17-09-28 Frontier Conversations
Category: Idea Lists (Upon Request)
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How do we consistently have conversations that make progress?
- Just start talking about your frontier - open the conversation with it. Inferential distance be damned.
- Leading Questions
- What confuses you about it?
- What do you wish you could do with that that’s still hard?
- Apply Systematizing Creativity
- Recombine current idea with something novel
- Transfer idea to a new domain
- Abstract until there’s power
- Notice the language patterns of someone ‘catching you up to speed’.
- Pivot to a topic you can help create knowledge in.
- Say something controversial.
- Move towards contrarian beliefs / knowledge. Regardless of whether it’s frontier, it’s at least valuable social proof over something few have thought about.
- Make the conversation practical - here’s a problem I’m working on (immediately on own frontier)
- Talk about idea spaces that are novel and so unexplored
- Make it explicit - let’s sit down and figure out x.
- Know the person’s frontier and start talking about novelty around it.
- What’s one thing life trying to teach you right now?
Source: Original Google Doc