Comment by notacoward

For me, one question like this isn't too bad. Ten are. Then it becomes a botched kind of Socratic dialog. In a true Socratic dialog, the teacher (who presumably knows best) controls the flow of explanations. In "why not just" the learner wrests that control away while still expecting the teacher to do all the work. It forces the explanation to take the form of an (unsought) argument. I have several friends who routinely use this method to learn a new area. One of them does it so consistently and aggressively, even after I've called him on it, that he's now an ex-friend.

The killer combo IMO is "just" (setting up a default position) and "you" (associating an initially assumed-inferior position with a person). That's why phrasings like "why doesn't ssh work here" aren't as bad. They keep things collaborative rather than adversarial. This becomes particularly clear with repetition, with a series of "why don't you just" bearing a stark resemblance to a legal cross-examination. It's better to avoid those two markers unless you know that's what both parties are after (which is fine when it happens BTW).