But the question really is can stupid people do smart things, not vice-versa. Smart people can, for whatever reason, have that intelligence temporarily/momentarily supressed by stronger competing forces which results in the smart person doing a stupid thing(s).
But stupid people don’t have an appropriate counterpart to the smart person who temporarily has their intelligence hijacked by other, stronger forces (emotion, illness, intoxication, etc.) and end up doing stupid things. There is no temporarily suppressing a person’s idiocy.
Yup. The way it was introduced to me and was “There are no stupid questions; only stupid silences.” IOW, being silent because you think your question is a stupid one that reveals your ignorance of something is the REAL stupid choice.
This platitude was given in a context in which one who allowed his ignorance to remain concealed would potentially expose people to avoidable hazards.
The stupidest question I was ever asked? A women walked in Wal-Mart behind me and asked me “Is this Walmart?” I resisted the urge to tell her “no it’s not”, I just looked at her and walked on. When I looked back she was walking to the service counter. I guess to ask someone smarter than me.
And the person asking the question has never seen an elevator before in their lives; having grown up on a small island without any buildings higher than two stories. Or perhaps they call them lifts and think that lift = elevator but are not 100% certain and don’t want to look silly by doing the wrong thing.
The one question that always amazed me when I was a Computer Science prof was “Is zero an odd or even number.” From 3rd and 4th year Computer Science majors. Do they know nothing about binary numbers???
(Once after being asked this I asked FtGKid1 this question. “It’s even.” “Why?” “Because one is odd.” He was 4.)
There’s different categories of questions that appear stupid.
Questions which pertain to things which you simply could not see until they were pointed out and then they were obvious. You’ll never ask that question twice. These are often stumpers just because someone wasn’t able to separate the surrounding noise from what they were trying to find. Like a directional sign in a department store, or how to find that specific drop-down menu with the obscurely-named option at the very bottom which is the only way to find that file you are sure you made.
Questions which stem from avoiding going through the effort of logical thinking. Lots of people have more trouble with remembering facts, and linking them up in a rational way than, I’m guessing, the self-selected group on the Dope. Many of those people get used to ‘being too stupid’ and have stopped trying. Like me with numbers – I have dyscalculia and can’t add or measure or any of those ordinary things without enormous concentration; it’s so much easier to get the right answer by simply asking someone else – almost anyone else. You could call this learned helplessness.
Questions which are idle and inattentive and apparently only for making a conversational noise. My husband often does this. “Are you eating breakfast now?” “Is that the mail?”
No, these stairs are stationary. You can use them to go up or down, so long as they extend in the direction you wish to go. Stairs that go up (or down) are referred to as an “escalator”, even though they don’t really go up or down either. They go around, but on an incline/decline plane.
In a place I used to work, we had an outdoor section, access to which was through a door on which was written ‘Outdoor Section This Way’. On a regular basis, customers would point at it and ask me ‘Is the outdoor section though that door?’ using the exact wording on the door. After a while, I just answered everyone who did that with ‘Nope’ and grinned at them, and every single time they then laughed and walked through.
Not sure if they just loved the sound of their own voices, or if it was people on automatic, and the stupid answer broke them out of it.
As Srephen King wrote in Rose Madder: A stupid question is one you already know the answer to.
I can be behind the cash register with the light on, wearing my red work shirt and ringing up an order, and someone will come up and ask “Are you open?”
As a variant on that- for the airport coffee shop I used to work in, I was part of the team that helped open it. The whole wing was cordoned off, the lights were off, there was no stock in the cake fridges or on the shelves, staff were wearing casual clothes and dust, while trying to hang signs up and there was a pallet with a pile of cardboard boxes in the middle of the floor. Three people walked moved the barriers out the way, walked round the pallet and the boxes, went to the till and, to the person hanging a sign above it, asked ‘Can I get a cappuccino/latte?’
A stupid question is one a moment’s thought or attention would give you the answer to.
I think this is from “The Thin Man” (the movie) but it might have been one of the sequels:
Nora: “Would you like a drink?”
Nick: “It’s a little early, isn’t it?”
Nora: “Too early for a drink?”
Nick: “No, too early for stupid questions! Of course I want a drink!”
And there’s the passive aggressive stupid question, like when I took the train to Honeybourne from Paddington, and the stop was announced, and the train stopped, and I got my baggage and went for the exit, whose doors had just opened wide to the air, only to have my pathway blocked by the conductor standing astride the exit with both of his hands on the luggage racks on either side of the aisle. So I said “Is this the exit?”. Because it obviously was the exit and my stop, I just didn’t know if there was some unwritten rule I was breaking or if he was simply in my way.