[bawolff]

I never got this.

If your question could be answered by googling, its not really an interesting question.

Meaning of life -> interesting question

What is the capital of Canada? -> who cares, and if you did care why would you want to debate it instead of looking it up? [Its just an example, i am Canadian and obviously know what the answer is]

[Fnoord]

Using a search engine requires skill. Asking a good question does as well. The saying is, "the most stupid question is the one you haven't asked". However it omits one should put in effort to do their own research. That effort is somewhat arbitrary. It doesn't equal using Google (I generally don't even use Google search engine), nor does it require success in using Google. A good basis is the ability to do research; I believe the emphasis should lie there. And it needs to be taught before university (which is 18+ age).

[bawolff]

Being able to do proper research is all well and good, but is not needed to determine the "trivial questions of fact" that the parent was talking about.

[lazylizard]

"whats the capital of south africa?" is more interesting!