I think that would get me to talk with them out of sheer curiosity. ("Just what kind of a mental model could this person to have in order to ask such a question?")
Sadly, reacting in such a way generally amounts to grossly overestimating the questioner's intelligence and informedness. Most people don't have mental models. The contents of their minds are just a jumble; a question like the one I quoted is roughly equivalent to
"I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Here's something that sounds like a question, but understand that I probably won't even remotely comprehend any answer you give me. If you want me to understand anything about this, at all, you'll have to go way back to the beginning and take it real slow."
(Source: years of working in computer retail and tech support.)
r/Fitness does a weekly "Moronic Monday", a judgment-free thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. I thought this seemed like a useful thing to have here - after all, the concepts discussed on LessWrong are probably at least a little harder to grasp than those of weightlifting. Plus, I have a few stupid questions of my own, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that other people might as well.