I’ve always been a “lurker” on all platforms and communities because when I do have a question or would like to contribute my first thought has become:
Actually, let me google it first
In which case I’ll usually have some answer. Usually it isn’t a complete answer but enough for me to not want to share my question anymore.
Googling something is probably the most efficient way to find an answer, in the same way that flavorless nutrient shakes are probably the most efficient way to fuel your body. Asking questions and conversing about the answers is fun. It’s madness to abandon an entire genre of human conversation just because some search engine exists.
There’s also the benefit of discussion. You can find perspective on information which is arguably just as valuable as the information itself. Wisdom isn’t just knowing the facts but understanding them in practice and in proximity to other facts.
The problem with this mantra for me is that in a discussion, I don’t want to know what website x thinks the definition or answer is, I want to know what you think it is. If the term/issue is uncontroversial then googling is fine, but if it’s vague, confusing or has different interpretations, Google could make things worse.
E.g. someone complains that cultural marxism is bringing down western civilization. I could Google this and find out it’s an antisemitic conspiracy theory espoused by the Nazis and now the American right. But will this definition help me understand the person I’m talking to and what they mean? Will it help the conversation? Absolutely not.
But if I asked, “what do you mean by that” nd the person responded, e.g. “how the left is pushing diversity in society against the will of ordinary people” (or whatever), then we can have an actual conversation about what is bothering this person.
Why I started to ask those questions here. And I have gotten back way better responses than I ever gotten from a Google search.
antisemitic conspiracy theory espoused by the Nazis and now the American right. But will this definition help me understand the person
Well… If you know where someone is getting their information, it actually does say a lot about a person.
When I run across an argument like that, I know to back out of it and reassess if it’s worth it in the first place.
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Yeah I get that people use it that way but what if you actually want a discussion? Gets a bit tiresome to be accused of “letting them spew hatred” when if you actually want them to stop spewing hatred, a conversation with actual understanding is necessary, imo. Or at least the best way I know of
>google question >reddit thread with exact question as title >one comment >”just google it”
Maybe. It does bother me when I see people complain about posts where the person asks a really basic question and someone gives a few words in snide response like, “Google much?” and don’t actually answer the question. At the same time, some questions being asked could honestly be answered with a simple Google search, I just don’t know what the cutoff is. Sometimes you can get better responses in the comments than you would with a Google search, or the Google searches themselves will just turn up Reddit comments where somebody else asked the same question once upon a time. I think it does help to refresh the information sometimes, rather than just relying on Google Searches for information, sometimes you get actual real-world experts chiming in like, “Yeah, everybody thinks it’s A, but actually it’s B because of X, Y, and Z, it’s a common mistake that alot of people make.” So I’ll usually err on the side of just let ask whatever they want to, no matter how basic a question.
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Google has really gone to shit. “2009 Eurovision winner”. 3 pages of the 2033 Eurovision winner.
Same with Google maps. “Pyramids of Giza”, shows pyramids bar in London.
Why are you not placing bets on who the 2033 winner will be with your prescient searching
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Bit harsh.
The real irony is that, for a number of questions, the “answer” was either in StackOverflow or one of its similar sites, or in Reddit
Or more infuriating is when I AM searching Google and the results bring me to some asshat saying “Just google it bruh.”
At my work we usually debate ad nauseam until one, both, or all of us suddenly remember that we have all the wealth of mankind’s knowledge at our finger tips and then we Google.
…then we inevitably complain about the lack of internet in our office, agree to disagree and then forget what we were discussing as we move onto another debatable topic.
I do google a lot of stuff before bringing it up in a conversation, just to be sure I’m not making stuff up, even if it’s something I’ve looked up 100 times
Just chatgpt it
Whenever I debate for fun with some friends we kinda have this unspoken agreement of googling is cheating.
This is so true, I haven’t asked question on stack overflow for a long time because often I find the answer by myself or by googling it. On rare occasions I asked it gets closed as duplicate of barely related question that doesn’t answer my question or I get no answers.
I rarely tell people to just Google something, and when I do it’s usually in addition to me giving an explanation, telling them exactly what to google and which results to look for, and it’s to provide additional examples or visual references of the thing I just explained after I have vetted those google results myself.
I’d generally rather participate in the conversation and help make someone into one of today’s “lucky 10,000” (I’m gonna be an asshole and tell you to google that and click the link to XKCD if you don’t get the reference)
But some of the things that people will turn to reddit (and now probably now Lemmy,) yahoo answers (is that still a thing?) Facebook, etc. instead of just googling does baffle me sometimes. One example that bugs me whenever there’s an election coming up, is people on Facebook asking about voting - where their polling place is, how to register, when the deadline for mail-in ballots is, etc. It’s all pretty straightforward information that shouldn’t need a whole lot of explaining, and is very easily Google-able. Half the time you don’t even need to click a link and the information is right there on the Google result page. And don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re showing interest and wanting to participate in democracy, but it does worry me a little because if they can’t even research that much themselves, how much research are they going to put into the candidates and issues to make an informed decision?
Personally I like to google things, I like going on my own personal little journey of discovery and falling down a rabbit hole clicking links and learning more about everything. I love having so much information at my fingertips and my first instinct when I encounter something I don’t know, or am curious about, etc. is to start googling it. It’s wild to me that not everyone has that same little spark of curiosity driving them to learn more as quickly as possible and would rather ask a question and have to wait for an answer. I also like sharing that knowledge, there have been times I’ve seen someone ask a question online, thought it was a good question so I googled it myself and shared what I came up with, but it still kind of burned at the back of my mind “why didn’t they Google it themselves?”
There are some things you cannot simply “google”. As a straight man, define “queer” to me about 5 to 10 years ago. I was on a dating sight and decent amount of women were putting this in their profile. I asked politely. Let me tell ya, it wasn’t a polite response.
Why are questions all of a sudden insults when the person may actually be ignorant and trying to educate themselves?
It’s because there are a great deal of people who will waste others’ time by trolling. There are many communities who have to endure people constantly asking folks to validate why they deserve to exist. Then to those folks there could be a few who may actually be open to conversation but it’s like mining the spam folder for honest messages. If at 10k ft it looks like it could be trolling it’s best for their mental health to just let the folder do what the folder does.
Oh absolutely. But there should be some sort of filter with people. If someone asks “is that a chow in your pic?” it’s not intentionally offensive. They included a picture. A question is harmless if it’s just pure inquisition.
Or, you know, maybe some people are assholes and we should not always look for excuses for them?
You put it on your profile on a dating site, so you should be OK with this as a conversation starter.
For example, I do not wear a Nirvana t-shirt in public because I don’t want some teenagers asking me if I know this great song “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
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There are lots of benefits to lurking. Nobody jumps on you with pedantic bull crap. Nobody tells you to just Google it. Nobody picks at every god damn little picky thing you say. Nobody bothers you. It’s a wonder anybody bothers to post or comment at all. Life is more peaceful for lurkers.
