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An edit of xkcd 2501, “Average Familiarity”:
[Ponytail and Cueball are talking. Ponytail has her hand raised, palm up, towards Cueball.]
Ponytail: Open-source alternatives are second nature to us foss nerds, so it’s easy to forget that the average person probably only knows Linux and one or two degoogled Android ROMs.
Cueball: And Firefox, of course.
Ponytail: Of course.
[Caption below the panel]
Even when they’re trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person’s familiarity with their field.
partly inspired by the replies to this post but i see this kind of thing all the time (shoutout to the person who once genuinely asked “who still uses google these days?”)
made with this neat tool
If I immediately searched for an answer to every question that pops into my head, I would never have time to do anything else. I’ve lost days at a time going down rabbit holes.
On the other hand, asking a question in the comments contributes to the discussion, gives the OP a chance to elaborate from their point of view, and leaves the answer out the for any other passersby who might not be curious enough to search for it anyway.
One could certainly find more detailed and accurate information by searching for it, but that’s a thread that just keeps on pulling, and sometimes I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to read twenty different websites to put together the details into a holistic picture while sorting through all the BS. And getting someone’s personal take on it is something a search engine can’t emulate (unless it shows you reddit results, which originated in other people’s exchanges, and lately reddit has been blocking the connection anyway)
Feels like you are responding to a discussion about a much deeper topic. When one doesn’t know what a word means, it doesn’t mean they need to go down a rabbit hole or make a whole research paper about it. A quick definition or wiki search is much quicker than writing the question on a forum.
Would it really be a contribution from me and an opportunity for you to elaborate from your point of view if I asked right now what’s reddit? I don’t see it.