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Comment by atdt | Hacker News Reader

To echo a comment I made a couple of months ago: "why not simply..." is a way of thinking out loud and providing an opening for someone more knowledgeable to explain what is being overlooked. It makes for interesting threads.

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I've found that some interpret "Why not ..." in a way that puts them on the defensive, which is almost never my intent. To avoid this, I tend to use "Would it work to ..." instead.

"Would it work" sounds like you are on the same team as the other party and trying to concede something with them. I think that's why it's received better than "Why not" which sounds like you are surprised and don't understand why the other party doesn't want to use your solution or worse it suggests that you think the other party is stupid and it's not understandable why they use another solution but you are sill trying not to say it out loud in suggesting the good solution.

Pretty sure there are subtle differences between speakers of different languages once English is translated/understood.

I found that "have you considered" is better at communicating a genuine intent. It avoids painting the original problem as trivial ("simply"), doesn't imply that it's a new idea, and in the case where it is new to them it gives them space to explore with it instead of being forced into a defensive position.

I like "what would happen if we" in a team situation.

> I found that "have you considered" is better at communicating a genuine intent.

Be careful about your tone or this will be far worse than "why not simply?" ever could be.

It’s interesting to me that this works for you. The way I understand English, the “simply” makes the question rhetorical and implies that you’re about to enlighten the person you’re talking to with something obvious that they’ve missed, which generally gets people’s hackles up and provides adversarial answers

I’d imagine the context you use it in matters a lot, especially if you follow it up with another question or a clarification (e.g. “I’m genuinely asking”/“I’m really not sure”), but if I wanted to express the meaning you’re using it for, I might just leave out the simply, or if I wanted to it come across less confrontationally, phrase it sans the “not”, as it’s a little negative

Agreed. I like the use of "why not" as a good faith question for this reason; it's a good segue into an interesting discussion, and there's also the off chance you'll actually produce a novel idea that inspires someone.

I think it works when people speak out loud but it doesn't when it's a written conversation.

"Why not simply" has strong implication that the other party is stupid not being able to come to a "simple" solution.

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