Mt. Stupid

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? (ironically, not ironic)

It’s not without a bit of irony that many who know about “Mount Stupid”, in fact do not really understand it too well.

An illustration found on the Internet - repeated to the point it’s considered true, yet it’s not even the Dunning-Kruger effect…

Here it is in graphical form, and it basically shows the relationship between confidence and knowledge experienced by many. Before you see how much there is to know is an area, you can overestimate the amount of total knowledge you have in that area. This peak of confidence, relative to your absolute lack of knowledge, is Mount Stupid.

It’s commonly believed to be part of Dunning-Kruger Effect, but it’s really more of a corollary idea. You can read Overconfidence Among Beginners: Is a Little Learning a Dangerous Thing, by Carmen Sanchez and David Dunning, if you want to see some supporting primary literature.

One thing the common diagram gets wrong, is that you can repeatedly achieve Mount Stupid, even as you progress along the X-axis. You can also avoid it altogether if you approach situations with an understanding that there is probably no realistic way for you achieve parity with experts in whatever it is, from the outset.

For me, that’s generating content.

I’m not a great writer. I’m not a voice actor. I’m not particularly skillful when it comes to video editing. My production value is low, but I’m spending a seemingly silly amount of time generating my output. I’m treating it like an optimization problem, though, so I’m improving my workflow, increasing my feature content, and (hopefully) improving the content overall. 

I’m counting on the axiom that quantity leads to quality, in the hopes that a story from Art & Fear (by David Bayles and Ted Orland) is applicable to the task of making written content and YouTube videos.

Because I am who I am, I’m charting a ton of metrics along the way. I’m also having fun, for the time being.

I’d appreciate your support on my journey. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel - Dad, the engineer. Thanks!