Do you have to try things in order to know it's a dumb idea?

Well, it depends…for instance, I know that pouring gasoline on myself and then lighting a match is a bad idea, but I’ve never tried it (sorry for the morbid example). However, for things that are not quite so intuitive (and unsafe), sometimes you have to try for yourself. THe world’s great inventors would never have gotten any where if they had not tried things occasionally that seemed like dumb ideas…

Did you have something specific in mind?

@yankeetooter The inspiring stupid act was my friend trying to smoke nutmeg because she can’t smoke pot anymore, even after I told her that even the guy who wrote the Anarchist’s Cookbook no longer thinks it will get you high. Then, after texting me that it “tastes like ass and piss”, she then had to (and this is my favorite part) take a couple more hits just to make sure.

Oh, wow! I thought maybe you were asking in regards to something you were contemplating trying. No, I don’t know why people feel the need to do this kind of thing…

crossing off my list of things to do…smoke nutmeg

I think a lot depends on risk. If it’s a low risk ‘challenge’ literally what have you got to lose?
You could find out something’s dumb but it’s inconsequential so, so what?
If you or someone else could end up dead it’s worth looking at the prior art.

No, not at all. The kinds of mistakes and dumb things I do and don’t do seem to fall in a number of distinct categories. There are some stupid mistakes I have never made, I think I was just born knowing they were stupid, mistakey things. I look at some of the things people do and think: “What the hell is wrong with you people? How stupid can you be?” There are other mistakes I haven’t made because I’m reasonably intelligent and my parents raised me and taught me to understand that certain things are just stupid or reckless, etc. and will bring only trouble and misery. There are mistakes that I have watched other people make, mistakes they made in small or out loud kinds of ways that I vowed that I would never do that.

Then there are mistakes that I’ve made myself, some where once was enough, some where it took me a couple or more violent raps to the head before I came to my senses and stopped making those mistakes and some mistakes I continue to make over and over again and never seem to effing learn or change my ways.

I try to learn from others mistakes… I try to get advice if its a tough decision, but if its something stupid like what @MyNewtBoobs described I would heed the advice of my friends…. I also try to learn from my own mistakes so as not to make them again, such as in relationships.

It depends on what it is. I’m not going to try heroin, but I will speed lol.

Anything that screams bad idea I probably won’t do, but if it isn’t too too bad, usually I’ll be able to tell it is a bad idea and do it anyways. At least, I’d like to..

Not everything, per se. Killing someone, or toturing a cat is dumb. I don’t have to attempt it to know for sure.

When I was a kid I jumped of this barn roof onto a stack of hay bails…....turned out to be pretty dumb. I limped away looking like a cross between a demented scarecrow & a crippled robot. Still, it was worth trying, or so I thought :¬(

When I was a child I was too terrified to try almost anything…so I stayed at home and read instead. When I was a teenager I decided that neither rational thought nor parental advise were “enlightened”. My approach to my emerging self was trial-by-fire. Now (mid-twenties) I am settling down and accepting that I can protect myself from unnecessary pain without depriving myself of the pain that will grow me, stretch me and make me wiser, saner, truer.