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Reminds me of the boot-camp story of the nervous recruit inquiring of his sergeant:

"Sir beg my pardon for asking but why did you give Smith 50 press-ups for asking a question? You said that there were no stupid questions. Sir."

"I gave him the press-ups the SECOND time he asked. Will you need to ask again?"

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That's awful. So they train people to never ask for clarification or refresh if they misunderstand or forget, so instead they go on to make a far worse mistake acting on incorrect information.

A clarification question is not asking the same question twice. The point seems to be that you should pay attention.

I believe that is the lesson from the story, but I don't believe the lesson from the story == the lesson irl.

The IRL takeaway is that if you don't open your mouth, you don't get punished. If you do open your mouth, you might get punished.

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