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Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

How do you quantify an ”outlandish question”?

Asked by Hypocrisy_Central (26879points) December 1st, 2015

disclaimer As much as I would like to have this in General to keep the hijacking at bay and people who may have short attention spans from wondering, it might have been kicked to Meta seeing it deals with question here. Let’s try to keep on point thought it is not in general.

Not much tickles my brain matter in these parts lately, but a comment by @hearkat ”I have always appreciated that HC does make that effort, although his Qs are often difficult to understand because of grammatical errors or poor phrasing, or the subjects they seem to be about can sometimes be outlandish, he deserves credit for at least contributing content and attempting to start conversations.”, had me thinking on it most of the day and then some. If an outlandish question by dictionary view is strange, off beat, or bizarre what would that be? I know with wide latitude on what a person sees as outlandish it is more about understanding where this body’s level or medium is on outlandish. Myself, I have thought plenty of questions that could fit outlandish here, as well as boring, asinine, etc. Would a question wanting to know if is legal to give someone permission to sex up your dead corpse outlandish, or a zombie apocalypse that has no plausible way of happening in this universe but only in the strangest regions of someone’s mind outlandish? Where do you place the line or how low or high the bar?

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18 Answers

ibstubro's avatar

About the time I came on the scene you were obsessed with outlandish questions that offered crazy comparisons, like “Would you rather eat a live kitten or have sex with an 11 month old baby?”

Some perverse personal moral code. Obsessed with underage sex.
There was a time I would have reported you as a perv, if asked.

I hope that’s on-point enough.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

@ibstubro About the time I came on the scene you were obsessed with outlandish questions that offered crazy comparisons, like “Would you rather eat a live kitten or have sex with an 11 month old baby?”
I have never had what is clinically determined as any obsession over any question; I learned thois place is never that serious enough for that. Questions like the aforementioned one were more a tongue-in-cheek way of staying with the unseriousness of Fluther.

Some perverse personal moral code. Obsessed with underage sex.
There we go, you say sometning is a perversion, but in a world that is just the world, anything that falls out of the natural order of things would be perversion, but because some of those things might fall within your personal sacred cows, you’d never admit it. In a world that is just the world, nature has a time from going from non-mature to mature. When an animal reaches that point, mating happens, it is biology. Any set of rules, by which you would call morality, is a concept of idea or personal belief has no foot in nature. Where someone in the Middle east would say the time for a female to be a mother or agree to sex (under certain conditions) might be 12 years of age, in Austrailia it might be 16 years of age, in California it is 18 years of age. So who is divinatively correct? They are all different ideologies applied in different ways. Because avoiding that fact and having someone point out an undefendability of that fact seems like an obsession, I can say the same of the zombie apacolypse questions which has no footing in reality.

There was a time I would have reported you as a perv, if asked.
Which again goes back to personal leanings or likes, which I can point out blow fr blow but I am not trying to take this thread there, but keep it on the subject of questions.

Mimishu1995's avatar

You know what @Hypocrisy_Central? I have to admit that sometimes I find your questions to the the same as what @hearkat says. Your questions have some thought-provoking elements that can sparkle a debate. But what I disagree with you is the way you ask your questions and the way you respond to other jellies. You sound like you only want people to think of the answer the same way as you, and other answers just need to be shot down.

stanleybmanly's avatar

So you are asking us about our personal take on the fuzzy word “outlandish” in regard to questions posted here. So much can be crowded into the basket of “outlandish”. Everything from quirky through offensive, inappropriate or unacceptable, and no 2 jellies are going to give you the same range on the severity or scale of any of those words. Anyone who posts questions with the “outlandish” frequency as yourself Is destined for commentary. And you’re better off asking hearkat for an explanation of “outlandish” in that complimentary commentary on the “work” you perform here.

dappled_leaves's avatar

“that has no plausible way of happening in this universe but only in the strangest regions of someone’s mind ”

I think this is pretty much my personal definition of “outlandish”. When you described it earlier as “strange, off beat, or bizarre”, that seemed a bit tepid, to me. Because of the derivation of the word, in my mind it must be something that has an otherworldly quality to it.

In other words, not “strange, off beat, or bizarre”, but rather strange, very offbeat, extremely bizarre.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

@Mimishu1995 Your questions have some thought-provoking elements that can sparkle a debate. But what I disagree with you is the way you ask your questions and the way you respond to other jellies.
They can’t be much thought provoking if it goes in one ear but never comes out, and the original thinking stays intact without a modicum of change. Is what you are saying is because 15 out of 18 people believe something that is flatly wrong, or unproven, I should just accept it because the masses said so? Galileo, I am sure should have heeded that advice. ~~~
I look for answers that hold up to the thought or methology the person who spoke of it. If you toss spaghetti on the wall to see if it sticks and it starts to slide off, I am going to point it out, to say just because it did not fall right off but is sliding south to the point it will be on the floor in a minute that it stuck is not my my folly.

But now that you are hear, let me ask you, do you believe a question is outlandish because it falls nowhere in the normal physical realm or because it is outside the social comfort zone of the masses, or both?

@stanleybmanly Anyone who posts questions with the “outlandish” frequency as yourself Is destined for commentary.
Then we go back full circul to your opening line; the nebulous expectation of outlandish. As one may think questions dealing with sex with dead corpses, or unreal zombies outlandish, others might think of some plausible, and often real, alleged dark facet of humanity is outlandish, especially if you bring it to light in open forum. For there to be any say that my questions are of frequent outlandish quality goes back to personal interpretation, which is basically unproven. I say that to say this, put 40 people on a room for telekanisis, just because 32 in the room who as a leaning to believe, say it exist, doesn’t make the opther 8 wrong especially if there is no way to tangibly manufacture, or record the use ever happening.

@dappled_leaves Because of the derivation of the word, in my mind it must be something that has an otherworldly quality to it.
Does that mean a question asking if you were abducted and taken to an alien planet, would you rather end up as a slave or as dinner, would be outlandish, or not? :-)

Or what of a question if someone asked if he could mummify his body with a hard on and leave it to his G/F so she can have the shell of him to boink when she got horny, outlandish or not?

dappled_leaves's avatar

@Hypocrisy_Central “Does that mean a question asking if you were abducted and taken to an alien planet, would you rather end up as a slave or as dinner, would be outlandish, or not? :-)”

Well, that would doubly qualify, as an outlandish question about outlandish events!

But yes, I was referring to the type of question you mentioned next (the mummification one). It’s so far outside anyone’s actual experience or expectation as to be outlandish. Outlandishness (is that a word?) is not a bad thing in and of itself, though.

syz's avatar

I dunno, I just skip a lot of your questions.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

^ So, there are NO other questions asked on Fluther you would call outlandish, or have any criterion on what that would mean?

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

My question about time travel forwards and backwards got pulled 4 years ago when I was talljasperman.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

^ Holy old came new Batman! Talljasperman….and I thought it was MrShinyShoes all along…..

jca's avatar

@Hypocrisy_Central: You say a lot of thoughtful things, you write well and you’re often funny, maybe without meaning to be. I think the comparison questions you used to ask a lot of were offbeat. “Outlandish” is not a word I use so I don’t tend to think of things as outlandish. I think they were offbeat.

I know that much of what you write is not everyone’s cup of tea. I think you’re a valuable addition to the collective, as everyone else is. The site is small and every member in this community is precious.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

@jca I think you’re a valuable addition to the collective, as everyone else is.
I guess if nothing else, to give people something to talk about or rally behind, that is when they are not avoiding my question on GP. ~~ Har har.

If it were not for thinking devoid on the norm would we have cell phones? Radio did practically the same thing and was cheaper. Somewhere back in time in a corded phone world, someone had the audacity to think, ”maybe we can have a phone people can carry like a radio but it would still be a phone”. If no one ever thought to think over the horizon because someone would get ticked off, we might be like this .

dxs's avatar

I’m not sure; I never knew questions had a numerical value.
I deem a question outlandish if I think it’s outlandish.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

^ Holy Smokes Bullwinkle that sounded like one of the most genuine answers I have seen on Fluther in a while, thanks for that.

dxs's avatar

I can’t quite tell if your response is genuine, but Holy Smokes Bullwinkle to you, too!

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

^ It is. In a sea of comments and answers that seek to justify that one you made, to me, was an honest answer, not one with so much spin it could fly like a Frisbee.

dxs's avatar

^And that might’ve just been the clearest answer I’ve heard from you yet.

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