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mike_kenny2 comments on Back Up and Ask Whether, Not Why - Less Wrong
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that sounds liek a great method. i shall have to try it out when someone asks me that question, or when i ask myself that question regarding something i do automatically.
on the other hand, i could see someone simply meaning 'why do you use qwerty' as 'what's the history of your using qwerty'. i wonder if this linguistic issue might cause us to conflate facts of the past with motivations. when i give a reason why i use qwerty historically it might just be 'well, that was what was available' whereas an answe to a 'why' question aimed at getting justifications might be 'well, i don't know if it's justified.'
perhaps this sheds some light onto the problem of confusing is with ought. we might confuse 'why is it' for 'why should we'.
I tend to say ‘Why do you use QWERTY?’ for the question that Eliezer was writing about, and ‘How come you use QWERTY?’ for the question of history. As far as I know, this isn't justified by any recognised rule of English grammar, but it feels right to me.
You can also use more precise phrasing: ‘Why do you choose to use QWERTY?’, ‘How did it come about that you use QWERTY?’. But who wants to use more words than necessary?