Questions without manipulation

I suggest asking people questions that are really open in their outcome. This has two big advantages:

  • People have to start to think themselves.
  • They don't feel manipulated

Example question: "If a highrise burns similar to WTC 7, how likely is a collapse?"

Answer 1: "It is rather likely."

Problems:

  • Since there have been over 100 such fires, it is very likely that such a collapse would have been among them.
  • Why wasn't there an explanation of the WTC 7 collapse for many years, if it was very likely? This sounds like a hypothesis without proof.
  • We live in great danger, because fires happen more often than terror attacks.
  • Fire insurances would climb, building codes would have to be drastically changed.

Answer 2: "It was rather unlikely. A coincidence."

Problem: How was it possible to predict the WTC 7 collapse, if it was unlikely? (And why didn't this clever engineer help NIST in explaining the collapse?)

Variation of the question: "Is the collapse probability closer to 10% or closer to 0.1% ?"