The Dunning-Kruger effect - probably everyone has heard of it, and if not, he will hear. Quoting Wikipedia, it's about "The fact that unskilled people in a certain area of life tend to overestimate their skills in this area, while highly qualified people tend to underestimate their skills." When I look at my CV from 5 years ago after 10 years of work in IT, I think one thing: "but I was once able".
Recently, I also understood how different worlds overlap and how much information available on the internet makes it impossible to make any decision or answer. Because just as I used to be able to answer a sensible question (maybe incorrectly, maybe not), today I just answer:
IT DEPENDS.
Because today nothing is easy and everything is the result of an infinite cause-and-effect chain. This results in a situation in which I cannot finish any "test" because I try to approach the topic comprehensively, and then the topic never ends. Everything depends on something.
If someone wants a website, they can go to wordpress.com and start writing blog posts seven minutes later. He can also go to his friend, an IT professional - they will then choose the right CMS for a week, then the right hosting to put it, they will start thinking about backups, CDNs, load balancers, technologies, customizations, plugins, imageprocessors, payment methods, databases, versions , deploys, version controls, authorizations, responsiveness, styles, templates, media, security, flounder, pollock, halibut, prestidigitators and so on. After a month, the first guest has 7 blog entries, and the second is still not sure if his welcome page looks good on the Samsung S7.
Or such a question - how much will the object fall from 100 meters? A quick pattern from junior high school and you know: about 4.5 seconds. Everything fits, only with each successive year of learning you learn that this is more and more untrue and that each simplified a little - because the acceleration of the earth is different in different places, the air resistance depends on a thousand factors, and no one limited the questions by appropriate criteria. You can start asking, and you can talk about these less than 5 seconds and assume that such accuracy is enough.
The name of this phenomenon is simple: overengineering, in other words: a hypertrophy of form over content.
How is it for bicycles?
It is the same in the cycling world and when I started writing this text, the conclusion was to be completely different. Because if someone at work asks you which bike to buy, then you have two options:
- trekking from Decathlon for PLN 1,500
or
- you shoot an endless series of questions about: surfaces, speeds, positions, purpose, preferred brands, riding style and so on ... You know that the guest just wants a bike to ride on the "path in the woods and boulevards", and asking these questions only you will discourage him and make him read and search for weeks without ever being sure of his choice.
It was supposed to be a text that you can't answer any simple question.
And here we come to the point, which I understood recently: the same IT professional should not ask all these questions. He had to ask only the question: what is this site and what the creator wants to do on it. All the rest are not really interested in that man, what counts is the effect.
And just like on the internet someone asks if it's better Garmin or Wahoo, I could ask him seven hundred questions and explain that it is impossible to answer, because everything depends. But this is not true, it can be very simple - just say that if he likes to rotate or move the map, let him take Garmin, and if he likes to race, let him take Bolt. Will these be the best choices? I don't know, but if a man asks and gives him that answer with great conviction, he will be happy. Just be able to find this one, the most important argument.
Similarly, when someone asks on the Internet about the best gloves for the winter and I see a guy who replies "I recommend X, because I have it", it always ruffles me - well, on what basis, with a tested sample of the number "one" can recommend something - there are certainly better ones. But what of it? 99% good is absolutely sufficient.
... And it is a text that it can be done.
And now how does it relate to the effect I wrote about at the beginning? Well, very simply.
At first you don't know anything, and it really is. Panda drove her first and only ultramarathon (630km) dressed for about PLN 120 (T-shirt + shorts with aliexpress), because no one knew it mattered. Two years later I could read insert comparisons for hours. First knowledge is absorbed quickly and susceptibility to everything is high. Then it's the worst because you read, went and think you already know. Today I mainly buy shorts from my favorite company "SALE".
Level 1.
If you don't know that you don't know, you know everything. Saws? Who is this for? Electrics? For old people and for retirement. Training? Here you are, I will write about how to train. Ultra? You're welcome, a guide on how to drive long distances. Technique? The instructional video lands on Jubilee. Where is the best place to go with a bike? Here, I was there recently. Bicycle for 50k? Overpaid for sure.
I know because I wrote entries on topics I had no idea about.
... and I know that there are the most such texts on the Internet.
Stage 2
Then comes the phase of uncertainty in which a person begins to know that everything is terribly difficult. Electric derailleurs? Well, yes, because a little more convenient, but if I break the cable on vacation, what? It is easier to change the ratio in winter, but again so much money for equipment used in winter? And dilemmas are growing, read comparisons, opinions, reviews, usually extreme, because on the Internet to a large extent speak either people from the first group who know that certainly yes or certainly not or those who will not get such equipment, when they write about him wrong. The search for answers continues indefinitely, subsequent texts, films, considerations. Everything depends on something, an infinite sequence of dependencies.
I know, because I wrote entries that had thousands of words, and yet they did not answer the most important questions.
Stage 3
There is peace at the end. You know that the effect counts and you will achieve it anyway. Of course, you would like to buy or choose the best option possible, but if you just choose the good one instead, nothing will happen either. When you ask about electrics, you say that "cool, cool, but well-adjusted, mechanical, you can't fault anything." To the question about the electric drive, you answer "today not, but maybe someday", and then you remember all those people on the passes who would get there without an electrician at most by car and are happy that you didn't smog your nose.
You don't know if your bike is the best, but you like it. You know that you wouldn't outpace a clearly faster colleague, even if you put a million in your equipment. You go to Calpe in March and you get dumped that people laugh about spending 5 consecutive holidays in the same hotel. Or you are going to Albania, because there is a little explorer in you, but you understand that someone can, quoting Wodecki: "I like to go back to the pages I know, for the memories left there."
Nothing stresses you in your hobby anymore, you can justify everything. By its argument, not online.
How do you know that you have already achieved this peace? Also very simply. It's just as easy to get to know it in the IT world and I suspect everyone else. You can explain things and decisions short and easy, which is exactly the opposite of what I do on the blog. Instead of unraveling the topic, you can justify your decision with one or two sentences. You find this one key argument that matters. Its not online.
Like Panda, who says that this bike is better because it is blue. Like a guy who bought Spec, because Sagan wins Spec, and Sagan likes it. Like the girl who bought Trek because she likes what she does for women's cycling Minister, and that's (too) Trek's crypto option. Like a guest, who chooses Focus, because Szymonbikeor Rose because I. Like a guest what rides on Krossie / Rondo / Rometa, because they are Polish. Or the one on Van Rysel, because he just likes Decathlon. Like a guy who buys shorts eroebecause I want to support a local blogger or shorts Luxabecause he likes boys from Podkarpacie (not in this sense) or Danielobecause almost a neighbor. You just know in time. And I wish you to know, because life makes it easier.
As the old proverb of bees says: "keep going and it will be ridden"* - otherwise you will spend your free time reading the internet in a time that you can spend on driving.
* there is no such proverb, I came up with it yesterday running in the park under the house and thought it funny. Things like that stop being funny before I get home, but it's hard ...
