zlacker

>>snewma+(OP)
Doug was at times blunt, but he was fundamentally a kind and generous person, and he had a dedication to his vision and to the people who worked alongside him that has to be admired. He will be missed.

I worked at Cycorp (not directly with Doug very often, but it wasn't a big office) between 2016 and 2020

An anecdote: during our weekly all-hands lunch in the big conference room, he mentioned he was getting a new car (his old one was pretty old, but well-kept) and he asked if anybody could use the old car. One of the staff raised his hand sheepishly and said his daughter was about to start driving. Doug gifted him the car on the spot, without a second thought.

He also loved board games, and was in a D&D group with some others at the company. I was told he only ever played lawful good characters, he didn't know how to do otherwise :)

Happy to answer what questions I can

>>brundo+9c
I don’t know much about him. What makes you start by saying he’s blunt?

>>late25+Jn
It was a part of his personality, as it is for many people who are intelligent and opinionated, and some can mistake that for unkindness. But I wanted to emphasize that in his case it wasn't.

>>brundo+uC
I haven't read much by Lenat, and haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe he was particularly blunt, I disagree with attributing bluntness to intelligence. Some of the most intellectually blunt people I've met were some of the most conversationally blunt, and some of the most brilliant were absolute social butterflies. Making people needlessly uncomfortable when communicating is a shortcoming regardless of your intellectual capacity. Even if difficulty communicating appropriately and intelligence are correlated somewhat through common neuropsychiatric profiles, the relationship is not causal.

>>chefan+e91
Bluntness is associated for intelligence because when your mind works faster than the room and you reach conclusions that the room is 15 minutes away from making it feels blunt and crude to them.

The socially acceptable thing to do is wait for them to catch up but that gets old.

>>willci+QJ1
You've describing the justification for lifelong hubris, not intelligence. I've known a lot of very stupid people who assumed they were doing exactly that when in reality they jumped to a conclusion because they didn't understand the topic's complexities.

A article shared on HN recently: https://www.bihealth.org/en/notices/intelligent-brains-take-....

>>chefan+0M1
Whenever I hear things like "understand the topic's complexities" from people they are unable to articulate these supposed complexities and we almost always land on exactly the solution I proposed in the first place.

Don't get me wrong other intelligent people are on board with me during these episodes, and they are sometimes able to present their specific concern with the solution and that is valuable. I've been wrong before of course. On the other hand the "think of all the complexities" crowd just spout nuggets of wisdom like that until they are able to comprehend the solution, and that takes about 15 minutes in my experience.