this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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Is "Figure it out yourself" pretty much a tactical retreat? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Weird question, maybe pointless, and yeah, kinda petty I will admit, but eh, there's no stupid questions and I kinda got curious after an interaction (see after the dots if your curious).

IDK, everytime someone hits someone else with "figure it out yourself" to a question, all I hear is: "There's nothing to figure out, but I'm just gonna disengage while trying to save face". Of course, it's not for 100% of cases, but I mean, if you can't even muster up a basic laconic explanation, and instead go "figure it out" to a question that's being sincerely asked....IDK, man, it really makes you think on who needs to figure what out lol

Is that just me or nah?

......................................................

Some background: I made the mistake of actually engaging with a Youtube comment today. I know, I know, rookie mistake, but some of them can lead to intetesting convos. It basically went something like this:

Random: (talking about Baldur's Gate 3's Character Creator) It's 2023, a game shouldn't need modders to add things you can do in unmodded Skyrim. They failed

Me: There's a lotta things you can do here that you can't do in Skyrim and vice versa, not just in character creation. That's...kinda normal, so what's the problem here?

Random: I like how you say BG3's character creator's better but never offered any examples. Continue to not understand basic concepts.

Me: Listen. I'm not picking a fight, just trying to understand the complaints here. Also, never said it was better, just that there are things that you can't do in Skyrim that you can in BG3 and vice versa. But if you want a list on things you can do: gives list and other examples, even on what you can do in Skyrim but not in BG3's CC. There's differences, but yeah, not every game's gonna try and emulate Skyrim or Witcher "but better" (and even if they do, they'll always be something they won't do as well).

Random: your opinion is subjective, so is mine. I dismiss your points and subjectively choose mine.

Me: And that's valid, man! Hey, so, about those basic concepts i couldn't get, what exactly were they?

Random: figure it out yourself

...............................

I did say it was petty lmao

all 22 comments
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[–] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Either "I believe in you. You can do it!"

or

"I don't have the time or crayons to explain it to you right now and you would probably eat the crayons."

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Even the "I believe in you" could seem kinda like the second one lol

You're probably right that it can depend on the context (I even stated it myself), I've just never seen a "kind" "Figure it out for yourself" in the wild. IDK, I'm the type to explain it even if it's stupid obvious, unless it's something like "why is everyone mean to me after i insulted them and the thing they liked?" where it's very obviously a troll, then I'll be snarky and go "you tell me"

[–] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It would heavily depend on the context, I think. The biggest question that would need to be answered is, is the other person engaging in good faith? Or is he trying to troll?

If he's trolling, he may be trying to do a Gish Gallop, where he constantly brings up vague and untrue points in the hopes that you eventually burn yourself out trying to figure out what he's talking about.

If he's not trying to troll, then maybe he thinks you're trying to sea lion, where someone constantly asks questions in the hopes of burning someone else out.

Otherwise, if it's in an educational context, he's expecting that you can figure it out and that doing so will help your comprehension of the material. It's probably not this.

Based on what you write, I would lean toward that the other person is not engaging in good faith. That being said, without seeing the full context, I cannot fully say that it's not that you're the engaging in bad faith (people do tend to romanticize their one side, after all)

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Huh, today I learned about sea lioning. Neat!

I agree that people tend to romanticize thier side, even without meaning to sometimes. In this case, I was honestly just confused about the complaints, and when I basically got told I didn't get some basic concept (no other info as to what said basic concept was), i was like "he's probably doing this in bad faith but you never know" because hey, maybe I did miss something. I'm not perfect. So I stressed that i wasn't trying to be a smartass or pick a fight while commenting. Still got told to figure it out when trying to ask for clarification and leaving on a civil note. shrug

I could even link ya the video where I commented so the context is shown

[–] livus@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You've got to see how sealioning got its name!

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Now that's art, if I do say so myself

[–] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

You officially exhausted him with your exchange. I become equally dismissive once I'm 4 comments back and forth with a stranger.

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In this case, I think your interpretation (“I’m just gonna disengage while trying to save face”) is spot on.

I can see it going the other way, though. I might finally respond with “figure it out for yourself” after a sealioning pedant has exhausted me, and I would rather end the conversation than explain my point for the third or fourth time.

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As far as I'm aware, I think just walking away from a sea lion is the best course of action. Except, well, I wasn't sealioning.

I gave him the chance to explain what I was missing was ONCE(and literally going "I'm not picking a fight or being a smartass, just curious of where my screwup was"), and he just threw "figure it out" at me ...tbf, I did basically prove his original statement wrong, so it could've been that

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Oh, no, I didn’t think you were sealioning, either, although reading my comment again I see how it could look that way. If anything, I think they were trying to do it to you.

When I wrote my comment, I imagined the second paragraph was describing a totally different, unrelated, hypothetical conversation with some random troll. I imagined myself saying “figure it out for yourself” to them, not you. Sorry for the confusion.

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, worries, nothing to apologize for, honestly!

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Cool, thanks!

[–] Peruvian_Skies@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The flipside is that unless you're hired to be someone's teacher, nobody is obligated to explain things to anybody else. There are also "the journey is the destination" type questions where the answer doesn't matter as much as the process of figuring it out yourself. Like science experiments in school where the answer is already known and the point is to teach kids certain ways of thinking or how to use certain tools. So yeah, there are legitimate reasons to say that, but a lot of the time it is indeed a cop-out. And your example is absolutely one of those times.

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

This is the best explanation of the reasoning behind “it’s not my job to teach you” that I’ve seen.

I’ve usually come across it in angry or condescending conversations (and rightfully so, in my opinion) when people aren’t at their best. It’s nice to see a response that’s unemotional yet sincere.

[–] jocanib@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's only so much time in the day. And far too easy to waste it arguing pointless things with random strangers on the internet.

In this case, their motive does not matter. They did you a favour shutting it down before you wasted any more time thinking about something that does not matter at all.

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Fair enough, that's one way to look at it. It is also very easy to waste too much energy on pointless arguing.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, that's them saying they are done with the conversation.

That said, I've seen people open with it as an argument here on Lemmy, so what you went through seems tame.

[–] ThatWeirdGuy1001@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I only use it when people ask me for sources that are readily available through any search engine. Like bruh I'm not filling an entire comment with hyperlinks when you can just switch apps and find all of them

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but I've also seen in cases where I've provided sources and the other person says to do my own research even after providing resources.

[–] ThatWeirdGuy1001@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah that happens a lot on TikTok. I replied to a guy and gave him multiple sources and he just kept acting like they weren't right there

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Oh, I'm more than sure this like, a hard two on the scale of "how wild a situation this can devolve into", but opening as an argument...i mean, is that even an arguement/discussion at that point? (Unless it's throwing it down when someone shows up to debate you without doing basic research like thatweirdguy1001 commented. That i can understand)