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These examples are so lame because they are both contrived. If someone is going to answer "yes/no" to you trying to make a conversation asking if they like math, they could easily shut down the other path as well.

For example:

You: "So, where did you go to school?"

Them: "Berkeley"

You: "Nice. Why did you pick Berkeley?"

Them: "It has a good academic reputation."

You: "A good academic reputation for what?"

Them: "CS research, rioting, etc. What is this, an interview?"

It is very hard to wireframe conversation that doesn't sound contrived. We generally call people who do this well "good writers".

Sure, but the point is that some kinds of questions are more likely to yield interesting conversations than others. Nothing is guaranteed, of course.

For what it's worth, I got your point through the examples and I think that posing the right questions to get to more fruitful territory is an excellent observation. The question is how to identify which questions lead to good conversation and which questions risk shutting it down. Avoiding obvious yes/no questions is one way, or at least use those questions sparingly, but try to go elsewhere.

I currently read the pen-and-paper RPG Microscope, and one rule in the game is that before a scene you select a question to direct the action. The scene concludes when the question has been answered. There's no game master so all players collaborate to create characters and answer the scene question.

The game text says "The best questions are extremely specific. Vague questions are bad and lead to confusing or muddled scenes. Open-ended questions can work, but you will get much better scenes out of very loaded or incriminating questions."

The game goes on to list examples:

"If you have an idea you want to explore, don't hesitate to stack the deck and make your question more specific. A simple formula is to just add more conditions or 'even though' twists to establish clear issues.

'How does the Alliance beat the invaders?' is a good starting point, but that's a very open-ended scene.

'How does the Alliance beat the invaders even though they're outnumbered and outgunned?' is more specific. We have a better idea of the situation.

'Is the Alliance willing to sacrifice the colony on Sigma VII to beat the invaders even though the colonists will get slaughtered in the process?' is better still because it gives us a clear situation, an obvious dilemma."

Finally, on good questions:

"It may not immediately be clear why a question is interesting. Don't be alarmed. Once you ask the question, the other players get to jump in and run with it. They may have ideas you didn't even consider. So long as your question gets everyone on the same page about the scene, you're in good shape."

This relates to what hueving said. The game assumes that the other players want to turn your questions into something interesting, and that you collaborate to create something great. If the other players are hostile or indifferent, they can ignore your question and take the scene in a completely different direction so that it never ends, but the point is that some questions have a better chance of keeping things on track. The same with other people. If you're talking to someone indifferent to hostile, they can obviously shoot down all conversation, but if they're indifferent to positive, you may have a chance to interest them.

I looked up Kezia Noble on YouTube, having never heard of her. I think your summary of what she says was more interesting than her videos, at least the first one I watched on how to specifically talk to women in the fashion industry. But in another video she said something interesting on posing questions that take the other person off auto pilot. If you ask "So what do you do?" and they answer "I'm a teacher." and you say "Do you like it?" they'll probably say "Oh, it's OK." or something similar. They (and you) are on auto pilot, and have probably both had this exact exchange before with other people. If you instead ask "So what made you choose teaching?" you'll perhaps take them off script and force them to think, which is a good thing because it makes them more engaged in the conversation. I think it relates to the RPG suggestions above to be a bit more specific with the questions, and to try to add some kind of twist to the question to make the other person think.

I looked up Kezia Noble on YouTube, having never heard of her. I think your summary of what she says was more interesting than her videos, at least the first one I watched on how to specifically talk to women in the fashion industry.

Oh yeah, I should have considered that if somebody went looking for her on Youtube they might find something different than the material I watched. Some of her stuff is straight-up "how to meet women" stuff, but quite a bit of it isn't. In particular, I'm thinking of her program called, IIRC, "The Ten Hook Lead System".

But in another video she said something interesting on posing questions that take the other person off auto pilot. If you ask "So what do you do?" and they answer "I'm a teacher." and you say "Do you like it?" they'll probably say "Oh, it's OK." or something similar. They (and you) are on auto pilot, and have probably both had this exact exchange before with other people. If you instead ask "So what made you choose teaching?" you'll perhaps take them off script and force them to think, which is a good thing because it makes them more engaged in the conversation.

Yep, that's more in line with the stuff I remember from her. And that applies to plenty of other contexts besides trying to "pick up" date or whatever.

Yup totally agreed.

Knowledge of NLP helps. Not practicing it consciously but understanding the theory behind it.

Is important to make a connection and pay attention to others. Too many people make it a one way conversation and walk away wondering why things didn't go better, meanwhile they were talking 80% of the time.

Any time you can make others feel included, and their opinion matters during a meeting the better things will go.

I studied a little bit of NLP, and definitely think it has the potential to be useful. But in reality, I rarely, if ever, use the stuff (at least not consciously).

Right, NLP as a "Science" is kind of crackpot, but there are some things in the texts that are truisms and worthy of note just because they are laid out concisely.

It can be very dangerous and malicious to use that basic knowledge of how to conduct a conversation to do what? .. "make people feel special and you care when you absolutely don't give a damn about them", and the conversation is purely a means to an end.

That said, it's nice to be nice, and much better to be inclusive, even if you needed to learn that from a pretty fringe bunch of theory.

[Edit] As a side note, I was first introduced to NLP when someone used it on me in person as a means to try to get me to work for an organized online credit card phishing operation and wanted me to move to Costa Rica.

It was a very strange experience and was effective up until the point I noticed what they were doing

Took me a few days figure out what had happened. I didn't know anything about NLP at the time and was kind of shocked that this was an actual thing.

Ended up calling the FBI.

I would love to hear the story behind this.

I really don't want to get into it, but it involved a beautiful Russian agent driving a BMW X5, baking implements and cup cakes. That's how it started.

Not the first time I've been approached by the Russians and to be clear I have nothing against them either, but if and when they do it again, please don't steal my paper towels or abuse my washing machine.

Right so reading that you probably think it is so fantastical that it can't possibly be true, or that it is so bizarre what I wrote that it makes no sense and I'm nuts. But there are people out there who know what happened and the truth is even more strange than I can share here.

Well I would agree with you on the weirdness, it was fantastical and it was bizarre, but it isn't the first time I've been approached by them or probably the last. The first time was in the early 90's just after releasing my DES hack thing. It just got weirder from there.

Honestly quite like the attempts in some ways, it's flattering, and she really was talented as were her friends. Cute too.

So to them, please go ahead and try again but next time, leave the Costa Rica thing out, or at least make it somewhere a little more temperate.

I really have no problem working for the intelligence agencies as long as it is for a good reason.

Just be honest.

>Elicit more complex responses, make statements, lead off of their complex answers, don't just suddenly branch off to something unrelated, etc.

Absolutely no need to optimize here. Just do what Dale Carnegie told on the book: "Become genuinely interested in the other person".

Interview questions like that will always sound like an interview.

>Them: "Activism is really important to me, especially around climate change. I wouldn't have gone to a school that didn't have that aspect."

Off topic, but this is so cringe-worthy...

...Why?

I'm actually genuinely curious why you feel that way, assuming the person is sincere.

If you care about climate change, having protects in one of the biggest echo chambers in the US university system is about the least effective thing you can do.

It's also completely unrelated to the quality of education you will get so it's stupid to tie your school selection to that. It's like choosing a campus based on one with the most red-colored buildings.

Two points:

1. I parsed the statement slightly differently, in that having a campus full of activism was important, not specifically climate change.

2. Activism requires learning and networking, so it makes sense that if you want to learn that skill and form a network fresh out of high school, you would go somewhere there's an established network to join and many mentors to be found. It's much more like choosing a school because their alumni organization has connections you're interested in or has business ties to an industry you want to get in to or has a famous athletics program or any of the not-strictly-academic reasons that make sense from a career development perspective.

If the person seriously wants to be an activist, even in a non-professional capacity, it makes sense to go somewhere they develop that part of you (even if they don't have the best academics).

It's nothing like choosing one based on red building count.

For one, because where you go to college and whether the school has some student level "activism" about climate change has zero (or even negative) impact on actual climate change.

Please see my reply to the sibling comment, which addresses what you say here.

Keep in mind, I was just trying to spew something out that illustrated getting a person to talk about something important to them, and not just a series of one word answers. I don't intend to make any statement about Berkeley, people who attend Berkeley, or any statement about climate change, economics, math, etc. :-)

> where were you at 8:00pm on the night of January 23rd

HAH! There was no 8:00pm on that night! Time skipped from 7:59pm to 9:00pm! Nice try.