Ask Boyfriend!

Dear Boyfriend,

Does it trouble you when people can't answer their own simple questions?

Thanks,
Unconcerned

Dear Unconcerned,

Let's take a look at your ostensibly "simple" question in two parts, primarily at the assertion that people "can't answer their own simple questions." I posit that it is not because these people are realistically unable to find suitable responses within themselves, but rather that they are, by way of the act of asking, overtly sharing of themselves with the agent that they are asking. Implicit in their seeming incompetence is the cultural value placed upon human interaction and peer consensus in reaching a decision or finding truth, because an anti-social decision undermines group evolutionary fitness and "truth" is culturally relative. Does this phenomenon "trouble" me? It depends on how you define trouble. Do I end up going to the trouble of writing long-winded responses to relatively insignificant quandaries? Clearly. Am I emotionally troubled by the fact that people are somewhat dim-witted as individuals? Not in the slightest, they are my greatest ally as I seek to become the authoritative voice on all things in this world, the arbiter of knowledge and truth, and the largest spongy brain of facts atop a quivering heap of lesser brains.

Thank you,
Boyfriend