# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 382
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8011 "2026-08-13T03:41:56Z")
What was i thinking? (I think i won’t link to the thread, for various reasons. But i belong here and I’ll try to stop.) ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8012 "2026-08-22T16:36:44Z")
> [@dcbwhaley](#): > > _ **Why do msome people want so much money?** _ > > Once you have made your first billion surely you can buy all you want. So wh do people strive for more billions Why do some people put so little thought into their spelling, grammar, and what they are posting? (Especially in a forum like FQ, which is why the thread was immediately closed.) Not a young person used to sloppy electronic communication, so it’s not that. They are instead reportedly a “78 yo retired electronic engineer.” ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8013 "2026-08-22T16:43:56Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Why do some people put so little thought into their spelling, grammar, and what they are posting? Even though the thread is locked, I was going to fix the title. Then I realized if I did, it would render your post here a head-scratcher. But I’m with you. Poor thread titles are a particular peeve of mine. If the thread gets reopened in a different forum (unlikely), I’ll fix it. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8014 "2026-08-22T16:59:59Z")
Bad spelling and the wrong forum but it’s still a good topic. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8015 "2026-08-22T17:08:03Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Not a young person used to sloppy electronic communication, so it’s not that. They are instead reportedly a “78 yo retired electronic engineer.” They even get their job title wrong. They may have been an “electrical engineer” or maybe an “electronics engineer”. But if they were an “electronic engineer” then they were – and still are – a robot powered by electronics and AI. If it was crappy AI it would account for some of their posting mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8016 "2026-08-22T17:16:05Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > If it was crappy AI it would account for some of their posting mistakes. Byt it couldn’t be AI since research into AI only started 70 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8017 "2026-08-22T17:19:16Z")
He’s a 78 yo engineer. On a popularity scale of 1-100 that’s a good Yo! rating. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8018 "2026-08-22T17:34:54Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > If it was crappy AI it would account for some of their posting mistakes. > > Byt it couldn’t be AI since research into AI only started 70 years ago. Perhaps he wasn’t actually an “electronic engineer”, but its predecessor, an “electric engineer”. Electric engineers started to replace steam-powered engineers well over 90 years ago! They had **really** crappy AI operated by a circular strip of punched paper tape, and had eyes made of blinking Christmas tree bulbs. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8019 "2026-08-22T18:21:53Z")
Ha! You should have been around during the Tall Engineer era when they were powered by wind. Unfortunately politicians have ruined that mode’s reputation. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8020 "2026-08-22T20:18:47Z")
That was a really vacuous OP. I wonder how many years that person lurked before coming up with that winner. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8021 "2026-08-22T21:44:25Z")
To be fair, I often ask myself the same question. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8022 "2026-08-22T21:47:42Z")
Since my prior comment I checked their history. Been a member here a couple months, otherwise sensible posts on a variety of general interest topics. Hooray for a newbie who’s not an obviously bad actor. So probably a legit bit of curiosity, but tossed out there without much thought about how such a thread would play out. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8023 "2026-08-22T21:52:45Z")
He had a couple of misspellings and a vague post in the wrong forum. I can think of posters who do that every day. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8024 "2026-08-22T22:05:09Z")
Yeah, this feels kind of mean-spirited to me. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2026, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8025 "2026-08-22T22:33:59Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Yeah, this feels kind of mean-spirited to me. It wasn’t intended to be so. I was merely commenting on a pretty vacuous post, as someone else noted here. It could indeed be an interesting question to pose, as noted by **Elmer\_J.Fudd**. But if the OP can’t be arsed to write in clear English, it’s more irritating than anything else. It’s not like we can’t edit after posting. So they just didn’t give a shit. Anyone can make a typo. But multiple typos in a very short post, missing punctuation, a vacuous OP, and in the wrong forum all added up to a bit of annoyance in my book.\* The mod who immediately closed it instead of moving it apparently agreed. \*Especially since I kept reading the title as: _ **Why do handsome people want so much money?** _ 🤔 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8026 "2026-08-23T10:54:39Z")
I see your point and I’d dial my own comments back a smidgen. I did not immediately recognize the OP person, and figured it was a one-time drive-by hoping to trigger an avalanche of recreational outrage.. For complicated controversial issues there can be a place for an OP that’s a simple neutral statement of the issue, and a promise to come back with their own opinion in a bit after some others have weighed in. That works whether the thread is in GD or IMHO or, if the issue fits, P&E. In this case the issue was stated as a (mildly) poisoned well. I suppose several of us, including the Mod, were in a bit of an impatient mood when the thread was noticed and so it got a curt reception which in turn fed upon itself. I was a bit surprised the Mod didn’t include the usual newbie hand-holding along the lines of “Your topic is certainly acceptable to discuss and might be interesting if fleshed out a bit and opened in the correct category. But as-is where-is, this is short track to a train wreak. Feel free to try again.” I took that omission as a signal that they knew something about the poster I did not and were deliberately gently discouraging a second try. In hindsight after I’d reviewed the poster’s history, my assumption was almost certainly wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8027 "2026-08-23T15:01:09Z")
That poster is not really a noob, and they had some of the hand-holding thing on the first thread they started (on a completely different issue, not because they had done anything wrong). On that occasion, they were invited, with a link, to check out posting rules and guidelines. That said, I don’t know why the moderator didn’t provide them with a choice of moving/re-opening the thread in a more appropriate forum, as they have certainly done for many other more-experienced posters. Some of what was posted afterwards in this thread had a definite flavor of a pile-on. I frankly hope the poster in question didn’t read any of that, and will try again. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8028 "2026-08-24T16:22:59Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > They even get their job title wrong. They may have been an “electrical engineer” or maybe an “electronics engineer”. But if they were an “electronic engineer” then they were – and still are – a robot powered by electronics and AI. Nope. Decades ago (and it may still be the case in some places), “electronic engineer” was a recognized job title for many engineers who developed and worked with electronic components. Anecdotal source: That was my own father’s job title back in the ‘70s. Documented source: E.g., [this 2021 obituary](https://www.adams-perfect.com/memorials/edward-sawtelle/4668859/) of a retired “Supervisory Electronic Engineer” at a government research facility. You can find zillions of similar examples by searching on the term “electronic engineer”. (As a child, I had the same notion you did about the adjectival ambiguity of the term “electronic engineer” and attempted the same “gotcha” argument on my father. _”But Daddy, you can’t be an electronIC engineer, that would mean that you personally are electronic like a robot or something!”_ [As you can see, the trademark @Kimstu irritating pedantry was already highly developed even at that young age. 🤪] Dad replied _”Well then, what about civil engineers?”_, and I had to admit he had me there. 🤣🤣) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8029 "2026-08-24T16:52:51Z")
I don’t think “civil engineer” is a good counterargument, as it comes from the Latin _civilis_ which means “civil” in the sense of “related to citizens”, which itself is related to _civis_, meaning “citizen”. I accept your assertion that “electronic engineer” is a commonly used title, but I still dislike the ambiguity and take it as proof that engineers as a group, as bright as they may be, are not the epitome of literacy. What would you call an artificial engineer made of electronic parts? How do you feel about the title “electric engineer”? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8030 "2026-08-24T16:58:27Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > What would you call an artificial engineer made of electronic parts? How do you feel about the title “electric engineer”? Well, personally, I learned at the age of about twelve or whenever that father-daughter dialogue took place that how I personally feel about the logical construction of a term of art or a grammatical usage is irrelevant to what it’s actually used to mean, so it’s not really worth my time to protest it. Language gonna language. (That attitude’s a lot harder to maintain in the face of usages like subjective “whom”, for example, but I keep trying.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=381) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=383)