Stupid questions: should we answer them or not?

If a man cannot keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears however measured or faraway."

- Henry David Thoreau

This is what I have to say about a stupid question

Phil martin girlfriend

As I am but a humble visitor I feel compelled to comment on this Thread, I do not regard myself as being super intelligent / certainly not in the same league as what has been discribed in this thread, but fairly above average competant in all I tackle and put my mind to, I have (humbly) learned that there are no stupid questions to start off with and the stupid questions are those not asked.

I suppose there are the few and far between evil minded individuals asking some dubious (suspicious) questions, I might hasten to tell you, I really enjoy your chit chat about so many interesting questions and answer immensly.

Please do not put a damper on the information flow that has become the standard in this program and chat site, even if you do not believe it, you are training and teaching people some new things and stimulating those who might never again have such an opportunity again.

Please go on and keep up the good work, think positively about your efforts here, you never know, you might just influenced Joe Soap in such a way that he may come up with a cure for aids????

Joefury

There are, indeed, stupid questions. They are those asked by people that do not actually have a question, but are, by asking and insinuating are furthering an agenda based on relieving themselves and those the represent, of responsibility. I would offer as proof, those people in Louisiana that, after 3 years, are still asking what the government is going to do for them.

Those are stupid questions. They will not or cannot do for themselves and expect others to answer their problems. It seems to be an endemic problem in America. We are no longer responsible for our own problems but expect our government to protect us from our own stupidity. Build below sea level, expect flood. Gee, rocket science? I don't think so.

Answer whatever we wish to answer. I ignore those "homework" questions, stupid questions and those I am fairly sure can be answered by a Search, etc. I also know better than to attempt to answer things I know nothing about. However I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once, so I occasionally stretch my limited knowledge.

Though I have not actually asked a question on the site, I have been in numerous forums and responded to many questions.

I have many ideas, and I have, at every appropriate opportunity, announced that I am not an engineer. My responses have been recieved fairly well. I am not ill-informed, but I am sure that there are aspects of my answers that either lack the clarity of intrinsic knowlege or are just manifestations of inaccuracies due to my lack of knowlege.

Should I ever post a really stupid question, all I ask is that the person ridiculing me put the right answer in when he's doing it, or at least point me in the right direction. I would also hope that he make the ridicule humorous, as we should all be able to laugh at me when I screw it up. (You can laugh at me at other times, but then you have to clear it with my ex's, I think they get royalties)

I am replying only one the last line of your post. I believe you are wrong. The answer is indeed simple. Use your own judgement. It doesn't matter why anyone else would consider a question or questioner too stupid or ignorant to deign answering. It's what you believe. If you are looking for consensus or approval, go to church. You can make up your own mind. Trust your instincts. It's pretty easy to identify those that are actually seeking knowledge, and those that just can't be bothered to understand.

If you want a consensus on what is a good or bad question, you should be left out of the answer. If you need consensus to determine that, you should probably just quit pretending and offer to enslave yourself to the government. No one can tell you what a good or bad question is. You have to take off the training wheels, determine the answer for yourself and be willing to justify your own answer. If you really need the direction, I can put a collar around your neck and have you till my field and feed you whatever I want.

Quit looking for someone else to take the blame for your decision, make it, do it, and take responsibility for it based on your decision. If you give me your right to make a decision, you've handed me your soul, and I'll use it as I see fit, regardless of what you think (since you won't)

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you on at least one point, in the same way that another poster already has done I believe.

There are NO stupid questions, only stupid answers......I used to lecture and I always said that and I would answer, but often laughing at the question.....which I had already warned them that I would laugh if I could!!! I reserved the right to laugh!!!

Remember that someone who asks the question needs an answer, even if it is just telling him that he is completely off base.......what should not happen is that he should accept the answer and any frivolity added as being the answer and not get upset.....not killing the messenger so to say!!!!

On CR4, we often get such things as:-

"Dear CR4, I am installing a 200MW Steam Turbine alternator in a factory in southern India and I have no training, no tools and no knowledge, what should I do?"

...or the classical "Free energy" questions/announcements that do not follow any law of known physics, but he "knows" that it works......please pay $5000 immediately for further info!"

I say give them the answer they deserve and ignore the rantings the backat may come back......

you get the answer.just simple

Well I guess that excludes cosmology, relativity, photoelectric theory, electromagnetic theory (maxwells equations), quantum mechanics, and most organic and biochemistry. I hope they don't have to restrict themselves to just the Laws in physics, because I am not sure there are that many new laws in physics since the turn of the last century. Would the principles and theories of the physical sciences be acceptable for them to follow also. I think I would hate to be restricted to just the Laws, i kind of depend too much on technology that has its basis in just physical theories. Well at least thermodynaics is a law, so we could still drive our cars; and luckily, Coulomb developed laws, or stopping would hurt.

It really scares me when such a factually educated mind with such potential fails to grasp the basic communicative principles as a properly structured paragraph.

I would hope that you would go back to 6th grade and learn to create a more lucid and structured communication. Understanding and brilliance, without the ability to communicate it renders you less useful than many of the caged animals that we use for testing.

As well, the fact that you won't even bother to admit who you are, means you have fewer credentials than the laboratory animals that we use to prove these things...at least they are who they are.

Tom, you are simply wasting you time with people who sign on as guests (jests?). I have given up on them as mainly they are way off center with their brains and intelligence and you cannot tell one from the other either. They have something to hide....

If they really wanted to make a difference, they would simply become a member.....but they don't!!

You are just wasting your time, learn simply to ignore them, I have.

Yes, but I do have a little chap that sits on my shoulder and whispers these things in my ear and my fingers just start to type. Shhhh, hang on, he's whispering someting now...what was that...who?...Andy?....<evil grin>

Each person here can make that choice. I usually ignore the homework questions and those that a simple Search on the Net would answer. If the subject is too technical for my limited experience, I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once , I tend to ignore the question too.

There are few questions not deserving of some kind of answer. I would definitely avoid the ones asking about anything that could be used to do injury to people.

I'm not 100% sure I would omit an answer that may cause harm to the asker. I would probably let him know that it was not a recommended course of action, and then let darwinism prevail.

TROUT!!!

damned fishermen...can't trust em...but ...a ...jar of worms...long time at sea... pouty thin lips... no one looking.... (just don't try this with phirana's in the amazon).

Ok, getting way out of this discussion. (One Fish Two Fish...)

This thread has taught me one thing: ask an engineer what time it is and he'll tell you how to build a clock.

How else does one explain the enormous amount of verbiage in reply to such a simple question - "Stupid questions: should we answer them or not?"

I mean a simple yes or no would have sufficed!

Beats me!!!

"Beats me!"

You are Egging each other on

What do you mean "WE?"

Thank God nobody asked about stupid answers or I'd get booted out (fade to long shot of drums beating slowly while Chris Leonard strips me of "Guru" and points the way into the desert, throwing me only a water skin and a crust of unleavened bread while the sonorous voice of Ralph Bellamy says "Out into the blazing furnace, driven on by shame and self-loathing.").

hi

1) a question may be easy or tough or stupid to one and difficult to another.

2) anyhow if interested answer

3) a true fact is ......... } helping other's indirectly help us, i.e we recollect and keep in mind more strongly.

Maybe.

Hello vermin

I've seen a mayfly.

What is a maybe?

kind Regards....

It's a bee that only appears in May!

.

Alternately, "we're dead men on vacation."

By the way, I don't know whether anyone has asked this yet, but is this a self-referential question?