Don’t Be a Tool. Learn For Yourself, Seriously.
The Internet is an awesome place. Due to technology, I could be instant messing with someone on the other side of the world. It can help you send your message to the masses, and during your adventure, you will find lots of awesome information like news and tutorials to improve yourself.
Along the way, you meet all kinds of people. Some are really smart, and some are just lazy or stupid. During my adventure, I’ve come across something very annoying as I started to answer people’s questions whether it is from Email, blog, YouYube, or even the hamachi networks. This is story #3.
Below is a classic example:
User: Versatile, ogerlauncher doesn’t work!!!
Versatile: Hold on a second. What is the error?
User: It gives me an offline modus error! How can I fix this?
Versatile: Man, did you even know I created a guide on this?
User: You did?
Versatile: *sends link* Learn and follow the guide. If you get stuck, get back to me.
User: Thanks man! You the best!
Now most of the people that I find these days are young people, maybe college and high school kids. Heaven forbid, there are a few younger ones in the crowd. Of course, I’m sure there are older people in the mix too. The problem with Internet and people these days is because you have a computer, you expect things to be spoon fed to you. Type in a search term in Google, and you get thousands of results about your particular subject.
Need help with homework? Go to wikipedia, msn encarta, yahoo answers, or similar sites to find your answers. There is a lot of interaction on the Internet. A lot of the information is good, and a lot of the information is bad too.
Sometimes it is hard to sort out truth from fiction. If you know how to research, then finding the truth should not be hard these days. I am sick of telling people over and over how to do things. If they only learned for themselves, then my life and yours will probably be easier. This is partly why I created this blog. To write up guides that are EASY to understand, so that my words can live through your actions. You do not need my presence to hold your hand because my guides and my videos will aide you.
Case in point: From time to time in hamachi we have people who join the network, and start asking questions how to connect and host games in Left 4 Dead. Dude, seriously. You did the google work to find the blog, and to find the hamachi network name. You can’t do a little bit more searching to read the L4D guides and watch the videos to get up to speed?
There is nothing more irritating to me than to have someone asking questions on a task that he hasn’t done yet. It is so annoying! “How do I enable console? What is garena?”
Gosh people, do you want me to “Let me google that for you?” Seriously, sometimes I am sick of being a relative google. People need to think for themselves, and learn for themselves. Don’t rely on others to spoon feed you because honestly you won’t get far in life like that.
When you are working at a company, people will depend on you to be independent and self efficient. Ok, maybe you are a kid or some teenager so you could care less about what I say. That is fine and dandy, but just you wait when you finish college (If you can finish college). Now tell me your sob stories about your student loans and your car debt and all the other crap you got going on. If you were smart, you would have applied for all those scholarships back in school, become a community volunteer, and do all the extracurricular activies you could in high school to stand out from the crowd. I’m sorry, the lazy does not win anymore in today’s world, especially in this downturn of an economy.
As you can see, I am a huge advocator of people learning to fish for themselves. Why must I give you the fish all the time, when I can teach you how to fish so you can sustain yourself and others forever? Exactly. This is what the Underground is all about. We save you the time and money because that is what matters most in this world. Sure, some of our topics maybe questionable, but in the grand scheme of things, has your life improved? I know mine has, and I’m sure your life has room to improve too.
In the end, do not let people use you for their own motives. Don’t be a tool. Simple. If you find me in hamachi and you start asking me dumb questions, I will so tear you apart, God forbid. I may even redirect you to this article. If I did, don’t feel bad. Just realized that I saved you from acting like a tool. Hopefully, you will understand my good intentions.
Am I off base, or do you sometimes get sick of people who are not pulling their weight? Sound off in the comments!
Posted on April 21, 2009, in Advice, News, Story and tagged education, Independent, Leader, Learning, Life, Procrastination, Story, tool. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Welcome to the Underground. 
I think there’s a bit of balance that needs to be found here. Versatile is of course right; the more pro-active of us out there will benefit from their desire to solve and find things themselves. This benefit can seen in everything from A-Level exams (British exams) to video games. Versatile’s covered this in enough depth and I’m too tired to repeat him.
The flip-side of this is in things like video games, and here I will use the example of World of Warcraft. In general chat, someone asks “Where is XXXX?’ or ‘What do I do with XXXX?’ and someone says ‘Google it’. Some of these people are just trolls, but seriously, come on! How hard is it to give someone a hand when they’re stuck? In Versatile’s case, he’s gone through the trouble of creating this tuts in the first place, so fair play. These guys have nothing to lose though, and save the other player from exiting the game, opening a browser and searching for something they could have got in 5 seconds. Ridiculous! It’s even lazier to keep this information from someone than that person asking for it in the first place.
Rant over. Versatile is God.
Wow love this rant man. First off I’d like to say that this past week I’ve had a million questions I wish I had the answers to right away but I learned on my own (for the most part), how to do what I wanted to do. Sure it’s frustrating sometimes, and of course yes at times I did ask a question or 2 or 5, lol (sorry bout that), but I fought through it and now I’m smarter for it. By learning on my own through trial and error now I know what should or should not be done. I implore everyone out there no matter what age you may be, expand your mind and learn something on your own, you are never too late or too old to stop learning in life and the more you know the better off you’ll be. Since I sound a little like a PSA right now, I’ll end with a bit of retro advice. “And Knowing is Half the Battle”.
Last week I had an eye opening experience with this myself.I started a blog and made my first video. Sure it was frustrating at times but I tried to fight the urge as much as I could to ask for help, except a couple or so questions to my main man Versatile1(sorry bout that), but I percevered and feel I’m better for it now. By teaching myself through trial and error I’ve learned alot more about myself and alot about what I was trying to learn. Now I want to keep learning cause no matter how old or young you are, it’s never to late too learn more and expand your mind. With all the knowledge on the internet now, make a proactive attempt to teach yourself rather than rely on others, otherwise your just getting the answers and not learning, kinda like cheating on a test in school, it doesn’t benefit yourself in the long run.
P.S. Knowledge is power in this world and the more you have the better off you’ll be down the road, never stop learning or teaching others. Thank You