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Comment by yjftsjthsd-h | Hacker News Reader

Now in fairness, some of these are fair; having to pass capchas is a pain. But more are self inflicted; nothing makes you hit reply. And some...

> I can remember a time when it was considered ungentlemanly to check the factual accuracy of a statement made by a drinking companion. You were just meant to counter their argument by presenting specious facts of your own.

Really? Your objection to technology is that people suddenly have to contend with accurate information!?

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I don't know you're old enough to remember this (or if you swung in those circles) but 30 years ago if you went to the pub you were swimming in a sea of unverifiable half-baked facts. If someone asserted, for example, that kangaroos had fighting fangs and you countered with, "no, that's the llamas" the truth could only be found after a hard crawl across time and space to a physical library. It was a vastly imperfect system, but at the end of the day, lack of that answer was harmless and it meant there was something to fill up the conversation. In fact, I'll tell you this with full confidence and politely not google it: The Guiness Book of World Records was created to fill just that niche, because the people who first noticed this phenomenon were working for a beer company.

'30 years ago if you went to the pub you were swimming in a sea of unverifiable half-baked facts..'

30 years ago this was limited to pubs though.

And, even today, the most renowned restaurant guide is a tyre manufacturer.

> 30 years ago if you went to the pub you were swimming in a sea of unverifiable half-baked facts

Now, the Internet is a vast sea of half-baked facts with millions of echo chambers that discourage verification.

Do note that the entire article is written in a humorous tone. I don't think the author is trying to take this deadly seriously.

Concur, I think the subtext is that polite (gentlemanly) company focuses on the conversation and not technology.

I've felt this way for a long time, but for a slightly different reason.

I like talking to my friends, I like intimate conversations. When a question comes up I don't really want the answer. Sure truth and facts are nice, but what I want is to hear what someone else thinks about the topic. Taking out a phone and searching for the answer doesn't just resolve the dispute, it breaks the person's train of thought and stops their mind from wandering to new places.

Remembering, explaining, and occasionally bluffing, is a lost art. It used to get me pretty far, being able to recall things and infer things and connect things, using only what was in my head when the moment presented itself.

Nowadays, outside of a Jeopardy! stage, when does anyone even need a memory?

To remember what they don't know and how to Google it

The Guinness book of records was specifically designed to settle pub debates. I'm sure people at the time has similar reactions.

I think it’s more that it used to be conversations were about emotional release, social dynamics, and general bullshitting, rather than rigorous fact checking and court room like adherence to rules of evidence.

Which hey, I get. Been there, done that.

Personally, the reason I did it (and ended up stopping) was due to persistent narcissistic abuse, and attempting to stop/control it without being able to leave - and later (after a lot of therapy) realizing i could just have listened to my gut 90% of the time, and just left/or not listened.

Turns out, PTSD and social conditioning is a bitch though.

Yes. It's unwanted in some situations. A fun debate turned into a tiresome recital of Wikipedia. Thanks internet.

yes! theres no discussions, or trying to figure something together and all little fun that can come out of it

Exactly. The instant someone turns to their phone to check something, it ruins the conversation completely. The whole point is the conversation, the banter, the talking; not on the factual accuracy of some trivial thing.

The problem I find is that the people I "argue" with often have no interest in the facts. Just this morning a friend on FB said the Biden administration has "devoted himself to undoing the everything that the previous administration did"

I replied with the below, and I expect to hear nothing back.

> I'm super curious about that claim: apart from undoing things like detaining families and children, what would you say the current administration has done to "undo" something the previous administration did? I'm especially curious if you think these were "undoing" acts of the previous admin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Rescue_Plan_Act_of_20... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Safer_Communities_A... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act

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