "technical smartasses" that have pissed me in the past: Lawyers and their legalese.

Oh I get it -- you're trying to show that Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem applies to humans. Haha.<p>* All consistent axiomatic formulations of semantic arguments include self-unaware bigotry.<p>You are brilliant, sir.

"Technical smart asses often have a narrow view of the world. They only see what’s in front of them."<p>I find this to be a tremendous leap in logic from the rest of the author's narrative. Some of the most technical, rationally driven people I know are also some of the most open minded, willing to judge new concepts on their own merits rather than deferring to culture or tradition.<p>Being a stickler for semantics does not mean you're incapable of objectivity, empathy or lateral thinking.

I have a much less flattering term for that kind of person: intelligent idiot. Extremely capable to deconstruct tiny details, utterly incapable of letting the details go. This type of person seems to be attracted by the computer industry for some reason.

Or alternatively, you could just say what you mean instead and avoid the whole discussion in the first place.<p>But that would mean admitting that you were wrong...

You can watch this type of behavior in abundance on the show Big Bang Theory.

I find the title of the post misleading, technically.

Which one of these things is not like the other one?

Not to disparage anyone but actually see this technical smartass stuff in the comments on HN <i>all the time</i>. Someone makes a good point then someone else nitpicks the most irrelevant detail or pulls out the dictionary definition of the word even though the person's point is clear as day.<p>I agree with the author on a lot of this and personally feel that this sort of thing is a sign of poor social skills and an inability to see different perspectives or the bigger picture. It can get pretty exhausting.<p>It's funny that a number of comments on this story exemplify the author's point perfectly. Don't get me wrong though. Please don't take this as me complaining. I'm actually really happy with this community but you've got to admit that what the author is talking about goes on so often around here it's not even funny.<p>Most of the time focusing on the technical details will get you nowhere but missing the point, totally off track, and arguing something very much unrelated to the original topic. Case in point: see the comments on the post about SpecialForces.com getting hacked. People started missing the point and talking about the user's password strength instead of what was really at issue (the security of the admin's access methods and credentials).

Well, self discipline isn't really the same as consistency, but his point still stands.<p>To be fair though, you could completely lack self discipline and be extremely consistent when it comes to watching TV on the couch all day.

This is a nice take by Miguel De Icaza on the subject:<p><a href="http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html" rel="nofollow">http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html</a>

This comment section is a suitable demonstration of the author's point.