Cruelty…no, maybe dishonesty or disingenuousness. All are equally deplorable.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What would you like to leave your children?
Death & what remains
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Ignorance and rudeness. Decency and a please and thank you cost nothing.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 September 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 197 →
John Mellencamp
Singer and songwriter
Ungratefulness.
Richard Feynman
Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965
I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist.
Lying, unreliability.
More from Stephen K Amos
View profile →Looking back is not productive.
“Do you know what your problem is?” It was a dear friend of mine. They were referring to the fact that I’m impatient.
I’m slightly impatient.
A Porsche 911 Turbo.
John McCarthy, the journalist who was held captive for five years in Beirut. I’ve met him and he was so full of peace, humility and forgiveness – it was inspiring.
The notion that anything is possible.
More on values & belief
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- What are you unwilling to optimise? 30 answers
- What have you come to understand about what it means to be human? 14 answers
- What is the most overrated virtue? 10 answers
- What do you need to believe in order to get through the day? 9 answers
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Rafael Nadal, Joyce Carol Oates, Terry Gross, Adam Kay, Brandi Carlile, Alison Steadman
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