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Why Do People Ask Stupid Questions?
Leodious
Member UncommonPosts: 773
Something has been eating at me lately.
Why do so many people ask stupid questions on forums without looking through stickies first, or even doing a simple internet search for their information? It seems to me it would be faster and easier to do those things before asking a question like, "Where is the option to change the antialiasing?" or, "How do I log in to the game?" or, "Is it possible to have two crafting skills?" or any such question.
These are basic questions that are probably in a FAQ and have probably been asked before, but people (most especially in the forum for the game itself, and less often on sites like MMORPG) still ask the questions in the forums, leading to hundreds of threads on the same topic.
Curious.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Comments
That's life man. I wouldn't say they are stupid, they are just not aware (or lazy). So why not help them out and then teach them what to do next time they have a problem. Pretty simple on our part right?
-In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08-
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True enough, and I usually do tell them the answer if I know it...but it gets old. I was just wondering if anyone knew something about psychologial reasons that people would be more inclined to ask a question and sit and wait rather that take a few moments to look it up on their own. I don't understand the reasoning.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Because some people just enjoy being stupid and helpless, that they need someone else to hold their hands, even on a forum.
Yeah life is soo much easier when you realize a google search can answer most questions in a couple of minutes.
It's actually a smart question: The opportunity cost of getting off one's ass, or doing research to obtain an answer is saved.
So, the person that actually answers it must be the stupid one, since he invested his own time to benefit the person he deems stupid.
Oh wait......DOH
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Want to know the irony of that question? This thread is a duplicate of threads asking the same thing.
Here is my answer. My cousin and I both bought the same game. We go online and start playing together. "Hey man how do I turn pull up my log book?" I respond "Press L." A short while later "How do I pull up my deed book?" I respond "Press shift-L." After that he asks "How do I turn off my helmet?" I respond "type /helmet off." Even after that he asks "How do I jump?" I respond "Press spacebar." Then later after that he asks "How do I get my tradeskill book to come up?" I respond "Did you read the manual?" He says "No." I say "Why not." He says "Because I know you will read it and then all I have to do is ask you."
This is why there are stupid questions. Because people know other people will read the manual or whatever and have the answers. Then all they have to do is ask. Its up to us to stop answering so that they can stop asking stupid questions.
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
What if perchance there is no manual.
I think some people don't feel very resourceful, ive experienced it with real life situations a million times. A lot of people don't know where to look for information, and in turn they feel defeated and generally never learn. My mother and my girlfriend are like this ( shhh didn't hear that from me ), and no matter how many times i try to "teach them how to fish" it rarely sticks.
However, purely a stereotype ive conjured up, it seems to me that a larger percentage of younger folk have a "hold my hand" type attitude first. This is based solely on my experiences in MMO's where I help quite a younger person once, and every time they do anything they ask me how, to the point I end up ignoring at them or blowing up at them unfortunately. "Read the quest log"
Also id like to add, I recently started playing Quake Wars the beta, and I went into the options and could not for the life of me see any options to change the graphics. I was into the options bar, searched around for a good ten minutes and thought to myself "geez would they really release a beta without video optimization?". I even considered posting in the forum to ask where on earth I could do this, luckily I didn't....That same day I went into the options again, and noticed up top there were tabs to go to different options, I felt like a complete a#$ to not have seen them.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in numbers."
Have you seen the majority of people that hang out in internet forums? They're idiots. Case closed.
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Let's all hug democracy.
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I believe it's because some folks have an inate want to not do anything for themselves when they can use others to do it.
Mostly seem in childish minds, it can progress to adulthood and thats where it gets fun.
Not saying that ALL these folks are like that, but i swear as a kid my buddies did the same thing as they do now except now instead of "How do you use special attack" for rayearth it's "Dude how do I do my taxes?".
Some folks have a helpless mentality, and some folks assist in enabling them to do it.
It's odd, but not uncommon in the real world, I'd expect it to be worse ten fold on the internet where it's hard to feel dumb unless they know you directly.
You should google your own question!
You should google your own question!
But at this point wouldn't he just google it and get our responses.