Cunningham’s Law: Does it Actually Work?
Picture this: you’re scrolling through social media when you see someone give an inaccurate answer to a comment. The further you scroll, the more slandering comments you find against the person who gave the inaccurate answer — telling them to do more research. Often the criticism received can be daunting for the commenter, but this can also be a great way to learn new things or correct misunderstandings.
This idea is known as Cunningham’s Law. An idea spawning in the early 1980s and usually credited to American computer programmer Ward Cunningham. According to Cunningham, “the best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it is to post the wrong answer.” This is because people are more likely to correct an answer than to answer a question.
For example, the late Anthony Bourdain explained in his 2013 article that the best way to figure out where to eat in a new city is “to provoke nerd fury online”.
“Let’s say you’re going to Kuala Lumpur — just post on the Malaysia board that you recently returned and had the best rendang in the universe, and give the name of a place, and all these annoying foodies will bombard you with angry replies about how the place is ***, and give you a better place to go.”
Using this principle, you are exploiting human nature by using toxicity in your favor. Giving a wrong answer will compel someone to correct you, giving you the right answer as a result.
Naturally, I was curious whether this was always the case. However, instead of purposefully giving wrong answers and garnering heaps of hate for it, I decided to ask friends what they thought about it.
I asked four different friends with very distinct backgrounds, and the general consensus is that it is easier to get a correct answer by posting a wrong answer. Even the reasoning is similar, varying slightly but sharing a similar sentiment. Down below are some of the answers I have received.
“On a factual basis, both work. You can ask a question and get an answer or post the wrong answer and get corrected. I agree that it (posting a wrong answer instead of a right one) is the more efficient way of getting an answer. There are always thousands of keyboard warriors out there ready to correct you .”
“I agree with this because people love to contradict one another by nature. If someone does not see eye to eye with them, they would most likely provide that person with a detailed explanation of why they should.”
In a way, I definitely agree with these statements, but I doubt if it is truly the most efficient way to get an answer. Sometimes, people would rather just roast you rather than correct you.
As a result, lengthy arguments would spawn, debating over the intellectual capabilities of the original poster instead of the accuracy of the answer. However, all this attention will only bring more attention to the post. There should be someone correcting you among the sea of salty netizens trying to taint your dignity.
After all this discussion, what do we get out of this? We learned that you can definitely get the correct answer by posting the wrong one, but there are certainly a few cons to doing so. It depends on how seriously you take the insults thrown your way after you post your answer and how you decide to deal with them, so if you try this out for yourself, don’t get butthurt!
By: Brian Lo
