# If you don't understand a question, you probably don't have a valuable answer

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-understand-a-question-you-probably-dont-have-a-valuable-answer/1005505>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [August 9, 2024, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-understand-a-question-you-probably-dont-have-a-valuable-answer/1005505 "2024-08-09T21:16:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 85

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**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-understand-a-question-you-probably-dont-have-a-valuable-answer/1005505/85 "2024-08-12T13:32:38Z")

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> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> You know, my personal issue is often getting to “artificial general intelligence”, not wondering what “artificial general intelligence” means.

I understand that.

> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> And… Google isn’t great for translating acronyms, because there are too many acronyms and they often overlap. Asking a human being in the thread what an acronym means seems perfectly reasonable to me. I’m always surprised how much hostility it provokes.

This is the part I have a problem with.

As noted above, looking up AGI gives Artificial General Intelligence as the second result, and searching for AGI AI immediately gives you the correct result. Google does just fine at translating acronyms if you either add a second word to give Google context, or if you just glance at the results themselves and think about it for 30 seconds rather than picking the first one and returning to the thread to whine about how Adjusted Gross Income doesn’t make any sense in context.

I just don’t think that dropping a technical acronym in a thread about a technical subject is a problem. Just google ‘[Acronym] [Subject]’ and you’re good to go.

The only time I think naked acronyms are a problem is when they’re dropped almost completely without context, where you’d have no idea what [Subject] to Google alongside the acronym. An egregious example:

> [@Peter Dinklage Rips Disney For ‘Snow White’ Remake: ‘What The F\*\*k Are You Doing?!’](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-dinklage-rips-disney-for-snow-white-remake-what-the-f-k-are-you-doing/958359/935):
>
> I liked the original’s characters, and their charm. I liked the Goth, and the gross, weird, macabre. I don’t think it’s story is as “fleshed out” as I would’ve liked. It didn’t really explain a few things, that I believe were more ‘fleshed out’ originally. There’s, of course, some cringe, problematic stuff. I think it was first intended that Lydia to be SA’d, or something like that… crazy. I never watched the cartoon, but I’ve actually heard good things.

Of course, rather than whine about it, I just thought it over for a while until it clicked that they mean “Sexually Assaulted”. Initializing that might be some kind of “trigger warning” thing? Which is why I didn’t call it out in the original thread.

That being said, that’s a far more confusing acronym than any technical acronym in a thread on that technical topic would ever be.

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