Theme: Incentives

–“Q: CURT, IS THERE A SECRET TO RUNNING KING OF THE HILL GAMES?”–

Well, first, the reason you do it is (a) it’s participatory, (b) it attracts interest, (c) people will respond with what they really intuit, believe, feel. (d) so you (my case) get to do research on the different positions people hold. people can’t treport truthfully. it’s impossible. They can’t NOT defend their moral and cognitive biases. This is why the technique works for research. It’s very hard to lie (mislead) in KOTH games. It’s your genes talking.

Second, You’re trying to start a fight. There is a sort of art to it. You have to frame it so that it could be interpreted either way, and it’s going to antagonize the audience no matter what position they hold. After that you try to just ask questions that keep the fight going. In other words, you have to pick a position (flag) that someone wants to defend.

So, you’re setting up game. A sport. A competition. In this way you teach the audience by the the audience teaching each other without you really doing much ‘teaching’ at all. The hard part is trying to make sure the audience isn’t sure of which position you hold, so that they aregue the idea or each other and not you. I use all three methods: neutral question, positive position, opposite position. And I try to frame the ‘game’ (question) differently each time. Even though I only use like two or three dozen themes.

I think of it like running plays in football, running scenarios in paintball, running skirmishes in military training, running mock trials in court, or debating scenarios in mba courses.

Players learn. The Spectators Learn.

It’s Adversarialism.

How men need and want to learn.

Cheers