Comment by codingdave
8 years ago
Why would I jump into a thread, on any site, just to say I don't know? There are thousands of threads just on HN that I just let scroll by without participating because I don't know enough to add to the discussion. Explicitly calling out my lack of knowledge on every thread would serve no purpose to anybody.
Online written communications will never follow the same patterns as direct communication, and that is a good thing.
The problem isn't people not admitting ignorance online. The problem is that the internet might be the cause of people not admitting ignorance in real life.
As a person who basically made it through college without internet, I can tell you that I had just as much trouble admitting I was wrong when I didn't have access to the internet, perhaps more because I was younger and more hotheaded.
I've sometimes had the problem as well. Usually because my self esteem had been based heavily on believing that I'm really smart.
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> the internet might be the cause of people not admitting ignorance in real life.
I remember the good old days, before the internet, when people would always admit their ignorance in real life and the Dunning–Kruger effect didn't exist.
It is absurd how people actually do this all the time in Amazon product questions. Will it work with my Samsung phone? "I don't know." Does it come with batteries? "I think it did."
I'm guessing that's because Amazon sends out emails explicitly asking people to answer questions on their past purchases. And for some reason, this makes some subset of people feel obligated to reply even though it makes no sense.
I think you're right. That sounds exactly like something amazon would do and how people would respond. I must have turned those emails off, which makes seeing the answers utterly stupefying.
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It's because Amazon emails everyone (who bought that product) every time someone asks a question. The subject is "John Doe: Can you answer this question about ...". I've had this email a few times. Some people (I'm guessing old/non-tech savvy) assume someone has asked them directly, and so feel the need to reply.
That makes sense. The answers I refer to read just like a slightly annoyed text message reply to a family member who should know better than to ask.
My personal favourite is "I bought this three years ago and don't have it anymore. I don't remember."
I always find it sort of charming and refreshing when people respond as if it was a face-to-face conversation
Of course one shouldn't jump into a thread to say "I don't know", but if someone receives a response to a statement they made in a thread that points out a fact or point of view they hadn't considered, they should be willing to admit that they didn't know that, they were wrong, or that they realize they need to think more deeply about the topic.
Well, I too jump into threads where I think I know some part of what's being discussed.
But I'll often bookend a comment like that with points about what I don't know. And here, there are points I think someone might know - frame those as questions. But also there are point I doubt either myself or the person I'm replying to knows, frame those as problems of knowledge, statistics and so-forth.
Obviously, I think I know a general framework, that our beliefs are areas of semi-certainty bordered by heuristics, myth, ignorance and lack of awareness. But this is a belief that will often about what I or we, don't know.
I agree that there is no value of saying "I don't know" in general. But sometime people would say "I don't know" as an emphasis on his "understanding" that there are something deeper than the current common understanding, and that is reasonable.
I doubt gp is encouraging people to jump into threads to say they don't know something. I imagine the insight is that online communication lends itself too well to an unfavorable s/n, one that militates against reasoned discussion.
There should be more eagerness to identify when problems and issues are more difficult and less well understood, as well as the nature of this difficulty/complexity -- even in online discussions. That is a valuable contribution.
Excluding reddit