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Comment by pretendscholar | Hacker News Reader

Lol I think you are missing the point. It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation.

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> It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation.

This very concept is foreign to me, and having been in too many of these "conversations", I would rather leave entirely than sit through one. Figure out the answer to the question and switch topics.

There's billions of topics to talk about (and that's without getting into polarizing topics like religion, sex, and politics), so why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?

Why talk about anything then if you can just google it and move on?

Because not all conversations revolve around easily researched facts. They can include things like feelings, anecdotes, opinions, and so forth.

The art of conversation includes moving between each, and pulling a phone out every few minutes stunts that normal conversational flow.

There is also the problem of what is a fact (Alaska is part of the United States) and what is a "fact" (e.g. Covid came from bat soup in a wet market, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "totally unprovoked" etc.) Discussion is the entire point in those cases, since we can't trust our entire set of "facts" anymore thanks to censorship.

> what is a "fact" (e.g. Covid came from bat soup in a wet market, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "totally unprovoked" etc.)

Neither of those are statements of fact, though. The first is speculation, the second is opinion.

But it does appear to be true that many people don't understand what a "fact" actually is. I don't think "censorship" really plays into this much.

I think you're missing my point. They were both presented as facts and discussion online was (and still is in the case if Ukraine) presented as such. The only way to move past those types of bottlenecks is through discussion. "Looking it up" will likely give you an answer that doesn't pass the sniff test in a normal discussion.

Basically the point is to be funny about it or use it as a generator for a new topic. Skill at conversation is almost topic agnostic. Entertaining people can be entertaining about almost anything.

> Basically the point is to be funny about it or use it as a generator for a new topic.

Again, this does not make sense. The point of an argument over trivia is... being funny? Maybe tell jokes or funny anecdotes instead?

> a generator for a new topic.

"Hey Reilly, (what did you do this weekend|how did the trip to Yellowstone go|how's your kid doing in school)?"

> why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?

Because it's not about getting answers or determining facts. It's about the social interaction.

In my own personal opinion, spending time arguing over who is right is a pretty damned poor form of social interaction.

I never thought of it as arguing over who is right, honestly, because nobody cares who is right. It's more like a puzzle-solving exercise used as grist for the conversational mill.

When i was a witness of such conversations, pretty much everybody tries hard to show that they were right.

Interesting. I guess it just goes to show that not all social groups are the same.

>so why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?

If its a waste of time talking about it why waste time looking it up.

This also ties into the suggestion that our memories are getting worse because of smartphone use. A discussion of who played in a particular role in a movie exercises the neural connections we make between things. They were in that other movie, someone remembers something about an interview they were in with something else, etc.

Exactly. It's like that quote about being angry: if it's not something you'll be mad about 6 weeks / 6 months / 6 years from now, why be mad?

Unless it's the point of the conversation, like you're discussing dev salaries and you want to pull up levels.fyi or layoffs.fyi to compare, who cares? Will anyone be better off if they knew which actor you were talking about 6 weeks from now? Meanwhile once I heard about levels.fyi I've been checking it compulsively every month since then...

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