“I’m not going to educate you” - obnoxious or legit?

[amadeus]

I saw it after I followed a 15? comment Twitter (a platform noted for brevity) thread, and I thought hey, if I don’t know something and I’m sincerely seeking an answer, why keep it a secret?

I’m not saying anyone is obliged to give their answer, but the phrase to me is going out of your way to state that you won’t be helpful.

I vote obnoxious!

 

[Fippy]

Well there's worse on those platforms, so obnoxious sounds a bit dramatic.
I vote for useless chatter

 

[Farm Boy]

Well. Explaining to others complex ideas is one of our species' great strengths. By passing them along, we can make our ideas bigger than ourselves. Or, sometimes, we can make ourselves bigger by keeping ideas for ourselves. Or, maybe we're just exhausted, or maybe we're just being a sphincterhole because we like being sphinterholes. It's Elonmuskface's platform. I vote the last.

 

[Gorbles]

Twitter is a garbage fire by design. The fact that it started off as a way to follow people and only see their content, with Twitter then gradually changing it so you saw more and more of other peoples' content (that you didn't necessarily have an interest in), made it so that users codified decorum relevant pretty much only to Twitter (because of how the platform worked). Kinda similar to Facebook in a way, and we all probably share relatively negative views of that social network these days

So it depends on the context. It depends on how the questions are phrased, how many questions have already been answered, and so on.

For example, my day job is software developer. It isn't "spoonfeed people things they could Google in five minutes". So, like on here, while I will often go to the length of providing articles, sources, citations, etc . . . there's a limit. If I feel like my time is being wasted, I won't bother. If I'm spending too much time doing it, I'll stop bothering. And so on, and so forth.

So my answer is: either / or. I've seen examples of it being used both ways.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Im not going to educate you on why someone forcibly entering your house, tying you to a chair and physically torturing you for 3 days straight is bad

 

[amadeus]

Well there's worse on those platforms, so obnoxious sounds a bit dramatic.

Minutiae is my bread and butter.

Another issue that needs immediate addressing: people stopping on stairs to look at their phone. They are a potential hazard and it should be socially acceptable to shame these people.

Or, sometimes, we can make ourselves bigger by keeping ideas for ourselves.

I think a lot of the time this is what it is.

Twitter is a garbage fire by design.

I'll tell you how I got there: I was on Drudge reading about a Washington Post writer who claimed that Matt Drudge's staff were making threatening phone calls. Followed to the writer's page, then saw a retweet of something else. It was something about the long effects of the coronavirus, and up to the "educate you" point I was 100% on the same page as this lady. And there wasn't anything, any reply, that set this off because it was in the initial thread. So that's the relevant context.

Anyway, I'm thinking more about this exact phrase rather than in your example where somebody demands an answer to an otherwise easily-solvable technical question. A lot of the time I end up googling the answer myself and then giving it back, but also adding that the question (depending on how polite the asker is) has already been solved elsewhere and could be found.

Im not going to educate you on why someone forcibly entering your house, tying you to a chair and physically torturing you for 3 days straight is bad

Thanks! That sounds like it would be unpleasant.

 

[Gorbles]

Anyway, I'm thinking more about this exact phrase rather than in your example where somebody demands an answer to an otherwise easily-solvable technical question. A lot of the time I end up googling the answer myself and then giving it back, but also adding that the question (depending on how polite the asker is) has already been solved elsewhere and could be found.

Everybody uses Twitter differently. For example, my account is private (for a few reasons), and I have a mix of friends and acquaintances that I chat to occasionally, but generally it's for finding out news and sharing it (to the people who are lucky enough to follow me). If someone unfollows me, that's no hassle. They can't re-follow me (because I'm private).

But I'm still not Google. If someone asks for a source, gets it, and then starts to argue with me about the source . . . odds are we're just going to disagree. Or they simply want to disagree regardless of the source. I have a lot of patience for things like this, but not everyone does. Not everyone should have to. The busier someone is, or the more things they have going on, the less time and / or patience they're going to have for even innocent-looking questions. Twitter is such a mess that people will, pre-emptively declare that they won't be fielding questions. Because sometimes that's the only way to free themselves of the social burden of replying to every Tom, Dick and Harry that chooses to demand attention (apologies for folks with those names, it's a language reference).

Twitter isn't an educational platform, right? I think that's a relatively uncontroversial thing to say

And sure, people can be using the phrase to be obnoxious, because they're so assured of their rightness, or whatever. But you can't assume that. So it's kind of a personal decision. Do you assume they have a charitable reason for being stand-offish, or do you assume that they don't? That's the salient choice here, more than the phrase that somebody is using, imo.

 

[amadeus]

Do you assume they have a charitable reason for being stand-offish, or do you assume that they don't? That's the salient choice here, more than the phrase that somebody is using, imo.

I was thinking of my reply when it hit me: I wonder if the number of clicks has anything to do with it. Restricted to 280 characters, each part of the diatribe has to be parsed out and maybe there's a sensation of SO THERE! each time that reply button is pushed, and by post 10 we're riding that high of already batting the previous 9 out of the park.

 

[João III]

It's always come across to me as a rather smug phrase

 

[EgonSpengler]

I vote for "both obnoxious and legit." I think there are topics and conversations that rely on a common understanding of some foundational knowledge or experience or whatever. I've had conversations with people where I've found myself thinking that the person I'm talking to just doesn't have the background to understand what I'm saying, but I can't provide them that background. But throwing a person's ignorance of a topic in their face, or being dismissive of them because of it, is obnoxious.

I'm reminded of an episode of a hospital drama I used to watch when a doctor - I think it was Dr. Foreman in House - was advising the parents of a patient to authorize a procedure, and he said something like, "look, I can't explain to you why this surgery I'm proposing is the best thing for your child. I went to medical school and did a residency to learn why it's the best thing to do right now, and you don't have time for that." The urgency of the situation demanded that level of bluntness. Conversations on Twitter or a forum like this one mostly don't.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

seems to be a trolling comment in most cases, unless said in the context of "it's a major hassle to explain this yet again, so look at the guide in the sidebar" or something along those lines.

in the context of game threads on reddit, for example, you see a player make a low-effort general request for strategy/telling them how to play. a quick search would yield hundreds of the same question, for games more than a few years old. on a forum where good players have written guides with links the person could have clicked on and read already present.

"why am i struggling" as a question by itself is common and annoying on these forums. you're struggling because you don't know how to identify your mistakes, random poster, and you will keep struggling because you also aren't bothering to present any information that could let other people identify them for you.

 

[amadeus]

I think there are topics and conversations that rely on a common understanding of some foundational knowledge or experience or whatever.

I was reading a Japanese law site a few days ago when I found this case of a hotel suing a patron for damages. What happened? The patron used the electric kettle in the room, not for coffee, not for tea, but to boil a crab. An attorney consulted on the matter stated that the common understanding of the kettle is to boil water, not marine life, and it would not be out of line for the hotel to demand payment for the lost revenue as a result of having to clean the crab smell out of the room.

 

[EgonSpengler]

seems to be a trolling comment in most cases, unless said in the context of "it's a major hassle to explain this yet again, so look at the guide in the sidebar" or something along those lines.

in the context of game threads on reddit, for example, you see a player make a low-effort general request for strategy/telling them how to play. a quick search would yield hundreds of the same question, for games more than a few years old. on a forum where good players have written guides with links the person could have clicked on and read already present.

"why am i struggling" as a question by itself is common and annoying on these forums. you're struggling because you don't know how to identify your mistakes, random poster, and you will keep struggling because you also aren't bothering to present any information that could let other people identify them for you.

That's true, any time "I'm not going to educate you" is meant to mean, "I'm not going to do the work for you", I would say it's legit. (Again, it might also be obnoxious, depending on how it's phrased.)

I was reading a Japanese law site a few days ago when I found this case of a hotel suing a patron for damages. What happened? The patron used the electric kettle in the room, not for coffee, not for tea, but to boil a crab. An attorney consulted on the matter stated that the common understanding of the kettle is to boil water, not marine life, and it would not be out of line for the hotel to demand payment for the lost revenue as a result of having to clean the crab smell out of the room.

I would imagine that not leaving a hotel room in an uninhabitable state would have been the point of that suit, even if the guest had used a pot designed for cooking seafood. That the person "MacGyvered" a tea kettle doesn't really seem to be the problem there.

 

[Kyriakos]

It depends?

No, I am joking. I find the phrasing to be obnoxious. If they can help you with something, they aren't helping by starting with a put-down (though, in theory, they might have been using the term in a humorous manner).

 

[CKS]

I'm reminded of an episode of a hospital drama I used to watch when a doctor - I think it was Dr. Foreman in House - was advising the parents of a patient to authorize a procedure, and he said something like, "look, I can't explain to you why this surgery I'm proposing is the best thing for your child. I went to medical school and did a residency to learn why it's the best thing to do right now, and you don't have time for that."

If a doctor can't explain why a procedure is necessary, then they are lousy at their job. It doesn't take long to say here is the problem, this is how we fix it, data show the outcome is better this way than with that other choice. Patients don't need to know how to do the procedure, just that it is the correct one. (Presumably the doctor learned how to do things, not just why they should be done, during med school and his residency.)

Another issue that needs immediate addressing: people stopping on stairs to look at their phone. They are a potential hazard and it should be socially acceptable to shame these people.

Just think of what would happen if they didn't stop to look at their phone. Then they'd be lying on the steps, or rolling down them. That would be a much bigger hazard.

"I'm not going to educate you" is obnoxious. Personally, I find it more obnoxious than RTFM. Over the internet, if one does not wish to participate in the education of someone else, one should just disengage. This is sometimes more awkward in person, though.

 

[EgonSpengler]

If a doctor can't explain why a procedure is necessary, then they are lousy at their job. It doesn't take long to say here is the problem, this is how we fix it, data show the outcome is better this way than with that other choice. Patients don't need to know how to do the procedure, just that it is the correct one. (Presumably the doctor learned how to do things, not just why they should be done, during med school and his residency.)

So you can't imagine a scenario in which an expert in a complex and demanding field says "this is your best option, it's very complicated to explain why it's the best option, and you don't have the educational foundation to really understand it"? No, doctors aren't just there to do the procedure, they're also there to tell us what the best course of action is, when the choices and consequences are beyond our own understanding. Same with a lot of professions. Mechanics and plumbers aren't just people who've invested in buying tools, they're also experts.

 

[Gori the Grey]

obnoxious

 

[warpus]

If somebody's being a jerk and is ignoring points I am making, but they continue asking questions in a roundabout way in a "gotcha" kind of way, then yeah, I might very well tell them that I'm not going to answer any more of their questions, and they can educate themselves on this subject if they ever want to hold a civilized conversation about it. But that's kind of a last resort.

If somebody says that in the middle of a normal civilized exchange of ideas, then they are being the douche.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So you can't imagine a scenario in which an expert in a complex and demanding field says "this is your best option, it's very complicated to explain why it's the best option, and you don't have the educational foundation to really understand it"? No, doctors aren't just there to do the procedure, they're also there to tell us what the best course of action is, when the choices and consequences are beyond our own understanding. Same with a lot of professions. Mechanics and plumbers aren't just people who've invested in buying tools, they're also experts.

i think in the case of doctor/patient relationship if the patient wants to know the reasoning for something being the best option, then medical ethics demands the physician at least try. but at some point the thing can be too complex or too time consuming for still trying to make sense. if someone is going to die or suffer permanent damage from a stroke in the next 30 minutes, it probably isn't the best time to be debating the merits of preventing that damage.

 

[EgonSpengler]

i think in the case of doctor/patient relationship if the patient wants to know the reasoning for something being the best option, then medical ethics demands the physician at least try. but at some point the thing can be too complex or too time consuming for still trying to make sense. if someone is going to die or suffer permanent damage from a stroke in the next 30 minutes, it probably isn't the best time to be debating the merits of preventing that damage.

Right, exactly. In the context of a Twitter or forum thread, that kind of urgency is unlikely. (In fact, in the case of medical care, that kind of urgency probably doesn't happen as often as it does in tv shows, which make every situation as critical as possible, for the sake of drama.)