I’ve been reading the answers and trying to put words into what I want to say. Ideally people will experience not just being more specific, but experience that when they’re more specific, they immedaitely communicate more effectively.
For instance, think of three or four topics people probably have an opinion on, starting with innocuous (do you like movie X) and going on to controvertial (what do you think of abortion). Either have a list in advance, or ask people for examples. Perhaps have a shortlist and let people choose, or suggest something else if they really want?
I picked the movie example because it’s something people usually feel happy to talk about, but can be very invested in their opinion of. Ideally it’s something people will immediately disagree about. I don’t think this is difficult—in a group of 10, I’d expect to name only one or two movies before people disagreed, even though social pressure usually means they won’t immediately say so.
Step 1 Establish that people disagree, and find it hard to come to an agreement. This should take about 30s. People will hopefully “agree to disagree” but not actually understand each other’s position. Eg. “Starwars was great, it was so exciting.” “Starwars was boring and sucked and didn’t make any sense.”
Step 2 Ask WHAT people like about it. Encourage people to give specific examples at first (“eg. I loved it when Luke did X”) and then draw generalisations from it (“I really empathised with Luke and I was excited that he won” “I’ve read stories about farmboys who became heroes before, I already know what happens, bring me some intellecutal psychological fare instead”). Emphasise that everyone is on the same side, and they shouldn’t worry about being embarrassed or being “wrong”.
Step 3 Establish that (probably) they interpreted what the other person said in terms of what they were thinking (eg. “How can blowing up a spaceship be boring”) when actually the other person was thinking about something they hadn’t thought of (eg. “OK, I guess if you care about the physics, it would be annoying that they are completely and utterly made up, it just never occurred to me that anyone would worry about that.”)
I may be hoping too much, but this is definitely the sort of process I’ve gone through to rapidly reach an understanding with someone when we previously differed a lot, and for some simple examples, it doesn’t seem too much to hope we can do so that rapidly. Now, go through the process with two-four statements, ending with something fairly controvertial.
Hopefully (this is pure speculation, I’ve not tried it), giving specific examples will lead to people actually reaching understandings, imprinting the experience as a positive and successful one. Then encourage people to say “Can you give me an example of when [bad thing] would be as bad as you feel” as often as possible. Give examples where being specific is more persuasive (eg. “We value quality” vs “We aim for as few bugs as possible” vs “We triage bug reports as they come in. All bugs we decide to fix are fixed before the next version is released” or “we will close loopholes in the tax code” vs “we will remove the tax exempion on X”), and encourage people to shout out more.
I like this, because it forces the audience to come up with specific statements, but it doesn’t seem to teach them to recognize WHEN they need to be more specific.
I’d say it’s a very good precursor, to help them see what a specific statement is, and why it’s useful. It’s actually my favorite from this whole thread for that, so I do think it’s a really cool idea! :)
(I’m finding it neat how often this thread is identifying, for me, things that ought to be taught BEFORE you even get in to the core 5-second-skill of “recognizing when to be more specific”. It reminds me of Eliezer’s comments on the Sequences growing exponentially as he realized he needed to establish X before going on to Y, and then realizing he’d also need Q and K)
I’ve been reading the answers and trying to put words into what I want to say. Ideally people will experience not just being more specific, but experience that when they’re more specific, they immedaitely communicate more effectively.
For instance, think of three or four topics people probably have an opinion on, starting with innocuous (do you like movie X) and going on to controvertial (what do you think of abortion). Either have a list in advance, or ask people for examples. Perhaps have a shortlist and let people choose, or suggest something else if they really want?
I picked the movie example because it’s something people usually feel happy to talk about, but can be very invested in their opinion of. Ideally it’s something people will immediately disagree about. I don’t think this is difficult—in a group of 10, I’d expect to name only one or two movies before people disagreed, even though social pressure usually means they won’t immediately say so.
Step 1 Establish that people disagree, and find it hard to come to an agreement. This should take about 30s. People will hopefully “agree to disagree” but not actually understand each other’s position. Eg. “Starwars was great, it was so exciting.” “Starwars was boring and sucked and didn’t make any sense.”
Step 2 Ask WHAT people like about it. Encourage people to give specific examples at first (“eg. I loved it when Luke did X”) and then draw generalisations from it (“I really empathised with Luke and I was excited that he won” “I’ve read stories about farmboys who became heroes before, I already know what happens, bring me some intellecutal psychological fare instead”). Emphasise that everyone is on the same side, and they shouldn’t worry about being embarrassed or being “wrong”.
Step 3 Establish that (probably) they interpreted what the other person said in terms of what they were thinking (eg. “How can blowing up a spaceship be boring”) when actually the other person was thinking about something they hadn’t thought of (eg. “OK, I guess if you care about the physics, it would be annoying that they are completely and utterly made up, it just never occurred to me that anyone would worry about that.”)
I may be hoping too much, but this is definitely the sort of process I’ve gone through to rapidly reach an understanding with someone when we previously differed a lot, and for some simple examples, it doesn’t seem too much to hope we can do so that rapidly. Now, go through the process with two-four statements, ending with something fairly controvertial.
Hopefully (this is pure speculation, I’ve not tried it), giving specific examples will lead to people actually reaching understandings, imprinting the experience as a positive and successful one. Then encourage people to say “Can you give me an example of when [bad thing] would be as bad as you feel” as often as possible. Give examples where being specific is more persuasive (eg. “We value quality” vs “We aim for as few bugs as possible” vs “We triage bug reports as they come in. All bugs we decide to fix are fixed before the next version is released” or “we will close loopholes in the tax code” vs “we will remove the tax exempion on X”), and encourage people to shout out more.
I like this, because it forces the audience to come up with specific statements, but it doesn’t seem to teach them to recognize WHEN they need to be more specific.
I’d say it’s a very good precursor, to help them see what a specific statement is, and why it’s useful. It’s actually my favorite from this whole thread for that, so I do think it’s a really cool idea! :)
(I’m finding it neat how often this thread is identifying, for me, things that ought to be taught BEFORE you even get in to the core 5-second-skill of “recognizing when to be more specific”. It reminds me of Eliezer’s comments on the Sequences growing exponentially as he realized he needed to establish X before going on to Y, and then realizing he’d also need Q and K)