@ryanschultz Oh wow, I wish I'd thought to manipulate mansplaining like this for useful purposes when I was short on time and under resourced.

@ryanschultz at this point I'm not sure if you posted this so someone would tell you this is cunninghams law..

@ryanschultz

@ryanschultz I absolutely use something similar to design anything.

I create a design that meets my needs, let interested people read it, and they tell me just how dumb I am for not having considered X.

@ryanschultz did 'wrong answer' posts on Usenet

@ryanschultz 😅😅😅

@ryanschultz you could probably automate this process with chatgpt by asking the AI how to solve the problem then post it’s insanely incorrect answer under the Reddit account.

@ryanschultz Now we expect #ChatGPT to start doing that… O, wait it already does the incorrect answer part! 😃

@ryanschultz This is brilliant advice and a profound insight into human nature!

@ryanschultz I used to do that on World of Warcraft when it was new, in Barrens Chat if someone wasn't getting an answer and I didn't know. I'd give a wrong answer. Folks would stop all the Chuck Norris memes right away and they'd get three or more correct and helpful answers.

@ryanschultz Not just for programming questions. I did this once in an Urban Legends forum on Usenet to get others to provide real answers to a question that someone else posted.

@ryanschultz I can see the applications of this

@ryanschultz
Multiple attestations that this works.

Can only think that this works because of overly early weaning from breastfeeding and the resulting psycho-social trauma.

@ryanschultz yep, this tracks…
https://xkcd.com/386
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

@ryanschultz I remember a long time ago the common wisdom was that to get an answer on the Internet you need to piss someone off. Like, instead of asking how to tune a firewall in Linux you need to post a rant about how it is utterly impossible to do in this shitty system :-)

This seems like a modern variant of that!

@ryanschultz 😂 This is genius. Works with more than just programming, I should think ...

@ryanschultz Brilliant strategy!

@ryanschultz https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law

@ryanschultz often used a version of this method to get programming help on IRC in the aughts. important to have a feminine sounding username for best results 👍

@ryanschultz teachers also use this technique - intentionally make a mistake to see if students can correct them 👍

@ryanschultz This is brilliant
and well played, sir

@ryanschultz
Thank you.
Will start doing that right now.
🤣

@ryanschultz Oooh, "prechez le faux pour savoir la vérité." A French tactic I learned about years ago.

@ryanschultz dialectical misdirection

@ryanschultz "Does anyone know any alternatives for X?" - tumbleweed.
"Does anyone know how to do *thing* with X?" - dozens of replies saying "just use Y or Z"

@ryanschultz hilarious!

@ryanschultz @projektmyra social engineering…are you a Nigerian prince?

@ryanschultz
I hate to say it, but the more programmers you know, the funnier this gets.

@ryanschultz

@ryanschultz Humans were a mistake.

@ryanschultz Haha, this is brilliant.