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I jokingly enforce a no-googling-at-the-lunch-table rule on my millennial coworkers (I'm gen Oregon Trail).

This allows for the type of fatuous speculation that makes for decent conversation.

Occasionally I even give in to the need to know.

This allows for the type of fatuous speculation that makes for decent conversation.

Well put. Brings to mind "Modern Jackass" magazine from one of my favorite This American Life episodes:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/293/a...

I dunno, I find Googling-enabled conversation to be just different, not necessarily better or worse then pre-Google convos. This might have more to do with me growing up with them though

(also, I misclicked the upvote button and downvoted you instead, sorry!)

Googling'-enabled' conversation tends to end the conversation in my experience. Someone looks up the answer and we're done.

With people I know, that's usually the prompt to jump to a related topic. Long conversations tend to end up looking like collaborative Wikipedia link surfing.

Generally, I just tend to end up talking about things that can't be trivially fact-checked. YMMV I guess

I'm gen Oregon Trail as well, and I prefer fact-checking in conversation. It drives me nuts to see people run down a rabbit-hole for an hour over an obvious misconception. Online fact-checking doesn't really ruin conversations in my view, and it helps stop spread misinformation.

Heh, are we embracing the "Oregon Trail generation" name then? This may be the first time I've seen a reference to it outside of a discussion of the group itself.

I love that name but isn't it just another name for Gen X?

To my ear, it's a subset of Gen X, and definitely doesn't encompass all of Gen X culture.

It's approximately 1978 though '82. Basically the last generation that has a living memory of the before time, but grew up riding the crest of the wave of everything that happened over the past 30 years, technologically.

Or, people who played Oregon Trail on Macs and Commodore 64s in grade school.

Apple ][, bah

The dates don't match the description; from the (last, more specific) description, you'd need to drop back at least about 5, maybe closer to 10, years earlier on the start date for that "generation".

Really, just thinking of it as "members of Generation X with an early and lifelong interest in technology" would probably work better than trying to carve it out as a narrower subset of Gen X by age.

Here[1] is (I believe) the originating article.

Meanwhile, the first really popular version of Oregon Trail came out in 1985[2].

Ultimately I just meant it as a jaunty shorthand for the intergenerational window in which I was born. If you were also born then and this does not jive with your experience, it's going to be okay, eventually.

[1] http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-generat... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Trail_(video_game...

So, me then. Got it. ;)

I think it's a very useful little note between Gen X and Gen Y, because that 78-82 group isn't quite either in my experience.

> I jokingly enforce a no-googling-at-the-lunch-table rule on my millennial coworkers

Trying to control what other people can do... great joke!

> fatuous speculation that makes for decent conversation

Misinformed conversation... sounds awesome.

You seem fun!

There's a deeply sarcastic culture of fake rules at my company, in which groove this fake rule fits precisely. Lunch time is generally understood as a time of bullshitting, conviviality and foosball. Every time we have to wait 30 seconds to find out, e.g., how many apple seeds you can eat without killing yourself, we are all richer for it.

    > e.g., how many apple seeds you can eat without killing
    > yourself, we are all richer for it.

I'm ashamed to say I had to know. I found two estimates: the seeds of 25, or of "over 2000" apples.

Either way, we should be safe, and it just goes to show how much more fun wondering is than an extremely inconclusive answer.

That's where I would think "there's only one way to find out..."

It says something bad about us as a species if we can only enjoy a conversation when most or all of the participants are making large numbers of errors.

We were talking about ignorance (not knowing, and speculating) vs being wrong (thinking you know, but being wrong).

I've seen people move from speculating to assuming too often, but I don't see speculation as inherently wrong.

I don't think there's anything wrong with speculation. But if speculation is more interesting than actual knowledge about the same subject then I think there's something wrong with that.

You make a lot of sense...but I'm afraid I must run into the "wrong" category.

The thing is, the topic under question is usually pretty pointless (see "deceased" example above, or my musing about how the first time bread "raised" must have been freaky, or any such thing).

While learning a piece of trivia is _nice_, it's rarely as interesting as the act of speculation. Because I'm not really (all that) interested in the question at hand, I'm teaching myself (and regularly exercising the ability) to NOT KNOW, to DESIRE KNOWLEDGE, and to ACCEPT THAT SOME THINGS ARE BEYOND MY GRASP. It's good to find that somethings ARE in my grasp (answer someone gave about about "deceased" was the first time I've had that question answered!), but I get that lesson a lot in life.

When I wrestle with the "big" questions (What should I do with my life? Am I happy right now? Why did this terrible thing happen to me? Does existence care about me? Why do I care if it does?) some comfort with the unknowable is good. When I'm dealing lesser "big" questions (Am I actually good at this, or am I just faking it and haven't be caught yet? Am I an insensitive ass to people around me? Can I really buckle down and get this project completed? Why the heck do people vote for <INSERT POLITICIAN HERE>?) I likewise want to have experience with both being able get answer as well as NOT being able to get answers.

Learning is awesome. I love it. But I also need to be good at dealing with wanting to know, or dealing with being unable to know. Around me I see too many people of many ages that aren't interested in things they can't easily learn.

That's odd, what kind of decent conversations are based on fatuous speculation on facts that are a google search away?

I'd much rather have real conversation about politics, whether "The 100" is good TV, social issues, or just about anything really, than an argument about facts that could just be googled.

Yes, some people don't enjoy jokes.

This is well documented.

I'd rather talk about literally nothing than have another political conversation where I am either preaching to the converted or shouting at a stone wall.

Where did you get that I don't enjoy jokes?

Yeah, I'm seeing that mentioning "talking politics" on a mostly American forum immediately labels you as a "debbie downer".

As an American, I find this attitude disturbing as well. It's like there's a cultural repulsion to talking about anything of consequence. And we wonder why US politics is in the state that it's in...

> Where did you get that I don't enjoy jokes?

You should read this - http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html

excerpt:

"But our engineering strength is also our social weakness. Countless times as engineers you will find yourself interrupting someone telling a story, an anecdote or a joke to correct a false assumption, provide an extra fact that the narrator overlooked, give a bigger perspective on the problem or point out that the joke premise is actually flawed.

You can identify this behavior because the person interrupting usually starts with the phrase "Well, actually...".

As a kid, I thought this was my strength. I knew a little bit more than my sister. So whenever she would say something, I would quickly interject something like "Well, actually, the origin of the word Shih Tzu means Lion Dog and has nothing to do with the dog's digestive patterns".

Yes, I was really fun to hang out with.

Whoever pulls a "well, actually" almost always shifts the conversation to himself. And now we are no longer following along with your friend's joke, we get to learn how much more you know about the limitations of the Sun Protection Factor scale in sunblock products.

Even the most rudimentary of the well-actuallistas is able to spoil even the best Ricky Gervais material.

But instead of rolling with the punches and participating in a brainstorm of ideas and exploding humor, they contribute interruptions, facts and details that merely produce stop energy on an ongoing discussion. They turn the center of attention towards them."

-----

Similar with "talking politics."

When people want to "talk politics" they usually really mean "Let me show you how right I am and how wrong you are if you disagree. Let me show you how smart I am."

Nothing to do with being a "debbie downer."

Now, where is that traffic?

That's a great article! Bookmarking.

But, what does ANY of this have to do with me? I learned to avoid (well, mostly avoid :-) the "well actually" trap almost two decades ago and have spent the intervening twenty years mentoring younger engineers out of that habit.

What I was actually responding to was the idea it was better to "speculate" about who played Snape, or why is the sky blue, or is vim BSD or GPL licensed rather than look it up.

I'd rather have conversations about Alan Rickman portrayal of Snape or what impact the sky being blue has on our emotional reactions to blue or why vim is clearly better than emacs.

Also, Canadians, in general, don't tend to discuss politics in that manner, at least not in mixed company. We have more political parties and our views are more fluid. I have, for example, voted for 4 different political parties in my life time at the federal level alone.

It's called having fun!! lighthearted mindless conversation. Joking. Laughing! Using our imaginations.

No arguments.

I'd rather do almost anything else than "talk politics." Especially with people who like "talking politics." Playing in traffic seems much more appealing.

I agree.

I think there's a big benefit in finding out that you're often wrong. It's easy to look something up and go "yeah I knew that" when really it was just one of the things you thought might be true. Regularly seeing that what you were really, really sure about is actually completely wrong after having to try and justify what you're saying is wrong (e.g. that X was in film Y, etc). Similarly, realising you don't understand something too well when trying to explain it to someone else.

Also, mistakes and weird misconceptions form bits of jokes that grow and change over time.

Ah, I see. I have lots of discussions that are fun, light hearted and meaningless. They just are rarely based on speculation on fundamental facts that could be googled.

There seems to be a lot of reaction to "talking politics". Maybe my perspective is coloured by being Canadian and living where the politics aren't so polarized and gamed?

The interesting part of the conversation are the arguments (not the debate, but the specific chains of reasoning people present to support their belief about the correct answer.)

Also, the tangents that are spawned based both on some.of the specific answers people propose and elements of the arguments for those answers.

I think you've miscategorized a distinction. I'm in my late 20s, and I share both of the proclivities you describe: I'm both curious about things and prefer to find out if it's relatively easy to do so.

What you describe seems like a lack of curiosity, and I don't think easy access to information is a cause of incuriosity, though it could be a contributing factor.

Curiosity, and by extension a general sense of play about the world, are sucked out of most people by adulthood.

That's the thing that I found dumbfounding: These aren't incurious people. These are clever, capable, curious people. (lack of curiosity occurs in far too many people of all ages around me)

It's just that they deal with their curiosity differently: They seek an answer, and are content with whatever level is currently available, and move on to other matters, while I revel in the uncertainty.

Can't say one is better, though I'm obviously more comfortable with my version. Will say they feel very different, and I end up feeling alone in the crowd.

Related: One coworker at my previous job noted that we enjoyed our high school interns more than than college interns because the high schoolers hadn't had their sense of wonder and curiosity beaten out of them. I'm still evaluating if I think that's true.

Somewhat in the same vein, previously the way to learn about something you didn't know about before would sometimes have involved reading a whole book on the topic. Which would leave you much more informed than skimming some google result. I wonder if that sort of thing is more or less common today because people can sate their idle curiosity easier.

In my pre-web days, I found that generally you never found what you were looking for.

First, someone would tell you "to look it up". So, travel to library, hit card catalog, find a few titles.

Go to shelves. Somehow, 50% of the books from the card catalog wouldn't be on the shelves, but there also tended to be other books here that you hadn't found in the card catalog.

Read books. While some topics were interesting, often you dealt with authors that did a terrible job of compensating for their biases, or did poor science. I have the same reaction to most news stories (which is why I hang out here :) ) It'd be like watching a 30 min youtube video while trying to find a single fact.

End result: Still don't know your answer, learned some trivia, and have more disdain for the state of knowledge.

I've found the accessibility of knowledge to be much improved these days, and have a better opinion of our collective knowledge as a result. I also still read a lot and gain a lot of trivia, but I'm generally reading material I'm more interested in. So I don't feel the internet-age has really hurt those areas.

I think there is a more fundamental question, why are some people curious and others are not? As far as I can tell this has always been true.

For anyone wondering, decease comes from the Latin word "decedere", which literally means "to go away."

In the 'good old days' you could have a competition on the TV or radio that would require getting answers to questions correct. You would have to be very 'brainy' or well read, maybe even have educated friends to help you to get all the answers. You could also admire the 'genius' of those able to get the answers right.

To take a simple example, where was such-and-such an author born? If you had grown up in the same village as the author or read one of his/her books then you could answer the question. But, if you had no such head start, a trip to the library or asking a well educated friend would be the only way.

Nowadays, with Wikipedia, the answer is provided by 'OK Google' in the first paragraph of the first result. This effectively makes it impossible to run competitions on TV/Radio/print that require high levels of 'general knowledge'. In fact, even the phrase 'general knowledge' is not used as often as it used to be!!!

Although it is great to be able to look up everything and anything instantly, I liked it in the days when there was some rewards and respect for knowing stuff that nowadays is deemed to be 'trivia'.

Reminds me of my stepdad who always had to show of with bis fact knowledge. He even would tell some BS just to be right.

Now we can simply look it up and be done with it.

I don't understand this comment.

I have a similar mindset to you, and am of the same age as you, therefore I can clearly remember a time when I was interested in things like this and I needed to look it up in an actual book, or even in the early days of the web, use quite complex skills to find the answer.

To a rough approximation, no-one else in my cohort or older gave a damn about stuff like this. So are you remembering a different time when everyone was like this, maybe in a different country or area from me. Do your colleagues and friends of the same age or older all exhibit this thirst for (let's face it) mostly pointless knowledge? Or is this just a "young people today" cliche?

Funny, I'm in my mid-20s and have the same complaints about my late-teen-early-20s coworkers.

The grass is always greener, etc.

I'm 40 and would rather just look up the answer and be done with it. OTOH as a child I was the proverbial person who skipped ahead to the end of a murder mystery

This is why the fun questions are unanswered or ambiguous. You can learn the process, but not the answer.

Its a but more invested though.

Kids today, eh?

I don't really view it as an age things - for one, I still consider myself a "kid", and second, past a certain minimum age we have a mix of experiences and any of us is "the noob" in a given situation.

It is, however, a bit of a generational experience. If you grew up using card catalogs and learning to spell from a dictionary (?!), your relationship with knowing/not knowing will be different than someone who grew up with the Web always around and accessible. I think it was Agatha Christie who said of her childhood "I couldn't imagine being so rich as to have a car nor so poor as to not have servants".

Irony: I just googled that to confirm, and was mostly right but not quite accurate, assuming the links are themselves accurate:

http://www.bradford-delong.com/2013/01/agatha-christie-i-nev...