Thursday, January 20, 2005
Does confidence come easier with ignorance?
Ever been in a position where you overhear people talking, and in the conversation one person is confidently explaining something to the other person, but the person doing the explaining is wrong?
I remember an incident from junior high. This one kid was telling his friends how garbage men made over $20 an hour. This really impressed his friends. One of the friends expressed disbelief and said that there was no way a garbage man could make that much.
The first guy then explained that garbage men only made that much per hour because they worked just one day a week. You could see the brains of these kids working, simultaneously, with their mouths half open, they let out a long “Oh”.
I wanted to say something. “Yes, the most efficient way to collect garbage is to do it on Tuesdays. Garbage can’t be collected any other day of the week. They employ five times more people than they need just so all the garbage can be collected on Tuesdays. No other day, just Tuesdays.” Of course I didn’t say anything, but I always wondered how that kid felt when he eventually realized the truth about garbage collection.
Just today I was studying with a friend and there was an Indian couple sitting across from us. From their accents it seemed that they hadn’t been in the US very long. The guy bought two pieces of cake. One piece was chocolate cheesecake and the other was carrot cake. The girl asked the guy whether the carrot cake was cheesecake or just cake. The guy confidently replied that it was “Carrot cheesecake”. The girl said “Oh really, where is the cheese?” The guy pointed to the icing with his fork and said “That is the cheese.”
Now, I know that icing used for carrot cake does contain some cream cheese but that doesn’t make the icing cheese and it doesn’t make the cake cheesecake. I have some doubts about whether or not he even knew there was cream cheese in the icing.
It’s not that he didn’t know whether it was cheesecake or not that bothered me, it was the fact that he was so confident. It seemed to me that he was just making stuff up to answer the girl. He could have just said “I don’t know.” Wouldn't that be easier?
I remember an incident from junior high. This one kid was telling his friends how garbage men made over $20 an hour. This really impressed his friends. One of the friends expressed disbelief and said that there was no way a garbage man could make that much.
The first guy then explained that garbage men only made that much per hour because they worked just one day a week. You could see the brains of these kids working, simultaneously, with their mouths half open, they let out a long “Oh”.
I wanted to say something. “Yes, the most efficient way to collect garbage is to do it on Tuesdays. Garbage can’t be collected any other day of the week. They employ five times more people than they need just so all the garbage can be collected on Tuesdays. No other day, just Tuesdays.” Of course I didn’t say anything, but I always wondered how that kid felt when he eventually realized the truth about garbage collection.
Just today I was studying with a friend and there was an Indian couple sitting across from us. From their accents it seemed that they hadn’t been in the US very long. The guy bought two pieces of cake. One piece was chocolate cheesecake and the other was carrot cake. The girl asked the guy whether the carrot cake was cheesecake or just cake. The guy confidently replied that it was “Carrot cheesecake”. The girl said “Oh really, where is the cheese?” The guy pointed to the icing with his fork and said “That is the cheese.”
Now, I know that icing used for carrot cake does contain some cream cheese but that doesn’t make the icing cheese and it doesn’t make the cake cheesecake. I have some doubts about whether or not he even knew there was cream cheese in the icing.
It’s not that he didn’t know whether it was cheesecake or not that bothered me, it was the fact that he was so confident. It seemed to me that he was just making stuff up to answer the girl. He could have just said “I don’t know.” Wouldn't that be easier?
Comments:
By , at
1/20/2005 7:44 PM
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1/21/2005 5:09 AM
