The Faithful Skeptic

Mistakes

I read a technology column, I, Cringely, regularly. Sometimes it is a little too "techy" for me, but it is usually pretty entertaining and educational. In this week's column, Cringely is discussing the Google IPO.

He makes an interesting comment about smart people and mistakes:

There's an interesting effect here that I've noticed over the years -- smart people don't make the same mistake twice while REALLY SMART people don't make the same mistake three times. Since they tend to make fewer mistakes to start with, really smart people tend to repeat the mistakes they do make because they are initially convinced that the outcome was someone else's fault or perhaps because of cosmic rays.

That creates some interesting questions for me: How does my sense of my own cleverness/wit/smarts blind me to mistakes I might be making? How does my strong belief in my ability to make decisions keep me from recognizing or accepting the consequences of my actions?

If you like technology, read Cringely's column. If you don't, read it anyway. It will be worth your time.

posted by Brian @ 10:13 AM