Say that you are observing someone in a position of power. You have good reason to believe that this person is falling prey to a known cognitive bias, and that this will tend to affect you negatively. You also can tell that the person is more than intelligent enough to understand their mistake, if they were motivated to do so. You have an opportunity to say one thing to the person - around 500 words of argument. They will initially perceive you as a low-status member of their own tribe. The power differential is extreme enough that, after they have attended this one thing, they will never pay any attention to you again. What can you do to best disrupt their bias?
This is clearly a setup where the odds are against you. Still, what kind of strategies would give you the best odds? I've deliberately made the situation vague, so as to emphasize abstract strategies. If certain strategies would work best against certain biases or personality types, feel free to state it in your answer.
I'm making this a post of its own because I find here much more discussion of how to overcome or subvert your own biases, somewhat less of how to recruit rationalists, and almost none of how to try to overcome a specific bias in another person without necessarily converting them into a committed rationalist overall.
No way to disrupt a bias that quickly. Moreover, s/he will never read 500 words from "a low-status member of their own tribe". Here is one classic strategy that gives you a fighting chance.
You have about 30 seconds of attention (hence the elevator pitch metaphor) to present your verbal or written argument. You cannot hope to disrupt their bias in 30 seconds, so you shoot for something else: more attention, maybe some face time. Again, forget about disrupting biases for the moment. You have to become a sales person for an instant and make a difficult sale with the odds stacked heavily against you.
Now your task is reduced to the standard elevator pitch formula:
The details and variations are all over the net and in a bunch of popular TV shows.
From personal experience: busy high-level executives don't read past the subject line of your email, unless they are hooked (i.e. if you are a low-level underling, they don't normally click to open your email), so your hook absolutely must be in the subject line.
Now, suppose you win some face time (your status is temporarily elevated to that of a person worth spending 5 min on). What do you do then? Stay tuned for the next installment of... Changing Minds!
P.S. I have intentionally structured this comment using the elevator pitch format. The first 20-30 characters of this message is all that appears on the right in the RECENT COMMENTS section, so I tried to plant my hook there. Whether I have succeeded or not, we will see shortly -- feedback is most welcome!
Double tap to the center of mass?