Tactical Incompetence: Paul Erdos on Skill Development
I’m at a workshop in Princeton on Project Bamboo. I have many notes to share from today’s session, but for now I’ll just repeat a phrase I heard at our table: tactical incompetence. Tactical incompetence is sometimes seen by IT staff when talking with faculty or staff who simply claim they “can’t do” certain things. As a ruse it’s often deployed in the name of gender stereotypes, e.g. the woman who “can’t” change a tire or the man who “can’t” sew on a button. I will claim Paul Erdos to be the … Continue Reading