Open Thread, Jul. 27 - Aug 02, 2015

MrMind

Open Thread, Jul. 27 - Aug 02, 2015 — LessWrong

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Elo11y40

I am having a crisis in my life of trying to ask people a particular question and have them try to answer a different question. Its painful. I just want to yell at people; "answer the question I asked! not the one you felt like answering that was similar to the one I asked because you thought that was what I wanted to hear about or ask about!".

This has happened recently for multiple questions in my life that I have tried to ask people about. Do you have suggestions for either: a. dealing with it b. getting people to answer the right question

Assuming there isn't something wrong with the question I originally ask and how I present it.

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Richard_Kennaway11y80

Do you have suggestions for either: a. dealing with it b. getting people to answer the right question

(a) Recognise that getting upset over it does not achieve your purpose.

(b) Have you tried asking for what you want? For example:

Elo: (question)

A.N.Other: (answer not addressing what you wanted)

Elo: That's all very well, but what I really want to know is (restatement of the question)

etc., many variations possible depending on context.

Having answered your question, I shall now say something which is not an answer to your question. What is your experience o... (read more)

3MrMind11y

Aren't you blocking, with this assumption, all the parameters you can intervene on to improve your communication? As for dealing with it, you can try to see it this way: every time you ask a precise question with very stringent constraints, you are basically asking people to solve a difficult problem for you. You are, in a sense, freeloading on others' brainpower. As with everything, this is a scarce resource, one that you cannot really expect people to give to you freely. Learn to accept that we are animals constantly doing cost-analysis, and so if you notice a question not being answered the way you want to, it's probably because of this, and you need to supply a more adequate reward.

4Artaxerxes11y

Yeah, this happens. [...] Try this, except instead of yelling, say it nicely. One thing you could do as an example is some variation of "oh sorry, I must have phrased the question poorly, I meant (the question again, perhaps phrased differently or with more detail or with example answers or whatever)".

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