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Comment by jrumbut | Hacker News Reader

I'm so sorry but this one is nails on a chalkboard for me.

My family collected reference books but they would still do this. I would spend entire holidays sitting there and listening to them debate whether Mack the Knife was still #1 on the charts on January 1st, 1960. I never heard anyone listen to Bobby Darin ever, but his career was discussed ad nauseam.

Just look it up or move on! It's the conversation equivalent of a rain delay.

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Oof, this makes me sad. Sure it's always good to have the facts at hand if actually necessary, but open discussion is great and sorely missing from a lot of modern interactions.

It's not open discussion though. All avenues are closed except ones that can lead to figuring out a piece of trivia about someone who isn't there!

I guess it works if everyone is equally into a subject but that's pretty rare and by this point I've been put out by it so many times even if I am interested, I'm not interested.

The unknown isn't something to be scared of. It's alright if something isn't settled in stone, you don't need to resolve every little question. You don't even need to resolve the big ones!

> you don't need to resolve every little question.

Then why do you want to argue about it?

I just don't want conversations to grind to a halt to figure out a piece of trivia, moving on is fine as is looking it up.

Eh, the fact a phone can resolve the question of whether Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs was released first doesn't stop us discussing which is the better film.

I'm sorry but this is fantastically funny. I really enjoyed your comment and the way it is written.

I'm the sort of person to argue about which sportsperson was better than which other. The stats are just the stats.

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