It's always good to ask the person about the context surrounding their question, but I also don't see much harm in seeking how to do Y, for the sake of Y. What

It's always good to ask the person about the context surrounding their question, but I also don't see much harm in seeking how to do Y, for the sake of Y. What is a 'strange problem to want to solve' anyways? To me, they are all just problems. Yes, it is often the case that the person has the wrong idea of how to solve X, but this does not always say something about the validity of problem Y. Often times knowing how to do Y is valuable for other contexts besides X. We should try to be friendly and make it clear that Y is not a good way to achieve X without downplaying Y, necessarily.