Many people online don't know how to play along well with hypotheticals. They need to learn the improv "Yes and..." approach to answering posts.
Examples:
Your post: "What if God did this weird thing....
Their reply: "God doesn't exist so this question is nonsense."
Your post: "In the year 2075 everyone gets assigned jobs based on..."
Their reply: "Dude, with climate change there will be no us or jobs to do in 2075."
It's the Internet. People are trying to have fun and talk about wacky shit and escape from serious matters.
Can't you either refrain from commenting or just play along?
This is not just an online thing. I'll do you one better.
My job involves, unfortunately, sometimes dealing with people. As much as I'd like to stay in my IT dungeon and remain undisturbed all day, I sometimes do have to emerge into the sunlight and interact with business clients.
Different people's brains are wired in different ways, not necessarily the same as yours. Based on my totally unscientific observation, it feels like roughly 1 in 5 people cannot comprehend hypotheticals at all. You can't ask them "picture this, but instead like this" because their brains literally can't form that image. If it is not an object or situation that is either in front of them, can be shown to them (on a screen, on a document, or whatever), or is one they have had personal and very specific past experience with, it's lost on them. Even if the hypothetical you're describing is barely any different from something you're physically showing them right now, except some trivial detail, they can't wrap their heads around it. You can break it down, you can explain it step-by-step until you're blue in the face. It doesn't work. As soon as you get to the last element, the hypothetical one, they tune out instantly.
And in my further experience around half of people in this camp will become confused and they'll handle that by getting angry at you.
I'm not a brainologist so I don't know why this is, or if there's a clinical name or mechanism behind it, or if it's abnormal and my industry just attracts devastatingly uncreative and stupid people. So in absence of any other information I'm just blaming lead paint and Boomerism.
You are describing the "Concrete Operational" stage of intellectual development. At this stage people can think logically but only about concrete objects. Hypotheticals come later at the Formal Operational stage.
In normal healthy development, people grow beyond concrete operational around age 12. Many people do not, however.
Are you using "picture this" literally or figuratively?
Because aphantasia is actually a lot more common than you would think -- I see estimates range something like 1-5% of people.
So if it actually matters they literally picture something in their mind, I recommend strongly having a prop or sketchpad ready. Some people literally need it.
You've unironically done the thing this post is about.
Literally carry a scratch pad everywhere just in case you're talking to a no pictures brain. Have a strong prop so you can talk to your co-worker. Like you need a fucking puppet named haych-tee-tee-pee to talk about why you need to install cat cables. Okay, maybe this was a good shitpost.
It honestly sounds like it's something else. I have aphantasia, but I have no issue with complex concepts.
You're right though that if the important bit is actually seeing it, then I'm at a loss.
From op I think it's people having issues with understanding a concept.
It's a strange thing, because while some of us don't see in pictures, we can translate descriptors to pictures. In the end, if you have a working occipital lobe, you can kind of force it even if it's not part of the way you think. I have had a few dreams, for example, that I would describe as visual. It's just a rare thing (as in I'm almost 40 and can count them on one hand) for me because my brain doesn't work that way.
Hmm... an inability to imagine situations, hypotheticals, or what things will be like in the future due to today's decisions, you say?
That would certainly explain an awful lot, including my frequent bouts of intense frustration with some people.
I don't suppose you happen to be working in the healthcare industry? I have noticed people in that industry have a much harder time imagining how technology could improve their workflows than other industries I've worked in. This isn't based on scientific observation, or anything, so I may be biased and wrong.
Yes! I caught that the first time I saw it, but damn if it's not awesome that Dan Harmon loves it so much too. The writers for 30 Rock were at the top of their class.
Yes, and it depends very much on context. It's one thing to explore hypotheticals as an exercise; it's quite another to indulge in hypotheticals to prop up unrealistic ideas. It's also disingenuous to smuggle in assertions as unassailable by wrapping them in "hypotheticals."
Sorry, had to downvote because I've heard and read this opinion a lot. I agree with it, but it is a very common opinion, only exceeded in popularity by the idea that you can say anything on the internet because pf anonymity, which means you should say anything on the internet because there's no consequences that matter.
Even with agreeing, I will say that playing along with hypotheticals doesn't mean you can't explore the parameters before joining in. Helps to make for a less repetitive response if you ask a few "what about insert variable or plot hole?", and then give an response that's "yes, and..."
Example #2: Talking about make believe events 51 years into the future. You are not able to determine that the question/statement is hypothetical in nature?
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. It was clear it was a hypothetical question, it wasn't clear - to refer to only the first example at the moment - they were including God's existence to be part of that hypothetical. If I said 'What if you met Donald Trump?' I wouldn't be claiming that Trump only exists in hypothetical scenarios, just that you meeting him only exists in such scenarios. Likewise in the first example, it is not clear that they are calling God's actual existence into question, but just your chance of meeting them.
As for the second example, it's the same thing. They are bundling a premise into the hypothetical, a premise (that the world will have humans in 50 years) that is not clearly hypothetical, and one that the commenter is thus permitted to disagree with in the comments.
I hope I have made myself clear, as it would be hypothetical if I didn't.