Q: (cinnamon) We need a FOTCM 'swear jar' for malformed questions.
(L) Good idea! [laughter] If you come up with a crappy question or poorly phrased, you gotta put money in the jar!
I was thinking about this during and after the session and wondering if it would be worth discussing "what makes a 'good' question for the C's" in this thread. I believe its been discussed before in the past but since it came up in this session maybe it would be worth discussing here so we have "better" questions for the next group session.
Personally I see "asking good questions" as a skill, like most things in life, and when I'm trying to improve at a skill it usually helps me to find some examples to imitate and to break the skill down into small steps to practice. So for instance if I were trying to learn to play guitar I would look for videos of highly skilled guitar players to watch to give my brain some idea of what is possible and how to do it well, and I would break the skill down into small parts to practice, like chord progressions, scales and that sort of thing to create steps to work on.
So how do we formulate a good question for the C's? Well we have lots of good examples in the transcripts of not so good questions early on and then better and better questions over the years. I thought this sequence was good:
(Niall) We suspect that the gunman who shot elementary school kids in Uvalde, Texas had help from others. Is this the case?
A: Yes
Q: (Niall) We think that there was some kind of order for the police to stand down. Is that what happened?
A: Yes
Q: (Niall) Did they also disable the door locks?
A: Yes
Q: (Niall) Bingo, okay. We suspect that more than one gunman was at the Highland Park shooting near Chicago on July 4th. Is that the case?
A: Yes
Q: (Niall) Was there a second shooter on the roof overlooking the street junction?
A: Yes
Q: (Niall) Are major food distribution centers in the West being deliberately destroyed?
A: Yes
Q: (Joe) By whom?
A: Elements of the secret government.
You can tell that Niall did his own research and he was asking the Cs for confirmation (yes or no questions) and then Joe asked an open ended but simple question at the end of the sequence for something that is not easily researched.
I think the sequence asking about viruses is also a good example:
(Joe) How correct are scientists' ideas about viruses?
A: Close enough though there is a lot they do not know including the fact that a virus is a transdensity structure.
Q: (Joe) Do viruses come from outside of the human body or from inside?
A: Both.
Q: (Joe) So the body can also make them?
A: Yes
Q: (Joe) Are they infectious?
A: Depending on the specific virus. Mostly, yes.
These questions aren't all yes and no, but they are straightforward questions asking one thing at a time.
There were other good examples from the "peanut gallery"
Q: (Jefferson/Breton) What happened to the Guidestones?
A: Blown up by unhappy patriot.
(Ze Germanz) Who killed Rasputin and why?
A: The equivalent of Mossad for those times.
Q: (L) And why?
A: Too much influence on royal family plus the ability to foresee danger.
Q: (Lainey) Would a distance reiki attunement work?
A: Unlikely.
(Josi) How did Ivana Trump die?
A: Thrombosis leading to cardiac arrest.
These are like the question from Joe about "who blew up the food distribution centers" IMO, straightforward and well formulated but difficult to find an answer by researching.
If I were going to create a process for creating good questions for the Cs it would look something like this:
- Come up with first draft questions, just brainstorm them and write them out and don't worry about it.
- Try to answer your questions by yourself
- Write down a list of the things you couldn't answer by yourself and try to rewrite them as yes/no questions or close to it
I haven't asked any questions in a session myself, so this might be a classic "those who cannot do teach" moment
but FWIW I hope maybe this post will spur some discussion so we can come up with better questions next time and save Laura and Andromeda's arms a little bit.
, i need to participe more! but geez why is so dificult? I mean i admire Laura and all his group, all of them are awesome people and sometimes I keep thinking about how much they can do a comparison of what I do and it's an astronomical difference, but then I say to myself "I don't think that kind thinking brings something positive or helps me" so i guess, all can i do for now is keep working on myself , help others and cheering all members on the forum.Yaay! and btw I'm from Mexico and yeah! we are on kahoots!
