It’s crazy how people often confuse unnecessary complexity with being smart. One of my filters when interviewing engineering candidates is to see whether their line of thinking is simple, clear & logical. Tendency towards complexity is a major red flag. Bad hire 100% of the time. https://twitter.com/YangVentures/status/1029986875992358912 …
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There was an exception one time - a candidate shows tendency to go into complexity rabbit holes, but seems to do well in other areas, and rest of team seemed to like him, so it was a borderline Yes. Ended up being a major mistake. Avoiding-complexity is now my top go-to filter.
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The thing about this rule is that it‘s not as intuitive as you might think. The said bad candidate was able to fool a couple of other senior engineers - people whose opinions I highly respect. “Hey his incomplete solutions seem complex but it *sounds* like he has good reasons.”
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If even domain experts can be fooled by false competency / intelligence, you have to wonder, what hope do we have for domains way outside of our circle of competence? This question bothers me all the time.
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I've since observed this phenomenon many times in real life. It's very easy to be duped into believing that someone knows what they are doing, just because they use fancy jargons, or show confidence. Our primitive brain employs poor filtering mechanisms & often works against us.
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So until our brain is augmented with AI to filter BS, this heuristic works pretty well: avoiding complexity like a plague. If the person uses fancy terms & can’t explain things in simple terms, chances are he is full of shit. Walk away.
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Hugo Nguyen Retweeted Hugo Nguyen
As for Vitalik's long-ass thread. Here is my attempt at simplifying it. Good thing is he shows his fundamental flaw in thinking early on (tweets 9-11). The rest is just lipstick on a pig.
https://twitter.com/hugohanoi/status/1029919205859020800 …Hugo Nguyen added,
Hugo Nguyen @hugohanoiStop reading right here lol. Wrong on so many levels. (i) level of trust in PoW vs PoS is nowhere the same in terms of both magnitude & frequency (ii) "small" is relative & can turn "big" quickly in worst-case scenarios. very dangerous thinking. I call it engineering-by-hope.
https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1029901952346279936 …Show this thread2 replies 1 retweet 11 likesShow this thread -
Hugo Nguyen Retweeted Melik Manukyan ⚡️ ludvigart.com
P.S.: Apparently this phenomenon is called the "Sokal hoax". h/t
@realLudvigArthttps://twitter.com/realLudvigArt/status/1029998367839944705 …Hugo Nguyen added,
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P.S. #2: I would gladly take someone who might be slow in thinking (nothing wrong with that, although interviewing environment is not suited for slow thinkers) but show clarity & strong logic, over someone who thinks quickly, talks a lot, but has convoluted reasoning. Every day.
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Replying to @hugohanoi
Sokal Hoax was an intentional thing. Vitalik probably believes his own bullshit
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sadly probably true. and in some sense worse because lots of people mistake belief/conviction for competence.
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