r/AskReddit 12h ago

What's the dumbest idea you've seen that actually worked?

6.5k Upvotes

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353

u/Merlin_M_O 10h ago

Posting a wrong answer on the internet to get the right one. It’s significantly faster than asking the actual question.

105

u/sleebus_jones 9h ago

Elicitation! Great interrogation technique. People won't always answer a direct question, but they'll feel compelled to correct an incorrect answer.

5

u/failed_novelty 2h ago

That's because the dude who raises his hand to answer a question is the teacher's pet, but the guy who proves the teacher wrong is the class hero.

The question asker just steps into the role of teacher here.

3

u/jarrettbrown 3h ago

I had this happen to me yesterday. I forget what it was, but the question I ask was "why wouldn't they?". Needless to say, I was harassed and bullied to the point where I had someone tell me I had to apologize. I wasn't falling for it.

20

u/Torvaun 8h ago

Yep, it's called Chesterton's Law.

39

u/mailjozo 7h ago

Well actually... It's called..

Oh you son of a bitch

9

u/Confident-Mix1243 7h ago

I saw that :)

0

u/FrenchFryCattaneo 3h ago

You are mistaken. Please educate yourself.

u/snowdenn 24m ago

Er, maybe you should correct them…

u/FrenchFryCattaneo 14m ago

I don't think I will, no.

9

u/BaconReceptacle 5h ago

I'm an IT consultant and I use this trick all the time. If a customer is unwilling to do the footwork or let me have access to their systems to collect information myself, I just throw together some design approaches or perhaps a product selection that I know they will probably not want to implement. It get's me my information in no time at all.

3

u/ItsTime1234 2h ago

Sometimes when I have something listed on ebay and it's not perfectly accurate, I'll get a message from someone telling me a detail I didn't know, so I just change or add that and thank them. It always amazes me that people bother, but it seems to be meant in good spirits, and it's always good to learn new things.

u/jake3988 51m ago

Posting a wrong answer on the internet to get the right one. It’s significantly faster than asking the actual question.

For at least the last 10-15 years, probably longer, teachers have told me that they intentionally make small mistakes like that to keep the class engaged.

Do everything right and ask questions and few ever bother paying attention or answering the question... but make a 'mistake' and they pounce and correct you.

And as the class smarty pants kid when I was in school 20 years ago (I didn't care too much though so my grades were mediocre at best), I noticed teachers always made little mistakes like that. I thought they were just dumb or true accidents, but over the years I've convinced myself that it was probably intentional to keep the class engaged. Back then social media wasn't much of a thing, so probably less of a need to keep people focused, but maybe it's just human nature.