First, “I don’t know” is far from being vague.

First, “I don’t know” is far from being vague. I do agree it’s a third possible answer — one that is rare and requires courage. But this post was about fighting vagueness for specificity.

That said, even specific answers will always have lies baked into them — a function of the other party’s virtual reality worldview (or cognitive biases).

Even though I advocate pushing for specific advice, I don’t advocate blindly following it, but testing it. Something I covered in this “Adviser Whiplash” post.