What ‘Cunningham’s Law’ Really Tells Us About How We Interact Online | lifehacker

By Stephen Johnson, 4/01/22 9:00AM

I’m sure you’re familiar with the XKCD comic “Duty Calls” in which an internet user is passionately typing away late into the night because “someone is wrong on the internet!”

The comic illustrates Cunningham’s Law, the tongue-in-cheek axiom that states “the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, it’s to post the wrong answer.”

The principle behind Cunningham’s Law isn’t new—there’s even a French saying that translates to “preach the falsehood to know the truth”—but even though it’s well-established, Cunningham’s Law is hardly an effective way to gather information online—and actually tells us more about how the internet seems to invite us to disagree about everything.

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