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Comment by raincole | Hacker News Reader

> I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask

This is an eye-opening sentence. It's quite hard to imagine how to live one's daily life with "few questions to ask." Perhaps this is a neurodivergent thing?

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I meant mostly in the context of daily life tasks as a person with ADHD - so maybe a hair neurodivergent. My issue isn't that I don't wonder things, it is that indulging the wonder would interrupt me from accomplishing almost anything. I would not very highly functioning if I allowed for non-critical thoughts to interrupt the flow. When outside of trying to do specific things and in less focus-dependent tasks, I absolutely wonder and google and get lost on weird random topics.

I think I probably could have worded it more as "I rarely have questions worth knowing the answer to", where the cost of knowing answers is tied to the following rabbit holes and delays/forgotten tasks.

I always ponder how many people have a refrigerator in their home their entire life, and what percentage of them don't know how it works.

I've asked several gfs, and they don't have even a hint of how it works. Guy friends do a bit better but not as well as you'd think.

So yes, people live their entire lives not asking obvious questions.

some of us have other things to do

Obviously we have infinite things to do. But we also waste a shocking about of time on random leisure and braindead nonsense. The interesting part to me is that we obviously do 'must do' and 'should do' and even 'want to do' things before we utterly waste time.

I'm just shocked that "learn how this important object in my home works" is not somewhere on either of those 3 lists.

I’d bet it’s 1 in 10, I doubt I would know the answer if I didn’t work in an HVAC adjacent field.

The answer is ‘vapor compression cycle’ which consists of a condenser, evaporator, compressor, and expansion valve along with some tubing and a refrigerant. The cycle is compressor -> evaporator -> expansion valve -> condenser and then the cycle repeats. The refrigerant absorbs heat in the evaporator and rejects it through the condenser.

Correct, and that's more detailed than I'd even expect. I'd be satisfied with "I think it has something to do with the rule we learn in physics or chemistry about gasses warming up and cooling down when compressed and decompressed. So a gas gets squeezed, cooled down, and let out and it's even cooler then".

Sometimes I wonder how much more interesting school would be if it just explained how everything works instead of random concepts no one remembers apparently long enough to tie to objects in their life.

I'm autistic and I probably ask many more questions than most people.

I would also argue that ND people seem to be the heavier AI users, at least in my experience. Its a bit like the stereotypical 'wikipedia deep dive' but 10x.

Don’t try and diagnose people like this please. Even if you’re qualified, and I doubt you are, it’s very insensitive.

Oh what a blissful environment the mind that is not full of constant questions begging to be answered and explored must be.

I'll just be over here, floating (often treading water) in a raging river of "what ifs ...", "I wonder ifs..." And, "Hmmms?"

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