Thursday, October 10, 2019

"Dumb questions"



It has been said there are no dumb questions. My guess is anyone who believes this hasn't spent much time on Quora.

I considered quoting a few of them-- questions that I'm not even sure what was being asked-- but I decided that would be rude. I don't mean to make fun of anyone or their questions.

I realize some of the questions are probably asked by people whose grasp of English isn't great. The questions probably turn out sounding bizarre just because the communication between the asker and me isn't happening as it should.

Plus, Quora rewards people for asking questions that haven't been asked before. This leads to some perfectly intelligent people asking completely insane-sounding questions. Why Quora pays for questions asked rather than questions answered is beyond me-- and yes, that question has already been asked. But I'm pretty sure that a lot of the dumb questions come from this dumb policy.

In real life, I don't run into anything I'd consider a dumb question nearly as often. And sometimes, when I think a question is dumb, it turns out I (or the other person) was confused about something and the misunderstanding led to a dumb-sounding question being asked or a good question sounding dumb because I didn't understand what was being asked.

Maybe the saying should be modified: Other than on Quora, there are no dumb questions.
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