There's a goldilocks zone in a conversation.

If you talk about things that both parties agree with already, it's boring, nothing new is discovered.

If it's a new relationship, this agreement might build trust, but after a sufficient amount of trust is built it doesn't add much.

If the things the other person talks about are things you actively disagree with, or are about topics you don't understand, then the whole conversation will be tracked as distracting, and potentially frustrating, noise.

But in the goldilocks zone the conversation is in the zone of mutual proximal development.

The most interesting frontier of understanding.

The set of things that both people are prepared to accept but one party hasn't yet accepted.

Ideas that are interesting and novel to both sides of the conversation.

It is in this goldilocks zone that the most interesting insights nucleate.

Socrates believed in the power of dialogue; Bakhtin believed that all interesting insights emerge from it.

How do you laser in on the goldilocks zone of a conversation?

The best way is if you're familiar with the other person's perspective, for example from reading their public writing.

But humans don't have the time to read each other's writing before talking (especially for prolific writers).

… But LLMs can read them! Especially using techniques like RAG and embeddings to sift through ideas.

Imagine an AI-assisted tool helping guide you to the goldilocks zone of each conversation.