The curse of knowledge

The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias where you forget what it's like not to know something. Once you've learned a concept, it's hard to imagine being a beginner again, which can make it harder to empathize and see things from another perspective.

This matters especially in engineering, writing, and teaching, where being clear is critical for collaboration and knowledge sharing. If you assume too much background knowledge, you risk leaving others confused or frustrated. It can also slow down learning or even discourage people from asking questions. For example, you might write "run the build command" in your docs, not realizing that a newcomer has no idea what the command is or where to run it.

This bias also creeps into code reviews, where comments might gloss over important details that only make sense to people who already know the system. Experienced engineers often fall into this trap, myself included.

The curse of knowledge is a quiet barrier to good communication. Awareness of it will help bridge the gap between what you know and what others need to understand.

So, let's try to be more mindful.