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Is there really any such thing as a stupid question?


Darth Avlectus

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In an attempt to inject a little fun into this subforum in htis oppressive heat, I beg a phillisophical question. Is there such a thing as a dumb question?

 

I hear:

"No"

"The question isn't dumb, but the person asking is"

"maybe"

"yes"

"yes and so is the person who asked it"

"yes, but the person is still smart"

"no, it's just that everyone else is messed up"

 

Have fun with it.

 

Personally, I don't think there is any such thing as a stupid question, but maybe the person asking just has their head in other places or wasn't quite paying attention as to how they asked whatever their question.

 

Discuss.

 

(And please, keep it civil--I don't want to see anyone get a cattle prodding...well maybe I do, but not here.) :D

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Yes, however, IMO, it depends on the person, the question, and the context. If you are on the net, and someone(also on the net) asks you what the URL for "Google" is, that's a stupid question.

 

Not paying attention can amount to a stupid question. Since there is rarely a good excuse to not pay attention and then ask what you missed, it's safe to assume they had no desire to pay attention, and no desire to know what they were being told. Therefore the later desire to know what they missed is contradictory and inherently false. Making their question stupid because it is a waste of everyone's time.

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Yes. There are stupid questions, such as calling information and asking "What's the phone number for 911?"

 

The stupidest question I ever got asked was by a freshman girl in college when I was a junior. How she made it into college I don't know with a question like this: "If tomorrow is Tuesday, does that mean the next day is Wednesday?"

 

My reply, trying very, very hard not to laugh out loud: "Well, Wednesdays generally follow Tuesdays, yes."

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Anything where you could just as easily google it than waste someone's time asking them, when all they probably do to find the answer for you is google it.

 

 

Naw, that's just called being lazy. :D

 

Yeah, asking a pimp if you can have a free sample of his wares. :dev9:

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-Do you know a good recipe for spam?

This thread. :rolleyes:

 

I'd say it all depends on who is doing the asking. If a two year old is asking any of these questions, then it is a sign of intelligence (or a sign of a need for some serious parental lifestyle changes in the case of Totenkopf's example).

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Anything where you could just as easily google it than waste someone's time asking them, when all they probably do to find the answer for you is google it.

 

Disagree. My father is a walking encyclopedia. He can answer almost anything if you ask him about it. Names, how events relate to one another, and the psychology behind what people were like when they acted. My cousin has a PHD in studies about the middle east and he has mentioned how my father could trump him at the very thing he specialized in.

 

I find that if I need to ask a question and not spend 15 minutes googling it, I know he'd have the answer. What's more is that he can expand upon what I would originally have wanted in ways I never anticipated. That's not a stupid question if you wanted to ask about Ben Franklin's part in the Albany Congress. Odds are he'd know.

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Okay, how about some opinions, reasons, or extrapolations...

 

Given that there are an infinite number of potential questions one could ask, all you need is for one to be stupid in order to say 'yes, there is such a thing as a stupid question.'

 

You just need to take into consideration that 'stupid' is a relative term.

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