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zntneo comments on Designing Rationalist Projects - Less Wrong
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I wonder if we had someone who always disagreed with us if it would help prevent he cultishness. I know there is evidence that doing so increases decisions and i think i remember there being evidence that it helps stop groupthink. So maybe if we implemented what CalcSam said but add that someone be designated as the person who must disagree with us (this person could be different people or the same person)
Like the subverter in a paranoid debate? I think that would actually be really useful, or at least a lot of fun (which has a use in and of itself.)
I would stipulate that it NOT be just one person, though. There ought to multiple people, trading off to diffuse attention, or whoever is designated could easily become a strawman effigy to be mocked and denounced.
The story in my head goes: Every once in a while, an ace of spades (if we can get it custom, red or gold on black would be an epic color scheme), will be discretely slipped to a randomly selected acolyte or two before the meeting has begun. These people have license to be as contrary and anti-consensus as they can get away with without being found out. It will be given away at the end of the meeting, unless they'd like the actions and statements they made that day to stand as-is...
I like this suggestion but might tweak it a bit to say that everybody draws from a deck of cards(or some similar method) instead of trying to slip cards just to a specific person. It seems easier and doesn't create the problem of the person doing the slipping knowing who the subverter is. Also, it is easy to repurpose if we need other randomly assigned positions.
There's someone at the meetup I attend who draws that card every week.
Is the purpose of this exercise for the others to guess drew the contrary card? If so, what is this good for?
To make sure it is a different someone. It's very easy for us to mentally categorize someone as "Oh, that's just old crazy uncle Eddy. No reason to actually consider his arguments seriously". And it's also useful for people to gain practice at dissenting.
Seems close. I don't see why it couldn't be just one person randomly selected.