What makes a question stupid?

[justin_ator]

Re: What makes a question stupid?

"is that 0 positive or negative?"
actual question by a girl in my algebra 2 class in highschool...

Honestly a stupid question is impossible to define, because a stupid question to you might not be a stupid question to me. Even painfully obvious stuff may not be painfully obvious to another person.

[Hakulyte]

Re: What makes a question stupid?

If you're asking a question about something that's complicated to you, but obvious for another person, they may not understand why you're asking this question because it's common sense to them. I think almost everyone especially at school see it this way unconsciously. It's not just questions, but also anything that would make you different from another person.

Subjectivemania strikes again.

[Cavernio]

Re: What makes a question stupid?

A question will be called stupid when someone feels like the answer is obvious. It is a huge detriment to ignore them instead of address them because if it is such a basic understanding, then the detriment to the person asking it must be pretty severe.

Eg: You wouldn't ask if the light was on if you could see for yourself that it was, trolling or mispeaking aside.

There's probably social evolutionary reasons for rejecting and mocking people for things like stupid questions, like if someone is THAT dumb then there's no hope for them so its just a waste of time to include them as part of your group.
'stupid questions' are just another ugly part of human socialness, same nebulous but prevalent way someone who's different is going to be made fun of or bullied.

[Wayward Vagabond]

Re: What makes a question stupid?

i think this applies to this

http://xkcd.com/1053/