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What are some things you do to check yourself from being a 'know it all'? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by Daft_ish to c/asklemmy

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

One of my pet peeves is when I ask a question of someone, and they reinterpret my question (without communicating that reinterpretation), then give me the answer to THEIR question.

Not quite the same thing, but relatively similar. It irks me to no end when I ask a question that has some (either explicitly stated or—at least I thought—implicitly stated) elements that I understand. And then people answer the question by re-explaining the thing that I already understand. Sometimes they leave it there and the answer is completely useless. Sometimes they then move on to help explain the part I wanted help with, in which case I usually just try to move on, but that irking is still there in the back of my mind. Happened to me recently enough on this site to have immediately jumped to the front of my mind again when I read your comment, every single one of the answers provided rehashing what I thought were 101 elements I had demonstrated an understanding of in the wording of my question. Most at least moved on from that 101-level to provide helpful answers.

I allow for the possibility that their question IS the right question and give them their answer immediately, even though all of the conversation context suggests they’re not interested in the plane departure, but instead my travel plans

The second part of this is called a "frame challenge", in the sense that they've "framed" the question as "when does the plane leave", but you're challenging that because you think they mean "when do you leave". I like to explicitly tell them I'm frame challenging, if I recognise that that's what I've done. I like to think it lets them know "hey, this person thinks they're helping even though they aren't directly answering, but feel free to ignore it or clarify if they've made a mistake". It's also handy because in more complicated situations it can get the querant to reevaluate what they really want, because they may have just assumed they needed something particular that they actually didn't need.

[–] partial_accumen 6 points 9 months ago

Not quite the same thing, but relatively similar. It irks me to no end when I ask a question that has some (either explicitly stated or—at least I thought—implicitly stated) elements that I understand. And then people answer the question by re-explaining the thing that I already understand.

This one doesn't bother me as much most of the time. Some people brains work differently and what you're describing I've seen with two different thinking patterns:

The person is "showing their work" to make sure you both agree with the premise and supporting arguments.
The person is actively thinking through it out loud as a method to process your question.

However, if they get to the end of their re-explaining, and still haven't answered your initial question, then they can be pressed or guided into it. Sometimes you have to give an obvious wrong answer for them to contradict. "So are you saying the observer experiences no elapsed time relative to the traveler at the speed of light?"

I like to think it lets them know “hey, this person thinks they’re helping even though they aren’t directly answering, but feel free to ignore it or clarify if they’ve made a mistake”.

I try to accomplish the same thing by just giving them the explicit answer they asked for up front.