Questions

Good Questions

Good Questions Compiled through curiosity by Sara Weinberg, Sections added by Jeremy Nixon

Sections: Worldview Breakers ~ Openers ~ Big Questions ~ Imaginative ~ POV ~ Achievements ~ Characteristics ~ Memories ~ Deep ~ The Dark Side ~ Relationships ~ 36 Question to Fall in Love with Someone ~ Questions to Ask With Your Partner ~ Curiosity Game ~ Taboo Topics

Big Questions

What exists?
- What is the nature of our world?
- How is it structured?
- How does it function?
Where does everything come from?
- What explanation is there for the existence of everything?
Where are we going?
- What will the future of the universe be?
- What is the future of a life? What is death?
What should we do? What is right? Wrong?
- What is the meaning of life?
- What should we strive for?
- What is good and what is evil?
- What is moral?
- What is beautiful?
How should we act?
What is true?
- How can we acquire knowledge / How do we know what is true?
- What are the principles of valid inferences of demonstrations?
- What is truth?
- What is existence?
- What are the limitations of our tools? (Language, memory, attention, other mechanisms of thought and knowledge construction)
How do we answer these questions?

Openers

What is the best thing that happened to you this week?
What are you inspired by right now?
What is the most interesting thing you’ve learned recently?
Let’s find two things we have in common (besides where we are right now).
What's been on your mind a lot recently?
How did you get to this very moment? (start as far back as you like)
What community do you feel the strongest connection to?
What is something you recently tried and loved?
What did you fail at this week?
What's one topic you could talk about for hours?
What has surprised you recently?
What is something most people think you have the worst taste in but you love?
If you came with a warning label, what would it be?
What is your impression of each other?
What are you absolutely determined to do? This week? This decade?
High/Low/Learn - What was the high/low and what did you learn this from this day/week/event/experience?
What’s something you are really into right now?
What is something you have mastered?
What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
What is your most prized possession?
Who would play you in a movie? What if they had to be the opposite sex?
Which of your five senses do you treasure the most?
What without fail always makes you laugh?
What's the best thing you've ever purchased?
What is the indulgence you spend the most money on?
What is something everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime?
What would cause you to immediately grab hand sanitizer?

Imaginative

If you were to write a book/teach a class/give a TED talk, what would it be about?
If you had a remote control for your life with one button, what would it be?
If you could be reincarnated 5 times, who would you want to be reincarnated as?
If there was a holiday in your honor, how would it be celebrated?
If you could make up a holiday what would it be and how would you celebrate it?
You have reached your ‘ideal’ wealth, what does your life look like?
How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?
If money was no object, what would you do with your life?
If you could bring one fictional character to life, who would it be and why?
Behind the hidden door is the childhood toy you seek in the environment you most fear. What is the toy and what the environment?
If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
What is something that doesn't exist yet but you think should have been invented by now?
Everyone on Earth gets to wish for a superpower but you will only get yours if no one else wishes for the same power. What do you wish for?
If you could spend a day in my body/head, what would you do?

POV

What are some things us humans don't necessarily need that society makes us think we need?
What childhood behavior do you wish was acceptable for adults?
If you were to show around an out of towner, what would you highlight about where you live?
What does this world need more of?
What is obviously true but most people deny?
What opinion of yours puts you in the minority?
What is a sound/taste/smell/touch/sight you love?
What is something important you take for granted?
Where is the best place to see you in your prime?
What do we do now that will be looked at as primitive and backwards in 100 years?
What do you consider a wasted life?
Ask for advice! Make the person feel like an expert, whatever the situation. Ex. What new show should I binge watch?

Achievements

What does success look like to you?
What risk are you happy you took?
What’s the best compliment/gift you’ve ever received or given?
What is your greatest accomplishment?
What award (real or fake) would you like to win and for what achievement?
What’s one thing you’re deeply proud of but don’t normally share?
What didn’t last forever, but was still worth the while?
If you had another chance, would you pursue the same career?
What are you working towards that you could use help on?
What drives you to do better at something?

Characteristics

If I were to grind you up and put you in a pill capsule, what affects would you have on someone?
How would your friends describe you?
What do you do that makes time fly/feel in flow? What is the core of that activity that you really enjoy?
If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability what would it be?
If your tombstone had three words on it, what would they be?
Who are you when no one is looking?
What are some things that you wished people knew about you?
What do you make?
What is the best way that you manage stress?
What makes you feel good about yourself?
What are your intentions?
What are you most grateful for, right now, in this moment?
What is the #1 motivator in your life right now?
What are three things you love about yourself?
What is one of the nicest things someone has ever done for you?
What makes you feel better when you are bummed?
What do you want your legacy to be?
If this were a first date, what would you not want me to know about you?
What is your favorite thing your body does for you?
What is the best mistake you made?

Memories

What's the most successful drug experience you've had?
Have you ever had a now or never moment?
Where were you exactly a year ago?
What was your personality like as a child?
What is the best surprised you ever pulled off?
What is your most treasured memory?
Which age was the best year of your life?
What would you go back and tell your teenage self?
Whom have you lost touch with but still wonder about?
What is one life lesson that you learned from a mentor that changed your perspective on life?
What did your parents teach you that you had to unlearn?
What can you do today that you couldn’t do a year ago?
What’s something you said you would never do, but have since done?
What was your favorite thing to do during your summers as a kid?
What is the last time you did something evil?
What big lesson could someone learn from your life?
What three events define your life?

Deep

What is an object that has had a big impact on your life?
What is so important to you that you would stand in front of a bus to defend it?
What is the next chapter of your life?
What is the title of the current chapter of your life?
What is something deep inside you that needs to come out and be shared with the world?
What would put you out of your comfort zone right now?
What do you think your purpose in life is?
What statistic for your life would you most like to see?
When did you first realize you were an adult?
When was a time you discovered an edge?
If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
What is the best and worst case scenario for your current challenge?
What are your core wounds from childhood?
What is a lie you keep telling yourself?
How are you like (or not like) your mom and dad?
What was an inflection point in your life where you thought you were going down one path but ended up somewhere unexpected?
How do you seek validation?
What is pulling at your heart?
If you really knew me, you would know…

The Dark Side

What challenge do you want to overcome?
When have you felt the most alone?
What is something you have been putting off?
What is something you don’t understand but are too embarrassed to ask about?
When was the last time you cried? Why?
What, if anything, do you think is missing from your life?
What is your biggest fear?
What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
What are your pet peeves?
How do you react when you don't get what you want?
What scares or excites you the most about the future?
Are you holding onto something that you need to let go of? What’s stopping you?
What kinds of issues do you have with your friends?
What is the scariest thing that's ever happened to you?
Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
What do you live in denial about?
If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, would you have any regrets?
If you could eliminate one limitation/weakness from your life (besides money) what would it be?
What ideas or thoughts scare you the most?
What do you spend too much time doing?
Do you think other people can be trusted?
If you have one day/month/year to live, how would you spend it?
What is something you probably should do, but will never do?

Relationships

What is your relationship with flirting?
Who is an important person in your life besides a family member or significant other?
Which person has the greatest influence over your life?
What are the qualities you look for in a friend?
What is one way you helped another person this week?
Whose life do you believe you’ve had the biggest impact on?
What is the best thing about your dad and/or mom?
What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in a romantic relationship?
What is something uncommon that you find attractive?
What is the biggest romantic gesture you’ve given or received?
How do you show love to others?
Of the following ways, how do you express love to another person: touch, verbal, time spent together, acts of kindness, or gifts?
How do you show yourself that you love yourself?

36 Questions to Fall in Love with Someone (from New York Times)

Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
Would you like to be famous? In what way?
Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?
Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
What do you value most in a friendship?
What is your most treasured memory?
What is your most terrible memory?
If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
What does friendship mean to you?
What roles do love and affection play in your life?
Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.
How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling ... “
Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... “
If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.
Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?
Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?
Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

Knowing Someone More Deeply (Jeremy Nixon)

What narratives are you running?
1. Have you run in the past?
2. Have you escaped?
3. Are you afraid you’re living out despite yourself?
4. What narrative do you wish you were running but cannot?
What have you been wanting to tell me but haven’t?
What peace has gone unresolved?
1. Who would you consider a personal enemy?
2. Who would you consider to be an enemy in terms of the way you view the world and what you want for the future?
What emotions to you experience most regularly?
1. What are the consequences of those emotions?
2. What emotion are you experiencing regularly that you would prefer you not experience?
3. What emotion are you not experiencing that you wish that you were?
What have you been wanting to build recently?
What people are right in your life?
1. Wrong?
2. In changes to your social circle would make you happiest?
What damage is still affecting you?
What are the best conversations you’ve had recently?
What loops are you inside of?
1. Emotional loops
2. Cognitive loops
3. Grounding habits
What sub-identities are you feeding most consistently?
What sub-identities are starved for resource?
What is worth filling your mind with?
In what senses are you asleep?
How long have you been sleeping? Part by part?
What parts of you would you like to put to rest?
Which book should you really have read a long time ago?
Which author should you read more often?
What’s your present strongest FOMO?
What projects? What companies? What fields of research?
What’s the most interesting / fun / worthwhile project that you’re not working on?
What is the last deep insight you’ve had?
What life infrastructure could you be implementing that would make things better years down the line?
What is worth doing? Fundamentally speaking.
What world is worth creating?
1. How do you create it, practically speaking?
2. How could it be created, taking yourself out of it?
What echo chambers are you in?
What are their strengths?
What are their weaknesses and blind spots?
How are those impacting you.
Who are the most inspiring people in your life?
What is a project that is not in your life that would make your life much better? Say you have to swap out two existing projects for this new invented project.
How is execution going?
How is learning going?
How is decision making going?
How are relationships going?
How is friendship going?
What’s on your worldview frontier?

Questions to Ask With Your Partner (Relationship Building from Impact Theory)

In 3 words, what was your first impression of me?
Would you have dated me if we met five years before we did?
When we first met, did you have any concerns about dating me? What were they?
Who would you rather die first? Me or you?
What 3 words would describe your partner?
If I was game for anything... what would a perfect day together look like?
If you could spend a day in my body/ head, what would you do?
What do you value most in life that you would never give up?
What’s the one thing you consider a deal breaker in our relationship?
What’s one embarrassing thing that has happened to you that I would be surprised to hear?
Would you trust me in a room full of opportunistic and flirtatious people?
If you had to choose ONE thing you never want me to STOP doing for you, what would it be?
If you had to choose ONE thing you want me to START doing for you, what would it be?
What’s something I do that you’ll just never understand?
What’s the one thing you think I don’t support you on? How can I better support you on that?
What’s one quality you think holds me back?
If my best friend flirted with you, would you tell me?
What is one pet peeve you have about me that you would change in a heartbeat?
What does your ideal sex life look like? What do you think your partner’s ideal sex life looks like?
What’s the worst thing about being with me?
Where do you actually see our relationship in five years?
What are the top three traits you thought you wanted in a partner that I don’t have?
What could I do that would make you reconsider our entire relationship?
What’s the one concern you have about us being together for life?
Alpha or beta. Which one am I in our relationship? Which one should I be?

Worldview Breakers

What are your beliefs about:
Noble Lies
- Equality
- Religion
- Free Will
- Objective & Universal Morality / Ethics
- Objective & Universal Meaning
- Biological Indeterminism
  - Dualism
- Memetic Indeterminism
- Identity / Selfhood
- Rights
- The One / Soulmate
- Humans Aren’t Animals
- Racial Biological Uniformity
Solipsism - Your mind creates all that you ‘think’ is reality
- Nothing you engage with is anything other than your representation of it
- Because you see reality through your mind, the world is dramatically distorted towards the possible perceptions that maximize your reproductive chances
- Implication that creating tools that extend perception is necessary
Heuristics and Biases
- Your mind as optimized for allowing you to believe lies that it is useful for you to live out
- Your mind is broken
  - Confirmation Bias
  - Affect Heuristic
  - Availability
  - Anchoring
  - Risk Aversion
  - Mimetic Desire
  - You construct your experience. And your experience is evolved, and you so you are unoptimized for anything that didn’t improve the survival value of primates.
    - Ex., the world may not be compositional, that’s merely the only way we can overwhelm the curse of dimensionality
Groundlessness to all value systems
- Evolution of Morality & Ethics
Monogamishness (Sex at Dawn style)
Counterfactual Value / Non-Marginal Impact / Replaceability
Map - Territory Distinction
- Conceptual Non-realism (Concepts as manifold approximations)
Meta / Changing the Changers
- Artificial Intelligence
- Mechanism Design
- Creating New Values
Language as an Intellectual Box
- Sapir-Whorf
- Language as frame that bakes umpteen untrue assumptions into thought
- Umpteen felt truths as unsayable
- Wittgenstein
Continuity
- Probability Theory as opposed to the world being binary
- Continuum as approximated by binary or discrete thinking almost everywhere
You don’t believe in anything
Existential Risk
Language Patterns - implicit frame behind what people say
Frame
Information
- Structure
- Representation
- Composition
- Compression / Abstraction
- Simplicity
Physics
- Relativity (Time as observer dependent, rather than universal)
- Quantum Mechanics
Simulation & Universe Design
- Math / Fundamental Physics as transcendent because the creators of our universe are also subject to it or something much like it - the transcendence of that which is general across the space of possible universes
Truth Optimization Invalidates all Narratives, destroys itself
IQ exists, is predictive, determines outcomes, is different between groups
Your tribe is like all other tribes. And is using you for its own sake.
Your relationship isn't special. It's one of billions of relationships between mate and matee over time. And you're going to play out the interaction with the exact same emotions, depth of involvement and commitment as those billions before you.
You don’t actually update to the things you ‘learn’
Fundamental Narratives as Fictions
- I am special
  - I’m loved for reasons that are specific to me
  - We are special
    - My species (humanity) is superior to others
      - We have traits (consciousness, life, suffering, etc.) that makes us special
    - My tribe is superior to others
      - I am part of something special
      - And by association I am superior
    - My relationship is unique
  - My life is important / significant
  - I am in the know
  - I have qualities nobody else has
  - I am the most important thing in this world (because for all of the data I’ve seen, it’s true - I am the only viscerally experiencing thing)
  - Two types - narrative that I’m special because I make myself special, or I’m intrinsically special
- Objective Truth of their Values, Sacred Beliefs
  - Of the principles I believe in
  - I worship the true god
  - The way I measure what has value in the world
  - My version of reality is the real version of reality
    - The narratives that I feel are fundamental to the experience had in reality
- Everything Having a Purpose, Having a Reason
- Victimhood Narratives
- Villain Narratives
- Helplessness Narratives
- Worthlessness Narratives
- Hopelessness Narratives
Personal
- Twin Insemination
Meaning is real as a felt sense, in the brain rather than being objective
Ethics / morality as real through an evolutionary history that created creatures constructed the way we are. Objective in the sense that we are actually made that way, rather than objective in the sense that the map is merged with the territory
- Kingdom / Phylum / Species level subjectivity
  - Idea list idea: identify the taxonomic level of generality of each moral impulse
Great Filter
Unknown unknowns dominating
Easily accessible world domination via LAWS

Taboo Topics

What are your beliefs about:
Race
- Racial sexual preferences
- Biological foundations to differential athletic performance
  - Distance running in people of south-east african descent
  - Sprinting in people of western african / caribbean descent
- Racial differences
  - In intelligence
    - Conversations about nurture are okay, as long as it’s not cultural
    - Conversations about nature are not okay
- Racism / Sexism for Asians
- Racism against Jews / anti-semitism
Sex
- Sexual Fantasy
  - Cheating
  - Stranger Sex
  - Group Sex
  - Threesomes
  - Submission
  - Being Dominated
  - Incest
  - Cuckholdery
    - Reverse Cuckholdery (cucking someone)
  - Anal Sex
  - Exhibitionism / Public Sex / Being Caught
  - Exotic Locations
  - Impregnation
  - Role Playing
    - Airhostess, Stewardess, Nurse, Babysitter etc.
  - Women who are off limits
    - Women belonging to others
  - Saving a girl (knight in shining armor)
  - Having a virgin
  - Being Dominant (feels too conventional)
  - Cougar / MILF
  - Orgy
  - Beastiality
  - Foot fetishes
  - Pissing
  - Poop
  - DP
- Womens’ lust generally
- Adultery / Cheating
- Hypergamy
- Pedophilia
- STDs / STIs
- Rape / Assault
  - Rape Culture
  - Sexual harassment
    - Counter to #metoo
- Masturbation
  - Religious
  - Secular
    - NoFap (reddit community)
- Sexless marriage / relationships
  - Actually talking about it
  - Or, my partner is terrible at sex
- Incest
- Substance abuse
- Homosexuality
  - Women as on a spectrum
  - Men watch porn with well endowed men
Power
- Especially its explicit pursuit
Seduction
Mental disorder
- Especially Taboo:
  - Bipolar
  - Schizophrenia
  - Borderline
- Less Taboo:
  - Depression
  - PTSD / Dissociative Disorders
  - Bulimia
  - Anorexia
  - Psychosis
    - Hallucinations
    - Delusions
  - Epilepsy
Money
- How much your coworkers / friends are making
Tribal dynamics made explicit
Gender
- Gender differences
  - E.g. It’s not purely cultural
- Abortion
- LGBTQ
- Menstruation
Beauty
- Conventional attractiveness existing / being attracted to conventional attractiveness
- Women’s desire to be objectified
- Effect on decision making
- Treatment of the obese & ugly
- Wanting there to be attractive people around you
- Paying attention to beauty in a context where it’s disallowed
Suicide
Circumcision
- Male circumcision
- FGM
Children
- Eugenics
- Child engineering
  - Esp. w/ biotech
- Child beating / physical punishment of children
- Infanticide
  - If you believe that you should abort mentally retarded or deeply disadvantaged fetuses, why not believe that you should kill mentally retarded or deeply disadvantaged infants?
  - More generally, the difficulty of separating the beliefs that th
  - Sparta
- Parents who are / are not allowed to have children
Religion
- Religious Beliefs
  - Faith
- Religious Practice
  - Ritual
  - Healing
Playing God
- Engineering Environment
- Gene Drives
- Driving nuisance species out of environments
Culture Wars
- Affirmative Action
- Group Based Censorship
  - Ex. You don’t belong to the right group to be able to say that
- Incel / Sex Distribution and Inequality
  - Ex. Robin Hanson’s sex inequality discussion / being sympathetic to “incels”
- Damage done by feminism to people like Scott Aaronson
Things against the current political movements, climate
- Meritocracy
- Sexual harassment
  - Counter to #metoo
  - False rape accusations
    - Because then you are backing the people who don’t believe the girl
    - Hillary Clinton as lawyer (defending rapists, due process) vs. Hillary Clinton as campaigner in 2016 (“always believe the assaulted/victim”)
- Pro-elitism, pro-inequality
  - Believing that it’s good for a few people
  - Anti-homelessness
- Having nuanced views
  - Discussing things for which you don’t have experience, you only have theory
    - “mansplaining”
    - Cultural appropriation
- Anything against racial and gender diversity

Curiosity Game To create a safe container for vulnerability, propose to the other person that they ask you anything for the next 5 minutes that they are genuinely curious to know about you (or add on anything in life).

Source: Original Google Doc