Completely Inconsequential Hot-Takes

[Draconi Redfir]

Asking a question by making a statement, and then adding "correct?" feels like forcing the answer "yes" by default, if the listener isn't particularly assertive.

that's it, that's it exactly. thank you for putting it in words i couldn't.

[Peelee]

Asking a question by making a statement, and then adding "correct?" feels like forcing the answer "yes" by default, if the listener isn't particularly assertive.

It's not forcing but suggesting. Its called a leading question, and it's hardly the only format for it. Aren't there many other ways to ask leading questions?

[Rynjin]

Leading questions like that are useful. Makes it way easier to get straight answers out of people.

"It works exactly like this, correct?" makes people instantly inclined to affirm yes it is or jump to correct you instead of trying to weasel out of a clear answer. Very useful when working with contractors who have a vested interest in ensuring the company they're contracted to stays confused about what they're actually doing so they can milk more development funds.

[veti]

I think it stems from one time where i saw an argument between two people, and one of them was using it to manipulate the other into agreeing with them, like "X is Y right? therefore you agree with me that Y is also Z." or something like that.

"Manipulating someone into agreeing with you", a.k.a. "persuasion", is a perfectly valid use of conversation. It beats "ranting so insistently that no one contradicts you because they don't want to start you off again", which is a more popular alternative.

For the yes/no thing, i think adding a "however" etc extension to it is fine, just so long as the initial question is answered as the intended yes/no.

Like if i ask "Do birds fly?" the correct answer would be "Yes, HOWEVER there are some species such as the ostrich or the kiwi that are flightless due to variable factors"

Depends on context. If, for instance, we're talking about life on other planets, then - sure birds fly on Earth, but they'd have a lot of trouble doing it on Mars. Penguins "fly" through water (or "swim", as it's also called), does that count? Or if you're asking "How can cats possibly be a danger to birds, I mean birds fly, right?", then "yes/no" isn't going to do the job.

Questions that can genuinely be truthfully and clearly answered with "yes/no" are not as common as they seem. Incidentally, they are often also suffixed with "correct?".

Now, getting serious. You can tell we, as humans, are more a danger to ourselves than anything else (save for nature) when we need to create a defensive mechanism for nearly every invention. Parachutes for planes, airbags for cars, vests for bullets, blue light blocking glasses for computer screens (however effective or not they may be).

There are ways to hurt yourself and others using almost anything. That means that most every new invention carries with it a new danger. Bags? Suffocation. Buildings? Heights, collapsing, other hazards. Boats? Sinking. And that's just in the B's.

But the net effect of all those inventions is to prolong our lifespan. We live much longer now than our ancestors did before they had any of those things.

We've grown pretty good at mitigating most of the hazards that have been around for more than a few generations. But it takes a while to understand new technologies and how they can be abused, or unintended latent dangers, so there's a constant game of catchup.

[Draconi Redfir]

"Manipulating someone into agreeing with you", a.k.a. "persuasion", is a perfectly valid use of conversation. It beats "ranting so insistently that no one contradicts you because they don't want to start you off again", which is a more popular alternative.

ehh, politely disagree. To me "Persuasion" is more "Convincing someone". i.e. "Y is Z because of these examples i am listing here" "Oh, i see your point actually, i agree with you that Y is Z"

What i'm thinking of is more "Tricking", like you are wording your phrases in a way to try and force the other party to agree with you, even if they really don't, i.e. "Y is Z." "No, Z is A." "Well, X is Y correct?" "Yes." "And A becomes X through this extended process correct?" "That is correct yes." "Then you agree with me that Y is Z. i win this discussion."

This is not "Persuasion" this is "Manipulation".

[Ionathus]

All persuasion is manipulation.

No, I'm not being coy. That's just how it is. Some manipulation is more subtle, some of it is subconscious, some of it is more socially tolerated. All of it is manipulation, though.

[Rockphed]

ehh, politely disagree. To me "Persuasion" is more "Convincing someone". i.e.
"Y is Z because of these examples i am listing here"
"Oh, i see your point actually, i agree with you that Y is Z"

What i'm thinking of is more "Tricking", like you are wording your phrases in a way to try and force the other party to agree with you, even if they really don't, i.e. "Y is Z."
"No, Z is A."
"Well, X is Y correct?"
"Yes."
"And A becomes X through this extended process correct?"
"That is correct yes."
"Then you agree with me that Y is Z. i win this discussion."

This is not "Persuasion" this is "Manipulation".

Forcing someone to admit against interest is an important part of debate. Forcing someone to pinpoint where in your logic they disagree is part of debate. If you are trying to get a logical answer to a question, then the only way to force someone to explain how their logic differs from yours might well be to ask leading questions along your chain of logic.

Now, you are free to despise the rhetorical device. I also despise quite a few memes and spend a fair bit of time trying to decide how to stamp them out.

Side note: trying to explain axioms and postulates to a 4th grader is hard.

[137beth]

Genuine question:
If we are talking about questions, don't you all agree that the most annoying form of a question is one prefaced by "Genuine question:" ?

Starting a question with "genuine question" is the fastest way to convince me that your question is not genuine and not asked in good faith.

[Fyraltari]

Genuine question:
If we are talking about questions, don't you all agree that the most annoying form of a question is one prefaced by "Genuine question:" ?

Starting a question with "genuine question" is the fastest way to convince me that your question is not genuine and not asked in good faith.

Depends if the question concerns something that is considered common knowledge, it helps clarifying that the questionner is neither joking nor mocking.

[Mx.Silver]

Genuine question:
If we are talking about questions, don't you all agree that the most annoying form of a question is one prefaced by "Genuine question:" ?

Depends if we're counting rhetorical questions. Because I'd say it's not even in the same league as "Am I the only one...".

(I guess you could probably count that as my 'hot take' contribution to the thread, given how pupolar a preface that one's been around these parts )

[Draconi Redfir]

Genuine question:
If we are talking about questions, don't you all agree that the most annoying form of a question is one prefaced by "Genuine question:" ?

Starting a question with "genuine question" is the fastest way to convince me that your question is not genuine and not asked in good faith.

... nah, can't say i agree with you on that one, might be because i'm one of those people who says things like "honest question" before asking a question that is not being asked in bad faith.


For me it's the solution to the "intent/emotion can not be easily determined in text" problem, you just need to do the whole "talk like elcore" thing where you state your intention /emotion at some point before/after your statement or question, like how i'll add "/joke" at the end of sentences that are being posted with the intent of humour, but could be misunderstood as serious. "Peter Griffon is the best father in the world!" sounds like i have a very skewed sense of what a good father is. "Peter Griffon is the best father in the world! /joke" is making it clear that my comment is being made in a joking or sarcastic tone.


It also helps clear the air that what your asking is born purely out of curiosity rather then actual malicious intent. you're not looking to use this information to harm or make fun of anyone, you're just curious and want to know, but if you just asked the question straight-up, then it's possible that people could assume you're being rude about it.

For a forum-appropriate example, if i were to ask an artist "If you had your own personal A.I. art bot, would you use it?" then they might interpret that as me being pro-A.I. art bots and subtly recommending they use it, possibly trying to sell or push one onto them for one reason or another.

if i were to say instead "Honest question; If you had your own personal A.I. art bot, would you use it?" then it's more clear what my intent is, it's purely curiosity and nothing more.


Sometimes you just need to take things at face-value and not look too deep into them.

[AzureViolet]

For me it's the solution to the "intent/emotion can not be easily determined in text" problem, you just need to do the whole "talk like elcore" thing where you state your intention /emotion at some point before/after your statement or question, like how i'll add "/joke" at the end of sentences that are being posted with the intent of humour, but could be misunderstood as serious. "Peter Griffon is the best father in the world!" sounds like i have a very skewed sense of what a good father is. "Peter Griffon is the best father in the world! /joke" is making it clear that my comment is being made in a joking or sarcastic tone.

Ahhh, tone indicators, my beloveds. -v- For a hot take of my own, I really hope that in a couple years or so, tone indicators like "/j" and "/gen" are as well-known and widely-used as, like, LOL and OMG became a decade or two ago. Individual online communities (more specifically, online communities full of people roughly my age whose social lives involve chatrooms and social media as much as face-to-face interaction, if not more) tend to find their own ways of communicating tone, but those don't translate everywhere, and a universal, literal code for "this is the tone attached to this sentence" could solve so many problems. (Instead I usually resort to the wonderful resource that is Discord's custom emojis, but those don't exactly work everywhere either.)

On the other hand, I've also seen people use combinations like "/j /srs" to be silly, and I never know what to make of that.

[TurboGhast]

... nah, can't say i agree with you on that one, might be because i'm one of those people who says things like "honest question" before asking a question that is not being asked in bad faith.


For me it's the solution to the "intent/emotion can not be easily determined in text" problem, you just need to do the whole "talk like elcore" thing where you state your intention /emotion at some point before/after your statement or question, like how i'll add "/joke" at the end of sentences that are being posted with the intent of humour, but could be misunderstood as serious. "Peter Griffon is the best father in the world!" sounds like i have a very skewed sense of what a good father is. "Peter Griffon is the best father in the world! /joke" is making it clear that my comment is being made in a joking or sarcastic tone.


It also helps clear the air that what your asking is born purely out of curiosity rather then actual malicious intent. you're not looking to use this information to harm or make fun of anyone, you're just curious and want to know, but if you just asked the question straight-up, then it's possible that people could assume you're being rude about it.

For a forum-appropriate example, if i were to ask an artist "If you had your own personal A.I. art bot, would you use it?" then they might interpret that as me being pro-A.I. art bots and subtly recommending they use it, possibly trying to sell or push one onto them for one reason or another.

if i were to say instead "Honest question; If you had your own personal A.I. art bot, would you use it?" then it's more clear what my intent is, it's purely curiosity and nothing more.


Sometimes you just need to take things at face-value and not look too deep into them.

I think the cause of annoyance here is that those who ask questions in bad faith want to hide that from others; prefacing a question with "genuine question" is a common strategy for doing so, in order to give asker the opportunity to try and escape getting called out for bad faith by saying that they were just asking a question. That the tactic can cause attempts to signal good faith to fail is another reason it's annoying.

[Draconi Redfir]

i think in those situations you really gotta take them as they come then rather then attaching that stigma to every instance of it.


If i go trick-or-treating at one hundred houses, and one of them is a bad actor and gives me a poison candy as a joke, then that doesn't mean i need to stop trick-or-treating altogether, that wouldn't be fair to the other 99 people participating honestly.

i just need to identify the one bad actor and not go there anymore.

[Rockphed]

I think the cause of annoyance here is that those who ask questions in bad faith want to hide that from others; prefacing a question with "genuine question" is a common strategy for doing so, in order to give asker the opportunity to try and escape getting called out for bad faith by saying that they were just asking a question. That the tactic can cause attempts to signal good faith to fail is another reason it's annoying.

I have literally never encountered that.

[veti]

The most annoying question is the one that takes the form "Who would win out of A vs X?", where A and X are entities from two completely different settings. E.g. "Who would win out of Batman vs Granny Weatherwax?"

Second would be "Is that true?", particularly when being asked of a hypothetical statement about fiction or mythology, although asking it about RL history is possibly even worse in some contexts.

[Rater202]

'Who would win out of Batman vs Granny Weatherwax?"

...damn it. I'm gonna be thinking that over all day.

Definitely a brain tickler, that one.

[Rockphed]

...damn it. I'm gonna be thinking that over all day.

Definitely a brain tickler, that one.

Define "Win". I don't think either of them has anything the other wants and any set-up where they have mutually exclusive goals would have to be incredibly contrived. To top it off, they don't even use the same type of methods to solve problems (Batman tends to beat people up and leave them where the police can find them, Granny gets people to do what she wants with headology), so they wouldn't even fight to sharpen skills.

Which all goes back to the hot-take that trying to compare people from completely different properties is unwise.

[animorte]

Which all goes back to the hot-take that trying to compare people from completely different properties is unwise.

Not only is it unwise, it's much more fun that way; attempting to bridge the gap requires far more effort. As opposed to competing extremely similar concepts from different universes, which always comes down to the one conditional factor that tips the scale.

[Rockphed]

Not only is it unwise, it's much more fun that way; attempting to bridge the gap requires far more effort. As opposed to competing extremely similar concepts from different universes, which always comes down to the one conditional factor that tips the scale.

How different the characters are plays a factor. We could compare Batman and Captain America fairly easily. Beowulf would also have a place in that comparison (albeit he might work better squared off against Aquaman or Thor). But those are all people who mostly fight in a system that works the same way (i.e. you punch people until they give up and/or die). If we try bringing Naruto into things it falls apart. If we bring the Elric brothers in things just stop working despite the Elrics often fighting things that are pretty much just "I punch things until they die". I, for one, would love to see Captain Armstrong fight Batman, but I don't think our world is ready for it.

Then you have the truly bizarre things, like "who would win: Totorro or the Blue Alien Chick from The Fifth Element". At some point things just don't make sense without significantly more set up than anyone other than the question poser is willing to put forth.

[Draconi Redfir]

At some point things just don't make sense without significantly more set up than anyone other than the question poser is willing to put forth.

that's what Death Battle is for :P

[Rockphed]

that's what Death Battle is for :P

Many characters if placed in an arena and commanded to fight someone else to the death would sit down and have a cup of tea with them and claim they are killing their opponent by old age.

[137beth]

The most annoying question is the one that takes the form "Who would win out of A vs X?", where A and X are entities from two completely different settings. E.g. "Who would win out of Batman vs Granny Weatherwax?"

Second would be "Is that true?", particularly when being asked of a hypothetical statement about fiction or mythology, although asking it about RL history is possibly even worse in some contexts.

Honest question: Who would win in a fight between a "Who would win in a fight?" question, a rhetorical question, and a bad-faith question that starts with the words "Honest question"?

[Rynjin]

Honest question: Who would win in a fight between a "Who would win in a fight?" question, a rhetorical question, and a bad-faith question that starts with the words "Honest question"?

Well, we can approach this from an objective sense.

As we all know, the most important question to ask in a Vs. battle is "But can it beat Goku?".

From that starting point, everything flows logically.

Goku loves "Who would win in a fight?" questions; they're his favorite questions. He comprehends them in the same way a doctor understands anatomy. There's no way Goku could be beaten by a question of this type as they're one of the few he asks himself all the time.

Now the other two are a bit more interesting.

Rhetorical questions can be confusing to Goku, as he takes them at face value. However, taking a rhetorical question at face value isn't NECESSARILY a failure state, it just makes you look a bit silly. And, arguably, it's exactly what the asker want you to do, so by taking it at face value Goku is succeeding at the goal of the question (making Goku look stupid). That's a win for the rhetorical in my book.

Bad-faith questions are similar in that Goku would absolutely take them at face value, assuming someone is dealing straight with him. But unlike a rhetorical question, consistently and earnestly engaging with a bad-faith question as if it's a genuine one and not getting mad is the exact opposite of what that question wants. it only works if the person being asked gets pissed off and starts making less coherent arguments! Goku easily trounces the bad-faith question by simply assuming the asker is a good person asking dumb questions, which he can sympathize with.

So, we've determined that a rhetorical question can beat Goku, and by transitive property that means a rhetorical question can beat the other two types of questions who CAN'T beat Goku, correct?

[137beth]

Well, we can approach this from an objective sense.

As we all know, the most important question to ask in a Vs. battle is "But can it beat Goku?".

From that starting point, everything flows logically.

Goku loves "Who would win in a fight?" questions; they're his favorite questions. He comprehends them in the same way a doctor understands anatomy. There's no way Goku could be beaten by a question of this type as they're one of the few he asks himself all the time.

Now the other two are a bit more interesting.

Rhetorical questions can be confusing to Goku, as he takes them at face value. However, taking a rhetorical question at face value isn't NECESSARILY a failure state, it just makes you look a bit silly. And, arguably, it's exactly what the asker want you to do, so by taking it at face value Goku is succeeding at the goal of the question (making Goku look stupid). That's a win for the rhetorical in my book.

Bad-faith questions are similar in that Goku would absolutely take them at face value, assuming someone is dealing straight with him. But unlike a rhetorical question, consistently and earnestly engaging with a bad-faith question as if it's a genuine one and not getting mad is the exact opposite of what that question wants. it only works if the person being asked gets pissed off and starts making less coherent arguments! Goku easily trounces the bad-faith question by simply assuming the asker is a good person asking dumb questions, which he can sympathize with.

So, we've determined that a rhetorical question can beat Goku, and by transitive property that means a rhetorical question can beat the other two types of questions who CAN'T beat Goku, correct?

Permission to put this post in my extended sig?

Although, I don't think transitivity works for vs questions, because of Rock Paper Scissors situations.

[Rynjin]

Permission to put this post in my extended sig?

Absolutely lol.

Although, I don't think transitivity works for vs questions, because of Rock Paper Scissors situations.

Any Vs Battler worth their salt will tell you that transitivity is the ONLY thing that matters! Character X dodged a laser beam one time, that means they're FTL. If they're FTL, that means Character Y that beat them to the punch line once is EVEN MORE FTL! If Character Y is turbo-FTL, Character Z (from a completely different franchise) has zero chance, because nobody in their setting is FTL. How sad. =(

(I hate it.)

[Peelee]

Although, I don't think transitivity works for vs questions, because of Rock Paper Scissors situations.

Rock always wins. It handily beats Scissors, and while Paper seemingly has an advantage over Rock on paper, Paper can be beaten by Scissors which falls to Rock. Rock always wins.

[Rynjin]

Good ol' reliable rock. Never fails.

Though watching MBT's Yugioh content recently I have been partial to Paper Gang as well.

[137beth]

Vs Battles Wiki does have some "vs matches" between Pokemon, so the editors should be familiar with Rock-Paper-Scissors-like situations. Should is the key word.

[veti]

Rock always wins. It handily beats Scissors, and while Paper seemingly has an advantage over Rock on paper, Paper can be beaten by Scissors which falls to Rock. Rock always wins.

And therefore paper beats scissors. QED.