# Opacity is important because it allows people to be open about failure Despite aphorisms like “failure is a learning experience!” And “vulnerability is good” being truly open about failure inevitably gives people ammunition against you. Unless the situation was truly out of your control, failure involves doing something stupid, arrogant, wasteful, lazy, etc. - basically things that are legitimately bad character traits that one wouldn’t want in a potential partner, collaborator, or employee. The trick of human psychology is that *even* if you buy the aphorisms, if all you know about someone is how they failed, you will have a subconsciously negative opinion of them. [[We’re less in control of our opinions of other people than we think]]. And most people are not even that charitable. The upshot is that it’s completely rational and reasonable for people to shy away from sharing the details of failure to strangers. At the same time, detailed analyses of failure *are* extremely important for learning, both on an individual and community level. This sharing is especially important for the scientific process, and one of the reasons why [[Research requires more trust than other disciplines]]. ### Related * [[Opacity is important to DARPA’s outlier success]] [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Opacity+is+important+because+it+allows+people+to+be+open+about+failure) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Opacity+is+important+because+it+allows+people+to+be+open+about+failure)