> It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation.
This very concept is foreign to me, and having been in too many of these "conversations", I would rather leave entirely than sit through one. Figure out the answer to the question and switch topics.
There's billions of topics to talk about (and that's without getting into polarizing topics like religion, sex, and politics), so why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?
I never thought of it as arguing over who is right, honestly, because nobody cares who is right. It's more like a puzzle-solving exercise used as grist for the conversational mill.
Basically the point is to be funny about it or use it as a generator for a new topic. Skill at conversation is almost topic agnostic. Entertaining people can be entertaining about almost anything.
The art of conversation includes moving between each, and pulling a phone out every few minutes stunts that normal conversational flow.
There is also the problem of what is a fact (Alaska is part of the United States) and what is a "fact" (e.g. Covid came from bat soup in a wet market, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "totally unprovoked" etc.) Discussion is the entire point in those cases, since we can't trust our entire set of "facts" anymore thanks to censorship.
I think you're missing my point. They were both presented as facts and discussion online was (and still is in the case if Ukraine) presented as such. The only way to move past those types of bottlenecks is through discussion. "Looking it up" will likely give you an answer that doesn't pass the sniff test in a normal discussion.
This very concept is foreign to me, and having been in too many of these "conversations", I would rather leave entirely than sit through one. Figure out the answer to the question and switch topics.
There's billions of topics to talk about (and that's without getting into polarizing topics like religion, sex, and politics), so why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?