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
Most people do have mental models in the sense the word get's defined in decision theory literature.
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.