I’m confused. Don’t you already have your answer? Attendees picked it up by instructors asking attendees to be more specific about things they were discussing. Just turn that into an exercise: ask some questions about a subject that is suitably fuzzy in most people’s heads (economics, philosophy, future prediction). Give feedback. Repeat until they get it.
And if you want something more specific:
Ask questions like, “Is a ‘weak dollar’ bad?” People will default to their cached thoughts. “Of course it’s bad. It’s weak, it should be strong.” But nobody will actually say that out loud, because it’s not very meaningful, so people will usually change to something vague that also sounds good: “It makes us more competitive.” From there the specific path should be obvious. How, why? How are you judging “good”? Etc. Another good question from economics that trips people up: “The average child owes $X to the government at birth. Is this bad?” Or how about, “You find a clean harmonica lying on the ground with no way to find the owner. What is it worth to you?” A correct answer will not be in dollars, but in feelings. Students should consider what they can do with it, how those things would make them feel, and which option they would actually choose (which feelings they desire most).
Perhaps those questions are too technical, but I think they can be reasoned out from basic principles of how one thinks people will act under certain circumstances. The key point is that they trigger silly cached thoughts that people try to mask with vague language. They should at the very least learn to ask, “Good for whom?” and give some answers according to different groups of people.
(Eliezer, you should be able to generate more/better examples than I can, since you have apparently spent so much time telling people to be specific. But if the SIAI really wanted an outsider to design the whole lesson, I’m sure I or many other people could crank a lot more out.)
Unless you’re asking for a way to replicate the skill without having a “master” who already has a sufficient idea of acceptable specific-ness, in which case I have no clue. Someone has to judge whether an answer is specific enough, and that someone has to have already mastered the skill.
I’m confused. Don’t you already have your answer? Attendees picked it up by instructors asking attendees to be more specific about things they were discussing. Just turn that into an exercise: ask some questions about a subject that is suitably fuzzy in most people’s heads (economics, philosophy, future prediction). Give feedback. Repeat until they get it.
And if you want something more specific:
Ask questions like, “Is a ‘weak dollar’ bad?” People will default to their cached thoughts. “Of course it’s bad. It’s weak, it should be strong.” But nobody will actually say that out loud, because it’s not very meaningful, so people will usually change to something vague that also sounds good: “It makes us more competitive.” From there the specific path should be obvious. How, why? How are you judging “good”? Etc. Another good question from economics that trips people up: “The average child owes $X to the government at birth. Is this bad?” Or how about, “You find a clean harmonica lying on the ground with no way to find the owner. What is it worth to you?” A correct answer will not be in dollars, but in feelings. Students should consider what they can do with it, how those things would make them feel, and which option they would actually choose (which feelings they desire most).
Perhaps those questions are too technical, but I think they can be reasoned out from basic principles of how one thinks people will act under certain circumstances. The key point is that they trigger silly cached thoughts that people try to mask with vague language. They should at the very least learn to ask, “Good for whom?” and give some answers according to different groups of people.
(Eliezer, you should be able to generate more/better examples than I can, since you have apparently spent so much time telling people to be specific. But if the SIAI really wanted an outsider to design the whole lesson, I’m sure I or many other people could crank a lot more out.)
Unless you’re asking for a way to replicate the skill without having a “master” who already has a sufficient idea of acceptable specific-ness, in which case I have no clue. Someone has to judge whether an answer is specific enough, and that someone has to have already mastered the skill.