Do you want to learn the most powerful algorithm of thought in the world? It's from a relatively obscure paper (it has 650 citations on GS...) published in the late 1990s, and if you apply it regularly it's going to change your life.
It had its 15 minutes of fame a couple of years back, but I think it's still wildly under-utilized and should be taught and used much more widely. Here's the title of the paper:
The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness, by Aron et al.
The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness, by Aron et al.
What Aron et al. did was set up an experiment where they had two people talk to each other for 45 minutes through a set of provided questions. One arm was given normal small-talk questions, and another arm was given questions designed to generate "interpersonal-closeness".
The treatment questions escalated in how "deep" they went - they start with "Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?" and end with things like "What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?"
Turns out this works - and not just immediately after the treatment, but longer term as well: 37% of the people subsequently sat together in class. Aron et al. are quick to note that this was a) not the purpose of the experiment and b) this is and isn't "real closeness"
"So are we producing real closeness? Yes and no. We think that the closeness produced in these studies is experienced as similar in many important ways to felt closeness in naturally occurring relationships that develop over time."
"On the other hand, it seems unlikely that the procedure produces loyalty, dependence, commitment, or other relationship aspects that might take longer to develop. Certainly, there is minimal shared history and minimal behavioral closeness in the ways measured by Berscheid et al.
And that caveat is certainly important - you can't spend just 45 minutes with someone, go through a questionaire, and be life-long, deeply connected friends.
BUT - this is an incredible tool to figure out if you'd _want_ to be friends with someone, and build a solid foundation
BUT - this is an incredible tool to figure out if you'd _want_ to be friends with someone, and build a solid foundation
And experientally I can tell you - it works. You don't even have to ask these questions within the 45 minutes. You can space them out over time, days and weeks, and still guide the process of building the foundation for a friendship.
If you want to make someone a friend that you don't know well but have an intuitive liking for - this is all you need.
And again - this works. I've used this "algorithm" > 10 times, and every time I got a new friend. Not all stayed friends over the long term, but that's life :)
And again - this works. I've used this "algorithm" > 10 times, and every time I got a new friend. Not all stayed friends over the long term, but that's life :)
Why is this the most powerful algorithm in the world? Consider how lonely many people feel, how hard it is to build friendships in a new city, in a new context. This is the fix. Seriously. And I believe it also has huge potential to fix many problems we see wrt polarization.
So, go forth and use these questions. Make friends, connect, and live :) 
cc: @conaw for algorithms of thought :)
