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Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

Older friends lament that you used to be able to have perfectly good conversations arguing about trivial questions of fact. Now there's always some asshole with a smartphone to look up the right answer and ruin the fun.

It helps to look at HN the same way. It's not about the truth, it's about enjoying the conversation.

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I never got this.

If your question could be answered by googling, its not really an interesting question.

Meaning of life -> interesting question

What is the capital of Canada? -> who cares, and if you did care why would you want to debate it instead of looking it up? [Its just an example, i am Canadian and obviously know what the answer is]

Using a search engine requires skill. Asking a good question does as well. The saying is, "the most stupid question is the one you haven't asked". However it omits one should put in effort to do their own research. That effort is somewhat arbitrary. It doesn't equal using Google (I generally don't even use Google search engine), nor does it require success in using Google. A good basis is the ability to do research; I believe the emphasis should lie there. And it needs to be taught before university (which is 18+ age).

Being able to do proper research is all well and good, but is not needed to determine the "trivial questions of fact" that the parent was talking about.

"whats the capital of south africa?" is more interesting!

Now everyone thinks they’re geniuses too just because they can google random facts. You should talk faster than they can type just to keep having fun at their expense. Also, if you talk long enough chances are very good that you’ll find something they’re unable to easily google it. Most people are still lazy thinkers anyways.

That's what HN is... bullshitting claims that are too expensive to disprove even with time to research.

You’re certainly enjoying the conversation! /s

I hate when people confidently bluff and confidently spread untruths. He had fun, but world is slightly more unscientific sue to that.

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