Social media has given rise to armies of self-proclaimed skeptics and truth-seekers who wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped them in the fucking face.
"I'm just asking questions.”
"I'm just curious."
We’ve all encountered these assholes. They pepper conversations with seemingly innocent inquiries, eyebrows raised in feigned bewilderment. Cut the bullshit: nobody who loudly claims to be "just asking questions" is ever truly "just looking for answers.”
Questions aren't neutral. They never have been. Every question comes loaded with assumptions, biases, and intentions. When someone says they're "just asking questions," what they're really doing is advancing an agenda, albeit in a roundabout, passive-aggressive, piss-weak way.
When was the last time you heard someone say, "I'm just asking questions" about something utterly uncontroversial? You don't hear people "just asking questions" about whether the sky is blue or if water is wet. No, this phrase invariably precedes inquiries designed to cast doubt, sow confusion, or push a particular worldview.
It's a rhetorical legerdemain, a way to introduce controversial or even outright false ideas while maintaining plausible deniability. "Hey, I'm not saying the moon landing was faked. I'm just asking questions!" It's the intellectual equivalent of "I'm not touching you" while keeping your slapping hand one centimeter from someone’s face - technically true, but entirely missing the fucking point.
This tactic isn't limited to conspiracy theorists and internet trolls. It's employed by politicians, pundits, and journalists. It's a way to float ideas or accusations without having to take responsibility for them. After all, they're not making claims - they're just asking questions!
But (much like the askers) questions are tools. Sometimes they're used to seek genuine understanding, sure. In an ideal world, that’s how we’d take ‘em. But in this world, they're wielded as instruments of persuasion, manipulation, and attack. The person "just asking questions" is trying to plant a seed of doubt, to nudge you towards a particular conclusion without explicitly stating it.
It's cognitive manipulation. By framing their agenda as a series of questions, they put their target on the defensive. You're scrambling to disprove negative assertions disguised as innocent inquiries. And in doing so, you've already ceded ground. You've accepted the premise that these questions are worth entertaining, that there's some validity to the doubts being raised.
This is where the real insidiousness of "just asking questions" comes into play. It exploits a quirk of human psychology - our tendency to attribute more credence to ideas simply because they've been repeated or discussed. Psychologists call this the "illusory truth effect." The more we're exposed to an idea, even in the form of a question, the more familiar it becomes. And familiarity, for our pattern-seeking brains, often translates to credibility.
So when someone keeps "just asking questions" about whether vaccines are safe, or if climate change is real, or if a particular ethnic group should be put in a fucking camp, they're not engaged in a genuine search for truth. They're exploiting our cognitive biases to make their ideas seem more plausible through sheer repetition.
The "just asking questions" crowd cloaks themselves in the language of skepticism and critical thinking. They position themselves as brave truth-seekers, daring to challenge the status quo. They'll quote Carl Sagan or Richard Feynman about the importance of questioning everything.
What they conveniently ignore is that true skepticism isn't endlessly asking bullshit masturbatory questions on social media - it's following the evidence where it leads. Real critical thinkers don't just raise doubts; they actively seek answers. They change their minds when presented with compelling evidence. The "just asking questions" brigade, on the other hand, tends to be remarkably resistant to any answers that don't align with their preconceived notions.
This is because their questions aren't meant to illuminate - they're meant to obscure. They're not looking for clarity; they're creating a fog of uncertainty in which their preferred beliefs can thrive. It's intellectual vandalism, spray-painting question marks over the edifice of established knowledge.
Questioning is vital. It's the engine of progress, the cornerstone of scientific inquiry, the bedrock of critical thinking. Without questions, we'd still be living in caves, convinced that thunder was the anger of the gods. But there's a world of difference between asking questions to understand and asking questions to undermine.
The former is characterized by genuine curiosity, by a willingness to listen to answers and adjust one's views accordingly. The latter, by selective skepticism - an insistence on questioning some things while accepting others without scrutiny. It's the climate change denier who demands increasingly elaborate proof of global warming while uncritically swallowing every half-baked alternative theory that comes along.
This selective skepticism is a dead giveaway that someone isn't "just asking questions" in good faith. If they were truly committed to critical inquiry, they'd apply the same level of scrutiny to all claims, including their own beliefs. But that's rarely the case. Instead, we see questions used as a shield to deflect criticism of one's own views and as a sword to attack others'.
The internet, of course, has supercharged this dynamic. In the past, "just asking questions" was limited by the reach of one's voice. Now, anyone with a Twitter account can broadcast their "inquiries" to millions. This has given rise to a new breed of pseudo-intellectual, the "Just Asking Questions" influencer.
These folks have turned sea-lioning - the act of pestering people with disingenuous questions - into an art form. They've built entire careers out of "just asking questions" about established science, historical facts, or marginalized groups. And they've cultivated audiences who mistake this performative skepticism for actual critical thinking.
Questioning authority and thinking for oneself are laudable goals. But there's a crucial difference between independent thinking and contrarianism for its own self-serving sake.
This is where the "just asking questions" crowd often lands. They're not after truth; they're after the feeling of being in possession of secret knowledge, of being smarter than the sheeple who accept the "official narrative." It's intellectual narcissism, feeling superior without the hard work of developing actual expertise.
Real critical thinking is a slow, painstaking process of developing the skills to evaluate evidence, to understand complex systems, to recognize one's own biases, and being willing to say "I don't know" and to change one's mind in the face of new information. These are skills that the "just asking questions" wankers rarely demonstrate.
Instead, they rely on a superficial appearance of skepticism. They pepper their statements with phrases like "do your own research" and "think for yourself," while ironically discouraging actual independent thought. They create an illusion of debate where none actually exists, muddying the waters around settled issues.
This tactic is particularly pernicious because it exploits a laudable instinct - the desire to keep an open mind. We're taught from a young age that there are two sides to every story, that we should hear out all perspectives. But this admirable principle has been weaponized by bad-faith actors who insist that demonstrably false ideas deserve equal airtime with established facts.
The JAQ offs love to invoke the marketplace of ideas, positioning themselves as brave dissenters keeping debate alive. But they misunderstand, either willfully or ignorantly, how this marketplace is supposed to work. Yes, all ideas should be open to questioning and debate. But not all ideas are created equal, and not all questions are worth entertaining indefinitely.
In a functioning marketplace of ideas, bad ideas are eventually discarded. Questions are asked, evidence is examined, and conclusions are drawn. But the "just asking questions" tactic is an attempt to keep bad ideas on life support indefinitely, avoiding the verdict of the intellectual marketplace by endlessly reopening settled debates like so many weeping wounds.
This is where the real harm comes in. By constantly "just asking questions" about established facts, these fuckers create a false equivalence between fringe theories and well-supported ideas. They erode public trust in expertise and institutions. They make it harder for people to distinguish between credible information and baseless speculation.
We are staring down the barrel of existential threats - climate change, pandemics, the upheaval of AI - this erosion of shared reality is dangerous. We need robust, fact-based debates about how to address these issues. Instead, we're mired in endless arguments about whether these problems even exist, fueled by bad-faith actors "just asking questions."
So how do we deal with this? How do we maintain healthy skepticism without falling into the trap of reflexive contrarianism? How do we foster genuine critical thinking in a world where "just asking questions" has become a smokescreen for pushing agendas?
A good start is to become more discerning about the questions we entertain. Not all questions are created equal. Some are genuinely aimed at increasing understanding. Others are rhetorical devices designed to sow doubt. Learning to distinguish between the two is a crucial skill in our information-saturated age.
We need to get comfortable with the idea that not all views deserve equal consideration. Some questions have been asked and answered. Some debates have been settled. Continuing to entertain long-debunked ideas in the name of "just asking questions" isn't open-mindedness - it's a waste of time and mental energy.
This doesn't mean shutting down genuine inquiry. But it does mean being more critical about the intentions behind the questions we encounter. Are they aimed at illumination or obfuscation? Are they seeking understanding or pushing an agenda? Are they open to answers, or are they merely rhetorical devices?
We also need to get better at recognizing our own biases and blind spots. The "just asking questions" tactic is effective precisely because it plays on our desire to seem open-minded and our fear of being duped. By acknowledging these tendencies, we can be more clear-eyed about when we're being manipulated.
The antidote to "just asking questions" isn't to stop questioning. It's to question better. It's to cultivate genuine curiosity rather than performative skepticism. It's to seek out credible sources and to be willing to change our minds when the evidence warrants it. It's to recognize that true critical thinking isn't a matter of endlessly asking questions - it's using questions as a tool to arrive at well-supported conclusions.
Questions are powerful tools for understanding our world, but they’re also weapons of confusion and manipulation.
And in the battle for our minds, knowing the difference might be the most important skill any of us can cultivate.
