This is the intro page to a short series of posts on topics relating to Double Crux, Epistemic Mediation, and Conversational Facilitation.
I’ve spent a lot of time developing methods for resolving tricky disagreements, and trying to teach those methods, via running test sessions, facilitating conversations, etc.
For the most part, I haven’t prioritized writing things up. However, I do have a series of incomplete drafts, most of which I wrote in 2018.
They’ve been sitting in my drafts folder since then (with some occasional additions every few month). But they don’t do any good sitting in my drafts folder, and this blog is specifically for posting rough drafts. So I’m posting them here, where other people can take a look at them.
All the caveats:
- They are really, actually drafts. I’ve made minimal changes for readability. I’m sorry if these are not comprehensible, but the alternative was not posting anything, at least for a while.
- I don’t expect these to convey skills, only point at skills.
- Part of the reason why I have had such high standards for these and similar posts is that, in running test sessions, I did a lot of iteration to develop units that would cause people to actually implement the mental motions described, instead of simply verbally agreeing that those moves are sensible, and then going back to using their default conversational habits. I want to do the same via writing, but I don’t know how to do that yet.
- My thinking in this area has evolved since I wrote these. While I still think that all of these are at least pointed in the right direction, some of my descriptions no longer seem to me to be the most natural way to conceptualize the relevant mechanisms.
- I don’t claim originality for any of this content. Just like everything in the space of rationality, I’m sure that most of this has been discovered and rediscovered before, and many people are already doing something like this.
- This is definitely not a complete catalogue of everything that I think is important in this of disagreement resolution or conversational facilitation.
In future, I’m going to post more of my iterative, semi-rambling incomplete and maybe-incomprehensible content here, instead of
Posts
Coordinating Conversation / micro-coordination (listening and explaining)
Paraphrasing
The Problem of “Agreeing to Agree”
Action-Oriented Operationalization
Other posts on these topics that I’ve already published:
Shallow Cruxes
The Crux-checking move (Using your partner to find your own Cruxes)
Agree first
Some other relevant posts
Some things I think about Double Crux and related topics
Basic Double Crux pattern example
Using the facilitator to make sure that each person’s point is held
musings and rough drafts 
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