@guerrillarain I’m perpetually surprised by this, but it’s true.

@ghost_bird It is mind boggling. My mother would rather call me to ask me a question that takes .5 seconds to type into a search engine.

@guerrillarain (And that surprise is privilege, now I think about it. Posh education taught me the skills and the confidence to use them.)

I am so fucking sick of people asking me for shit and then not using it. I'm sick of people asking me for advice and then not taking it. I'm sick of people asking me to compile giant docs to coach them through something and then they don't even fucking glance at it.

i.e. friends asking me to make a doc with Japanese phrases and then still fucking asking me in person how to say "Thank you" and "Excuse Me"

Unless you are visually impaired: just fucking LOOK for it, jesus christ and stop waiting for me to save you.

@guerrillarain PREACH THO
https://playvicious.social/media/vB88c0hdJopjHFWZ0jA

@guerrillarain People have gotten used to social media acting as a sort of personal assistant. Not going to name names, but I know of at least one high-profile Twitter user who completely went off on people for not doing research for them on demand. 🤷🏽‍♀️

@guerrillarain Doing detailed research is a skill, though. It makes sense to me that people would get paid, build careers, etc. around fully utilizing the web that way.

That said...DDG is everybody's friend, seriously. No need to be like *snaps fingers* WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING ME, unless there's actual reasons to be asking (like llack of accessibility).

@guerrillarain
Or, perhaps, rather than getting a canned response from Google, sometimes it's better to get a more personal interpretation from like minded individuals. Just a crazy thought.

@Mirzaba @guerrillarain rarely that is needed.

Most of the time Googling is sufficient.

@miwilc

@guerrillarain
Okay Google, what is socialism?
*links to various phony socdem definitions*

@Mirzaba @guerrillarain no it provides ranked links and the Wikipedia definition. It's alright for that too. https://niu.moe/media/D0G6fLArMLNCn5I8xnQ

@Mirzaba
1) Plenty of people turn to Google or DDG for personal interpretation and somehow magically mysteriously find people that they can relate to/see as like-minded so nah.

2) Just because it isn't at a cursory glance (i.e. shortcut definition) doesn't mean it excuses demanding labor from people.

3) You should consider reading the full context of a thread before throwing out your Hot, but Irrelevant Takes™.

4) Someone talking about Googling being a skill and being sick of people demanding labor from them is not the time to be rude or snarky. Just a thought.

@guerrillarain
I guess I misread the intent of why you said that. Usually I see that argument leveled at people who are just curious and want an opinion from someone rather than a machine definition.

@Mirzaba

@guerrillarain
It's often used as a way to ask for emotional labour rather than investing anything yourself. The internet is wide enough that you can find a non robotic answer anyway, why not use it instead of asking oppressed people why they feel oppressed? (being able to ignore these issues is privilege, and asking for emotional labour is as well)

@Mirzaba @guerrillarain lmgtfy is one of my pet peeves.

@guerrillarain Here is something I am currently baffled by...

I am a regular on Quora (basically a Q&A forum for any who might not know) and I can't figure out why so many people put the effort into putting up questions there that have direct answers which can be found easily with a simple search.

@msh @guerrillarain because it *IS* a skill, just a skill a lot of us take for granted.

@guerrillarain That's all find and good but Google/DDG are useless for a lot of the things I search for. When you run into a bug for a very obscure edge case google isn't much help.

@guerrillarain I find more value in mailing lists, IRC channels , or just reading the code for a lot of things.