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Comment by BowBun | Hacker News Reader

The sad irony today is that it would literally take any group that is discussing this topic 10 minutes to collectively google, wikipedia, and summarize some real facts to lead the discussion to something higher level than historical facts that almost no one knows.

This phenomenon isn't limited to this topic by any means. Lately I've been noticing how so much of conversation is filler by people attempting to figure out readily available facts by sharing anecdotes and making generalizations from those. Not to mention when people get upset because they're both convinced they're right, when a quick search could clear it up instantly. Do people genuinely enjoy this part of socializing or is everyone still not used to the idea of having infinite search power in the palm of our hands at all times?

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> Do people genuinely enjoy this part of socializing

I don't think it's so much "enjoy" as just that many people treat knowledge as a social phenomenon, not something to gather from external sources on your own. It's not so much "what are the facts" as "what are my peers thinking and saying about this?"

This also goes a long way towards explaining the popularity of comment sections on sites like HN and reddit, as well as why there are large groups of people who treat non-factual information as though it were factual.

I have encountered this.

Many people just don't appear to know how to search and filter information on the internet. I regularly get asked questions I don't know the answers to but can quickly search and refine down to either an exact answer or something useful to the questioner.

They often ask me "What did you search for?" or "How did you find that out so fast?". My guess is that most people using HN will have significantly above average search and analysis skills.

The socializing aspect you highlighted may also stem from desire to be polite. I was recently accused of committing a "pub foul" when I used my phone to search for information on a question raised at a pub lunch. Personally I prefer to know the answer so I can put the question out of my mind (I'm more introverted). To other people (more extroverted), not knowing the answer may be preferable to briefly disengaging from the conversation.

No, no friend, you are actually wrong.

I have recently found that a sizeable amount of people will completely seriously tell you to your face that Wikipedia isn't facts and anything you find on the internet (that doesn't conform to their views/gives them confirmation biS) is lies and propaganda by big tech.

It's insane, and there's no fighting it. Really, they will not budge in the slightest. I cannot think of anything that can possibly save things other than massive education reform.... and given the fact education (in the US) has been being completely dismantled in the past 40 so years, I do not think that savior is coming.

> and given the fact education (in the US) has been being completely dismantled in the past 40 so year

Actually teaching objective facts, maybe to some degree yes, but the education system today is the strongest and best funded it has ever been.

Yet it is completely useless. Doesn't teach critical thinking, epistemology, etc. There's a "science" class, and that's it. The rest is lexical knowledge memorization about past stuff (wars, plays, novels, poems, politics).

It makes sense that this generates political strife as citizens age through school and out into industry. The current world economy is dependent on knowledge work. Knowledge work requires an ability to interweave, discover and generate novel mental models. If our economy is not generating these types of workers, and labor becomes supplanted by machines, the margin-of-opportunity will continue to decrease as machines take over knowledge work.

The economies and states who are in control at the logical end of that technological progression will be the ones that decide what the future of humanity looks like. Do we get UBI? Do we get social nets? Do we get human rights?

My father is like this. If he already agrees with what something says, then he’ll parrot it around. But, if he doesn’t, then “anyone can put anything on the Internet”

> tell you to your face that Wikipedia isn't facts

It is not. Why do you think so?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0P4Cf0UCwU

In my experience (not American, so your experience might vary) it's usually tied to toxic masculinity. Being the one who provides information, rather than the one who's corrected, has implications for some people in terms of ego and perceived social status, so they see a discussion as sort of a verbal fight for territory.

The same person would gladly accept the exact same information without an issue in any other context, provided that they had not just supported a different idea, but the moment they support one side they have to hold the fort.

In that context bringing up a Google search in the discussion feels to them like you're pulling out a gun in the middle of a fist fight. Sure it's effective, but the escalation is read as "I'm going to win this at all costs", rather as "I want to check the truth", and most importantly, you leave the other party no room whatsoever to save face, which is seen as an asshole move.

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