One of my favorite topics is how to ask the right questions in complex situations, and my favorite thing to illustrate that is a Poirot-Hastings exchange in Agatha Christie's Lord Edgware Dies.
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My summary slide on what makes for good vs. bad question in mystery solving. These slides are from a 2011 talk btw. slideshare.net/vgururao/socal
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So far, I haven't found any really good questions by my criteria. The best I've found so far is "why does the money printer go brrr meme work so well right now?" Wrote up my answer in a newsletter yesterday, which is paywalled because I'm slightly evil. twitter.com/breaking_smart
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Short takeaway is: we are living through a collision of what I call polynomial normalcy escaped realities versus exponential weirdness escaped realities. I'm happy with that question and my answer, but need to find more, and better questions to ask and answer.
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Reminds me of something Dorothy Sayers wrote about the problem of coming at life like it’s a math problem when it’s an art one: always thought of it as seeking resolution >>> solution. The essay is titled Problem Picture: worldinvisible.com/library/dlsaye
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Excerpts:
“…the creator does not set out from a set of data, and proceed, like a crossword solver or a student of elementary algebra, to deduce from them a result which shall be final, predictable, complete and the only one possible.“
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hey have you written on solution seeking and resolution seeking? or link to the talk?



