I want to convey all of the context to my yes/no answers first, but people get frustrated because they just want the answer
I was gonna make a different meme about how godly I feel when I can respond to an open-ended question with yes/no but it just didn’t come together and then I thought of this instead
So do you want a drink?
Well to answer that you first have to look back at the preindustrial era of southern France and how the fall of the Mongolian empire effected the growing patterns of the north American maize fields.
Affected
Sorry man, I gotta do it 🤍
Have you stopped fucking donkeys? Yes/no only, please.
🤣 Got 'em cornered with that one
Ok but seriously now, manipulative questions like this force someone to admit to something they’ve most likely never done.
The problem is, that it doesn’t even have to be “evil”. Most people make assumptions. If you notice or suspect a question carrying an assumption, I think it’s the right thing to clear things up. A yes or no is simply not enough if the whole premise of the question might be flawed.
That always makes me angry in court scenes in TV, although there it’s likely intentional and therefore your mentioned “evil question”. I hope that shit doesn’t fly in real courtrooms.
I edited the word “evil” to “manipulative.” Is that better?
It wasn’t worse to begin with. I just wanted to add that this doesn’t have to be intentional and can still happen, due to bias or whatever.
Fun fact, this is begging the question. It’s a legal term for a circular argument like the one presented.
No
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People like you are so hard to listen to. So often my brain just shuts off if I ask a simple question and get a ton of irrelevent context. Please just summarize your answer at least.
I have to do the “long description before answering yes or no” thing at work because I constantly have to describe to my project managers why I could answer yes or no but ultimately the question it self is pointless and they should really be asking something else.
This is so relatable
I dated a girl that turned out to be a narcissistic abuser. I’m not just saying that. A therapist that is an expert on narc abuse relationships told me that after several sessions. Anyway, my ex would absolutely never answer a yes/no question with a yes/no answer. Her strategy was to respond in a way that changed the topic of the conversation to something she could dominate and somehow shift blame or gaslight. It was unbearable. Now, when someone does that, I take a mental note. If they do it again, I decide I don’t want that person involved in my life much at all.
Do you break the law? Yes or no?
The answer is almost certainly yes, but it definitely requires context. Are we talking speeding? Murder?
It’s like on a physical health assessment I have to take yearly that asks if I’m a smoker with the options ofa pack a day or more, a pack a week, I quit smoking, or I have never smoked a cigarette.
Sometimes (often!) A simple yes or no doesn’t answer the context of the question.
You can add context and still answer a question.
The answer to “Do you want breakfast?” can be more than a simple yes or no, but it should not be a 15min monologue about the importance of nutrition and why your political opponent tries to undermine nutritional freedom by increasing taxes.
Ooh I’d share this meme with the people I know who need it most, but I’ve already cleansed those toxic people out of my life.
I’d also love to see a meme about people who respond to questions with a question. They are nauseatingly manipulative and/or clueless people.
Responding a question with a question?
How could one do such a thing?
I do this a lot too, and I also experienced people becoming frustrated with me. I didn’t enjoy that, so I now try to do this less. You may not have the same inclination as I do, but I will share something that I found helpful, in case you do.
The way I thought about it is that when you write an essay, or give a presentation, the structure is usually “Intro: here’s what I’m doing to tell you; Main: I’m telling you the stuff; Conclusion: Here’s what I just told you”. It can feel repetitive, but a good intro primes people for the info they’re about to receive, and a good conclusion puts a cap on things to make it easier to reflect on the whole.
Conveying the context before giving the yes/no answers makes it harder for people to make sense of the wider whole, because the meaning of statements is context dependent. For example, if the question at hand was "should we go to the shop?’ and I stated “the shop is going to close soon”, the actual meaning of that could be “we should go right now so we make it in time” or “We’re not going to make it in time, we should go tomorrow”. If I haven’t started by reasoning by making it clear whether I’m “yes, let’s go” Vs “no, let’s wait”, then people listening to my reasons have to hold both of these versions in their head, and puzzle out which is the most plausible take by fitting together fragments of interpretations. It can feel like information overload, and I found that people were more able to listen to context and reasonings if I led with a clear “thesis statement”
I have the tendency to do that. My therapist says it comes from the early and messy divorce of my parents.
I at least try to top it off with - so, to make it short, yes/no.
Every single journalist: “Were Frank Hester’s comments about Diane Abbott racist?”
Every single Conservative: Draws 25
