Cap’n Refsmmat’s Blog of Doom

A long long time ago, a friend and I wrote a document on the science of relationships. It was mostly silly, but it did have one section that wasn’t just made up. That section was on the Relationship Uncertainty Principle.

The RUP works in a fashion similar to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics. The idea is simple: at any given time in a two-person relationship, you cannot simultaneously know each party’s feelings for the other and how those feelings are changing.

Perhaps an example would help explain it.
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Can anyone explain to me why people love talking about things like they’re experts when they really don’t know anything about the subject?

Like this guy:

I’m often asked questions about things that are out of my area of expertise. Rather than make stuff up, like Mr. LHC Guy, I at least admit that I’m not sure. (My refusal to be absolutely certain has gotten me in trouble in the past, because when you’re trying to sell things it pays to be confident in yourself. Oh well.)

(To be fair, I act like an expert on things I’m probably not an expert on, but I’ve never yet caught myself being a complete and utter moron.)

Is there a psychologist around that can explain why people don’t recognize when they’re utterly out of their depth and shut up? I think that needs to be a mandatory skill.

(Video shamelessly noticed at Splendid Elles.)

If you expect me to solve your computer problem, you will have to tell me more than “I tried to go to the website and it didn’t work.”

I’d rather like to know what exactly happened when you tried to go to the website and what error message, if any, you got. Error messages, after all, do have a point: they tell you what went wrong. That can be helpful.