Thought Provoking Questions
Thought provoking questions for dinner tables, classrooms, team meetings and long drives: the kind a group can argue about without anyone having to confess anything. They are sorted into About life, Right and wrong, Society and the future, For work, Kids and teens (youngest first) and Funny, and the first three suit any adult discussion. Every question has a note on what makes it hard to answer and the follow-up that keeps the talk going.
One at a time · 01 of 120
About life
“How much of where you are today is down to luck, and how much to your own choices?”
Why ask it
People offer a split, seventy-thirty or so, and then the argument is over what counts as luck: is being born healthy or stubborn something a person earned? Ask whether the split changes when they explain somebody else's success instead of their own.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
About life
How much of where you are today is down to luck, and how much to your own choices?
Why ask it
People offer a split, seventy-thirty or so, and then the argument is over what counts as luck: is being born healthy or stubborn something a person earned? Ask whether the split changes when they explain somebody else's success instead of their own.
Is a life with no regrets well lived, or just carefully lived?
Why ask it
No regrets sounds like the goal until someone asks what it cost. A person who never risked anything has nothing to regret either. A useful turn: can a regret be a sign that something mattered?
Does time really speed up as you get older, or do you just stop noticing it?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone reports the feeling, so the disagreement is about the cause: routine, fewer first times, or each year being a smaller slice of a longer life. The practical follow-up is what made the longest-feeling year of each person's life feel long.
Do people really change, or do they only get better at managing who they already are?
Why ask it
Everyone has an example for each side, usually a relative. What makes it hard is agreeing on what counts as evidence, so settle that first: what would a skeptic need to see before believing someone had changed for good?
What does it mean to waste time, and who gets to decide?
Why ask it
An afternoon of doing nothing is rest to one person and failure to another. Go around for one thing that looked like wasted time while it was happening and turned out not to be, and the definition starts to wobble.
Is happiness something you find, something you build, or something that turns up while you are busy?
Why ask it
Three options keep it from being a yes or no. Each one implies a different way to spend a week, so ask what a person who truly believed their answer would stop doing.
Is it better to be content with what you have or to keep wanting more?
Why ask it
Contentment sounds wise and ambition sounds admirable, and most people would like credit for both. Push for a line: when does wanting more stop being drive and turn into being unable to enjoy anything?
At what point does a person actually become an adult?
Why ask it
The legal answer is a number and nobody believes it. People offer events instead: the first bill, the first time a parent asked them for advice. Then find out whether anyone present still does not feel like one.
Is a decision good because of how it was made or because of how it turned out?
Why ask it
A sound choice can end badly and a reckless one can pay off, and people tend to grade both by the ending. Try a concrete case: someone drives home exhausted and arrives safely. Was that a good decision?
Is love a feeling that happens to you or a choice you keep making?
Why ask it
Songs are nearly all on the first side. The second side has to explain why nobody can simply choose to fall for a perfectly suitable person. Keep it about love in general, so that no couple at the table ends up on trial.
Does everything happen for a reason, or do people supply the reason afterward?
Why ask it
Believers and skeptics both turn up on each side of this one. Go gently, because the idea has carried people through bad years. Before anyone argues about whether it is true, ask what holding it does for a person.
Who decides whether a life is a success: the person living it or the people watching?
Why ask it
Start with an example: someone each person counts as a success whom the wider world would overlook, and what the measure was. Then the reverse: someone famous for succeeding who does not seem to have.
Does money buy happiness up to a point, and where is the point?
Why ask it
Almost everyone agrees that being broke is miserable and that the very rich do not seem happier in proportion, so the fight is over the middle. Have each person name a yearly figure past which more would stop mattering, then look at how far apart the figures are.
Why can a person be lonely in a crowd and perfectly content alone?
Why ask it
Both states are familiar and few people have had to define them. Company is clearly not the missing ingredient, so collect candidates for what is: being known, being needed, having chosen to be there.
Is nostalgia a way of remembering or a way of forgetting?
Why ask it
Fond memories tend to leave out the boredom and the bad plumbing. Have people name an era they miss, then one thing about it they would hate to have back. The second answer takes longer.
Is worrying ever useful, or does it only feel like doing something?
Why ask it
Defenders call it planning with feelings attached. Collect one worry that changed what somebody did and one that only cost sleep, then see which kind comes to mind faster.
Is boredom a problem to solve or something worth protecting?
Why ask it
A phone in every pocket has made boredom optional, and it is not obvious what was gained. When was each person last properly bored with nothing to reach for, and what did they end up doing?
Can you choose what you want, or only what you do about it?
Why ask it
Free will, cut down to a size a dinner table can handle. Nobody picks a taste for cilantro or a streak of ambition, yet people get praised and blamed for both. The test case is anyone who has talked themselves into wanting something.
Is it wiser to plan your life or to stay ready for whatever shows up?
Why ask it
Planners and drifters each suspect the other of fooling themselves. Have both camps name the best thing in their life right now and say whether it was planned. It is a fair test of either philosophy.
Which shapes a person more: the family they were born into or the friends they chose?
Why ask it
People answer from their own case, which is fair. Bring up siblings raised in one house who turned out nothing alike, and what could explain the difference if family is the stronger force.
What makes you the same person you were at seven?
Why ask it
The body, the opinions and the taste in food have mostly been swapped out, so the usual candidates are memory, a name and other people's say-so. Test memory first: is someone who has forgotten being seven no longer that child?
Is it better to know an uncomfortable truth or to be happy not knowing?
Why ask it
Most people claim they would want the truth, so try them on small cases: what a gift really cost, what was said after they left the room, how a favorite food is made. Wherever someone switches to 'I would not want to know' is where the principle runs out.
What is the difference between being smart and being wise?
Why ask it
Easier to show than to define. Have everyone think of the wisest person they know and say what that person does, without using the word 'experience'. Then try the word on a twelve-year-old and see who objects.
If life has no built-in meaning, is that bad news or good news?
Why ask it
The oldest question there is, turned so that a group can argue it. Some hear an empty universe and some hear a blank page. Find out which reaction came first for each person, before reasoning got involved.
Right and wrong
Is it ever right to lie to someone for their own good?
Why ask it
Everyone has done it, usually about a haircut. The hard case is the large one: bad news softened, a surprise kept for months. The thing to settle is who decided it was for the other person's good, and whether that person would agree.
Is doing the right thing for the wrong reason still doing the right thing?
Why ask it
A donation made to impress a date still feeds someone. The room will split over whether morality is about results or motives. Flip it as a test: what about harm done with the best of intentions?
Can someone be called honest if they have never been tempted?
Why ask it
Honesty is cheap when nothing is at stake. Compare two people, one never tempted and one who was and held out. Agreeing on which deserves more credit is quick. Agreeing on which of the two it would be better to be takes longer.
Is there such a thing as a completely selfless act?
Why ask it
The classic trap: if helping feels good, the helper got paid. Let the cynic at the table make the full case, then ask whether it matters. Would the person being helped care about the motive?
Does something stop being wrong when nobody is harmed and nobody finds out?
Why ask it
Think of peeking at a test answer you would have gotten right anyway, or crossing an empty road against the light. Most groups reach the argument that the one doing it is changed by it. Whether that is true, or just what parents say, is the next thing to put to them.
Should people be judged by the standards of their own time or by the standards of today?
Why ask it
It comes up whenever a statue or an old film is in the news. Names start fights, so stay with the principle: does 'everyone did it then' excuse a person, explain them, or neither?
How long should a mistake follow a person?
Why ask it
It depends on the mistake, everyone says, so make them set terms. A cruel post at fifteen, a theft at thirty: how many years, and what would the person have to do in the meantime?
Do you owe more to your family than to a stranger in greater need?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone lives as though the answer is yes while suspecting it is hard to defend. Where does the circle stop: cousins, neighbors, fellow citizens? Few people have looked at their own line before.
Is it wrong to take things nobody will charge you for, like office pens or hotel towels?
Why ask it
Small theft is where principle meets habit. People defend the pens and condemn the towels with total confidence. Have each person state the rule they are applying, which is harder than it sounds.
Is forgiveness something a person has to earn, or something you give for your own sake?
Why ask it
Two different ideas travel under one word. If it must be earned, some people can never have it. If it is a gift to yourself, the apology is beside the point. Which kind have people actually seen work?
Are people basically good with exceptions, or basically selfish with good manners?
Why ask it
Temperament answers this before evidence does. Ask the optimists why they lock their doors and the pessimists why they ever lend a book.
Is fairness giving everyone the same or giving each person what they need?
Why ask it
Cutting a cake is easy. Try a teacher's attention, a bonus pool, or a parent's money between two children in different situations. Most people change definitions from case to case, and spotting where they switch is the whole discussion.
Is it hypocritical to give advice you do not follow yourself?
Why ask it
A doctor who smokes can still be right about smoking. The table has to decide whether hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another, or only pretending that you do it. Any parent present has a stake in the answer.
Why do people love dogs, eat pigs and swat flies, and is there a principle behind it?
Why ask it
Most people have never been asked for one. Intelligence, cuteness, custom and usefulness all get tried, and each fails on some animal. Keep the tone curious so it does not become a trial of anyone's dinner.
When does someone else's bad behavior become your business?
Why ask it
Go case by case: a parent shouting at a child in a store, a colleague padding expenses, litter dropped right in front of you. For each, ask what would tip it from 'not my concern' to 'somebody should say something'.
Which is worse: failing to help when you easily could, or causing a smaller harm yourself?
Why ask it
Most people judge doing harm more harshly than allowing it, and few can say why. A concrete pair helps: walking past someone whose groceries have spilled, or knocking a bag out of their hands by accident.
Is there anything that should never be joked about?
Why ask it
The room will divide into 'nothing is off limits' and 'of course there is'. Skip the list of topics and go for the test instead: who is telling it, who is listening, how long ago it happened.
Is there a law that a good person could break with a clear conscience?
Why ask it
Speeding to a hospital is the easy example. The difficulty is that the same principle hands a license to people whose conscience you do not trust. Who gets to judge?
Is revenge ever justified, or does it only feel that way?
Why ask it
Films are built on payback being satisfying, and people who have had theirs give mixed reports. Separate two things for the group: a consequence that teaches something and one that only evens the score.
Society and the future
Has technology given people more free time or just more ways to fill it?
Why ask it
Washing machines and email were each supposed to save hours. So where did the hours go? See if anyone can name a tool that left them with less to do instead of more.
Does a song mean less once you learn a machine wrote it?
Why ask it
Test the reaction against cases people already accept: a ghostwritten speech, a factory-made chair, a heavily edited photo. Underneath is a disagreement about whether art is the object or the person behind it.
Should a machine that seems to suffer be treated as though it does?
Why ask it
Nobody can check from the outside, and strictly that is true of other people too. What evidence would be enough? And is being wrong in one direction worse than being wrong in the other?
What is normal today that people a hundred years from now will find hard to believe?
Why ask it
Guesses fall into two piles: things that will look primitive and things that will look wrong. The second pile is the better conversation. A good prompt for it: what does each person do now that they half expect to explain to a grandchild?
Is privacy something people gave away or something that was taken from them?
Why ask it
People who say they have nothing to hide still close the bathroom door. Run down a list so nobody has to confess anything: location, purchases, messages, search history. Sort them into what people would trade for a discount and what they would not sell at any price.
Are people better informed than their grandparents were, or only more certain?
Why ask it
Access to facts is not in dispute. The argument is whether a person with a search bar knows more or just checks less. A fair test is to name something each person believes mainly because they read it once.
At what age should a child get a phone, and what is the argument for that age?
Why ask it
Parents, teenagers and people with no children will all be sure. Requiring the argument as well as the number is what keeps it from becoming a shouting match. Then ask what rule the adults should follow.
Is social media bringing people together or keeping them company while they drift apart?
Why ask it
Both, most will say, so make them weigh it. Who is each person closer to because of it, and who do they now only watch from a distance when they used to call?
What modern convenience would you give up if everyone else gave it up too?
Why ask it
The words 'everyone else' are the hinge. Plenty of people would drop work email on their phone, or group chats, if it cost them nothing socially. The answers sort the tools people want from the ones they feel stuck with.
Is the main job of a school to teach facts, skills or how to get along with people?
Why ask it
Each answer implies a different school day. What do people draw on most from their own schooling, and was it ever on the schedule?
Should a vote count the same whether or not the voter knows anything about the issue?
Why ask it
The principled answer is yes, and it is worth making people spell out why. Ask who would write the test and who would grade it, and the case for equal votes tends to make itself.
What does a country owe a person simply for being born there?
Why ask it
School, safety, a doctor, a job? Build the list one item at a time and stop where the table splits. Then turn it around: what does the person owe back?
What do people alive today owe to people who have not been born yet?
Why ask it
Nobody yet to be born can vote, complain or pay anyone back, which makes this unlike any other debt. Make it concrete with a forest, a national debt, or a building meant to stand three hundred years. A good test is whether anyone present would start a project they would never see finished.
What would people do with their days in a world where nobody had to work?
Why ask it
Optimists say art and gardening, cynics say daytime television. Everyone has a data point of their own: the longest stretch they ever spent without work or school, and how the third week of it felt.
Why are people ruder online than they would be face to face, and what would change it?
Why ask it
Being anonymous is the first explanation offered, yet people are rude under their real names too. Is it the distance or the audience that does it? Picture a comment thread where everyone could see each other's faces.
Can a close friendship survive a deep disagreement about politics or religion?
Why ask it
Everyone knows a pair that managed it and a pair that did not. Leave the views themselves out and work on the conditions: does it depend on the topic, on how often it comes up, or on whether each believes the other came by the view honestly?
Should there be things that money cannot buy?
Why ask it
Read out a list and take a vote on each: a place in line, a kidney, a grade, a vote, an apology. The first item that splits the room is where to stop and argue, and do not be surprised if it is the place in line.
Why do so many people want to be famous when famous people keep saying it is miserable?
Why ask it
Either the famous are exaggerating or the wanting is not really about fame. What do people imagine they would get from it: money, proof, being remembered? Each of those can be had more cheaply some other way.
Do people have a duty to follow the news, or is it fine to opt out?
Why ask it
On one side is good citizenship. On the other is the observation that knowing about a distant disaster helps nobody in it. The deciding question is what following the news last led each person to actually do.
Who would you trust more to judge your job application: a tired human or a consistent algorithm?
Why ask it
A human is biased and can be reasoned with, while software is consistent and cannot. Change the stakes and watch who moves: a parking fine, a medical scan, a prison sentence.
Which would be bigger news: that humans are alone in the universe, or that they are not?
Why ask it
Company sounds like the obvious answer until someone thinks through being the only minds anywhere. Ask what would change on Monday morning under each headline. For plenty of people the honest answer is nothing, and that is worth arguing about too.
Is the world getting better, getting worse or just getting louder?
Why ask it
The third option is there because many people suspect that what changed is how much bad news reaches them. Have each person defend an answer with something seen firsthand instead of something read.
For work
Is a brilliant, difficult colleague worth more to a team than a pleasant, average one?
Why ask it
Both types are familiar from experience, so opinions arrive loaded. Weigh the brilliant one's output against the hours everyone else spends working around them. Keep it to types and name no names.
What does your team do only because it has always been done that way?
Why ask it
It goes best when the most senior person answers first and names something they started themselves. Collect answers without defending any of them, then pick one to stop for a month and see who notices.
Which serves a team better: a fast decision that is roughly right or a slow one that is exactly right?
Why ask it
Within a minute someone will say it depends on whether the decision can be undone. Good. The useful list is of decisions the team treats as permanent when they are easy to reverse.
How do you tell being busy from being useful?
Why ask it
A full calendar feels like work and can produce nothing. One test anyone can run in private: at the end of the week, what exists that did not exist on Monday? Argue about the test itself and leave everyone's own week out of it.
Should two people in the same role be paid the same if one is clearly better at it?
Why ask it
Fairness and reward pull apart here, and so do people who trust a manager's judgment and people who do not. Ask how 'clearly better' would be measured, and who would be happy to be measured that way.
Is failure really a good teacher, or do people only say so once they have recovered?
Why ask it
Workplaces like the slogan and seldom reward the failure. Look for a mistake that taught something no amount of advice could have, and what set it apart from the mistakes that taught nothing.
What does a leader do that a group of capable adults could not do for themselves?
Why ask it
Asked seriously, it lets a team say what it wants from a manager without turning into a performance review. Listen for decisions, cover and breaking ties, and notice what never makes it onto anyone's answer.
Does a manager need to be able to do the job of the people they manage?
Why ask it
Sports has coaches who never played at the top level, and kitchens have head chefs who worked every station on the way up. Which would the team want in a crisis, and which for an ordinary year? The two answers do not always match.
Is it more useful to fix your weaknesses or to build on what you are already good at?
Why ask it
Reviews are organized around the first and careers are mostly made by the second. The distinction that helps is between weaknesses that are merely annoying and ones that put a ceiling on a person, since only the second kind repays the effort.
Should work be something you love or something that pays for what you love?
Why ask it
People who landed the dream job and people still waiting for it answer differently, and so do people at opposite ends of a career. Ask whether turning a passion into a living improved it for anyone they know.
Is a team that never argues healthy or just quiet?
Why ask it
Silence can mean agreement, boredom or fear, and from the head of the table all three look identical. When did somebody last change the group's mind, and how did that go over?
Should colleagues be friends, or is friendly enough?
Why ask it
Friendship makes the days better and makes honest feedback, promotions and layoffs harder. Nobody has to say who their work friends are. The useful argument is over what a friend at work is owed that a colleague is not.
What does an employee owe an employer beyond the work itself, and what is owed in return?
Why ask it
Loyalty, notice, weekends, discretion: people of different ages give very different answers. Hold it to principles and away from your own company's policies, unless the person who sets them has asked to hear it.
Do good ideas come from a group in a room or from one person left alone?
Why ask it
Fans of brainstorming and skeptics of it both have evidence from last quarter. Trace where the team's last three good ideas came from, which settles more than theory will.
At work, is it better to be respected or liked?
Why ask it
Most people say respected and behave as though the answer were liked. Ask what they would trade of one to get more of the other, and whether a manager should answer differently from a peer.
If a tool can do half of your job, are you twice as productive or half as needed?
Why ask it
The answer depends on who is doing the counting. Take it away from this year's software by picking an older tool, the spreadsheet or the search engine, and listing the work it removed beside the work it created.
Which skill will matter more in ten years than it does now, and which will matter less?
Why ask it
A technology gets named first every time. Insist on a human skill as well, such as listening, writing plainly or saying no, and then on who in the team already has it.
Kids and teens
A fire moves, grows and needs feeding, so is it alive?
Why ask it
Most children say no at once and then struggle to say what a fire is missing. Collect their rules for being alive, then try each rule on a tree, a robot vacuum and a seed in a packet.
Do animals think, and what do you suppose they think about?
Why ask it
Anyone with a pet has a theory. Follow with 'how could we find out?' and a lesson on evidence has slipped in unannounced. It works from about age five.
Can you be brave and scared at the same time?
Why ask it
Young children often believe that brave people feel no fear. Have them recall doing something while frightened, and let them work out for themselves that this is what the word means.
Can you think about nothing at all?
Why ask it
Everyone tries it on the spot, which is half the fun. Thinking 'I am thinking about nothing' counts as a thought, and so does a picture of empty black space. Compare notes on what the quietest moment inside each head is like.
Should you have to share something that belongs to you?
Why ask it
Adults tell children to share and do not lend out their own cars. What makes a thing fine to keep to yourself, and is taking turns the same as sharing?
Is a game still fun when you know you are going to lose?
Why ask it
Competitive kids say no and then describe a game they lost and loved. What made that one different? It is a gentle way to talk about effort without mentioning school.
Were numbers invented by people, or were they always there waiting to be found?
Why ask it
Three apples are real, but nobody has ever tripped over a three. Children argue this surprisingly well. Ask whether aliens would have the same numbers, and whether they would count in tens without ten fingers.
Do you think in words, in pictures or in something else?
Why ask it
Children are amazed to learn that other heads may not work like theirs, and so are a good many adults. Go around and compare. No answer is wrong and nobody can check.
If you could make one rule that every adult had to follow, what would it be?
Why ask it
The rules children write for adults are a clear report on what they notice: phones at dinner, broken promises, 'in a minute'. Take the answer seriously and ask what the penalty should be.
Can two people disagree and both be right?
Why ask it
Begin with taste, where the answer is plainly yes, then move to facts, where it is not, and let them find the border. Best ice cream, best song, whether the door was left open.
Is it fair for older kids to get more freedom than younger ones?
Why ask it
Every home with two children has already held this trial. Should freedom depend on age or on showing you can handle it? A younger sibling may well pick age, since age is the one test everybody passes eventually.
Would you rather be the smartest person in the room or the kindest?
Why ask it
Kind is the answer adults want to hear, so make it safe to pick smart and talk about what each one gets you. The follow-up is which they would choose in a friend, and whether that matches what they chose for themselves.
What makes someone a real friend and not just a person you hang out with?
Why ask it
A nine-year-old and a sixteen-year-old answer this differently, and both are worth hearing. Ask for something a real friend does, not something a real friend is, to get past 'nice'.
What do adults understand that kids don't, and what have adults forgotten that kids still know?
Why ask it
Children take over on the second half. Expect answers about playing, saying what you mean and being over an argument by lunchtime. Any adult present should answer both halves too.
Is it more important to fit in or to be yourself, and can you do both?
Why ask it
Adults say 'be yourself' and teenagers know what it costs. The last clause is the honest part of the question. Ask where they feel most like themselves and what is different about that place.
Should grades measure how much you know or how hard you tried?
Why ask it
Students who find school easy and students who work for every point will disagree, and each has a case. What would a coach or a future employer want the grade to say?
Would you still post a photo if nobody could like it or comment on it?
Why ask it
It gets teenagers talking about who a post is for, with no lecture attached. What would they still share with no audience at all, and who would they send it to directly?
If a friend cheated on a test, is telling the teacher honest or disloyal?
Why ask it
Teenagers meet this for real, so do not hurry toward the approved answer. Ask whether it changes when the cheating cost someone else a prize, and whether talking to the friend first counts as doing something.
Should sixteen-year-olds be allowed to vote?
Why ask it
Whatever age the group settles on, make them say what the age is standing in for: knowledge, independence, having something at stake. Then check whether every adult they know would pass that test.
Is it harder to be a kid today than it was when your parents were young?
Why ask it
Put it to both generations together and have each argue the other's side first. Phones come up immediately. Make room for what is plainly better now as well.
Funny
Is a hot dog a sandwich, and what rule are you using?
Why ask it
A famously silly argument, and useful because it forces people to define a category. Whatever rule they give, try it on a taco, a wrap and an ice cream sandwich.
How many holes does a drinking straw have: one, two or none?
Why ask it
People answer instantly and then cannot defend it. Move on to a donut, a sock and a T-shirt, and count how many meanings of 'hole' the group is using by the end.
If a tree falls in a forest with nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Why ask it
Famous enough that people groan, and it stops being a riddle once the group agrees what 'sound' means: air shaking, or somebody hearing it. Try the same split on a rainbow nobody is looking at and a joke nobody gets.
How many grains of rice make a pile, and which grain made it one?
Why ask it
A very old puzzle that sounds like a joke. Nobody can name the grain, yet anyone can tell a pile from three grains. Follow with: so when exactly does a town become a city, or a snack become a meal?
If every part of a bicycle is replaced over ten years, is it still the same bicycle?
Why ask it
An ancient riddle about a ship, moved onto two wheels. Once the room has split, ask what to call the bicycle somebody builds from all the discarded parts, and then try it on a band with no original members.
Which is your real voice: the one you hear when you talk or the one on a recording?
Why ask it
Everybody dislikes the recording, and everybody else has only ever heard that version. It is a light way into how differently people come across from the outside. From there it is a short step to what else a person hears differently from everyone around them.
Would a fish have any idea what water is?
Why ask it
It is funny until someone asks what humans are swimming in without noticing. Air is the easy answer. Push for the less obvious ones: habits, assumptions, how things are done where you grew up.
What color is a mirror, really?
Why ask it
Silver is the reflex answer and it is hard to defend, since a mirror shows whatever is put in front of it. Good for a car ride, and the color of the sky at night makes a fine second round.
If you are still awake at 2 a.m., is it tonight or tomorrow?
Why ask it
Night owls say it stays tonight until they sleep, and the clock disagrees. Underneath is a real question in a silly coat: is time what the calendar says or what it feels like?
Who decided the order of the alphabet, and would anything break if it changed?
Why ask it
Nobody at the table will know, and that is the point: a lot of daily life rests on arrangements no one remembers choosing. What else is arbitrary and stuck? A keyboard layout and which side of the road to drive on are two to start with.
Why does the last slice of pizza sit there when everybody wants it?
Why ask it
Manners, studied over dinner. Everyone is obeying a rule that nobody ever stated. Other unwritten rules come out quickly after that, such as where to stand in an elevator.
Do you think your pet has a name for you?
Why ask it
Probably a smell or a sound, which leads to wondering what a name is for. Lovely with children, and with adults who talk to their cats. Next, what does the pet call the vacuum cleaner?
What makes a food a breakfast food?
Why ask it
Eggs at dinner are fine and soup at seven in the morning feels wrong, at least in some countries. It turns out to be custom all the way down. Anyone who has traveled can report what breakfast looks like somewhere else.
Why do people turn the music down when they are looking for a parking space?
Why ask it
A habit plenty of drivers have and none were taught. Does it truly help, or only feel as if it does? Then collect whatever else people do to hear themselves think.
Which version of you makes better decisions: the one at 8 a.m. or the one at 11 p.m.?
Why ask it
The night version makes the plans and the morning version has to carry them out. Which one signed up for the gym, and which should be trusted to send an email?
Is it lying to laugh at a joke you did not find funny?
Why ask it
Technically yes, and a world with no polite laughter would be brutal by lunchtime. Rank the fake laugh beside 'I love it' for a bad gift and 'let's catch up soon'.
How would you prove that you are not dreaming right now?
Why ask it
Pinching does not work, since a pinch can be dreamed too. Philosophers have been stuck on this for centuries, so the table is excused from settling it. The fun is in each proposed test and the flaw someone finds in it.
How could you find out whether you and a friend see the same color when you both say blue?
Why ask it
Both of you point at the sky and agree, and neither can step inside the other's head. Ask whether the same goes for the taste of coffee, and whether it matters as long as everyone stops at a red light.
How to run a discussion with thought provoking questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you ask
Pick the group that fits the room
About life, Right and wrong and Society and the future are written for adults and older teens around a table. For work is for team meetings and offsites. Kids and teens starts with questions a six-year-old can take on and finishes with ones for high schoolers, and Funny is for car rides, mixed ages and any moment the mood needs lifting. Borrowing across groups is fine, but read the note first.
Bring three, expect to use one
These are not rapid-fire questions. One that works will run for fifteen minutes and one that does not will be over in two, so have a couple in reserve and no plan to get through them. Reading down a list at people turns a discussion into a quiz.
Give everyone a moment to think
The first answer spoken tends to become the answer everyone else reacts to. Ask the question, then leave thirty seconds of silence, or have people jot down a word before anyone speaks. Quiet people contribute far more when they are not racing the quick ones.
Ask for a position
'It depends' is true of every question here, and it ends the discussion if it is allowed to stand. Accept it once, then ask what it depends on and which way the person leans. A room where three people have committed to different answers will run itself.
Keeping the discussion going
Ask for a case
Abstract answers run out quickly. When someone says fairness means giving people what they need, ask for a time they saw that done well or badly. An example gives everyone else something to push against, and it is usually more interesting than the principle.
Change one detail
Most positions hold until the numbers change. Make the lie bigger, the stranger a neighbor, the mistake ten years older, the pay gap twice as wide. The point at which someone switches sides shows what their answer was resting on.
Protect the unpopular view
If the table agrees too quickly, the question is over. Ask who can make the best case for the other side, or take that side yourself and say that you are doing so. Whoever disagrees alone should get the most airtime, not the least.
Argue the idea, not the person
None of these questions needs anyone's private business to work. If an answer starts turning into a confession, or the table starts guessing who a story is about, move it back to the general case. People argue harder, and more happily, when nothing of their own is on the table.
When it turns into politics
The questions on money, law, voting and the news sit close to live political arguments. That is fine until people start repeating their side's lines. Bring it back by asking for a personal example or a principle. A rule against naming parties or politicians for the evening keeps most groups on the question.
Do not settle it
Nobody wins these, and declaring a winner sours the mood. End by asking whether anyone moved, even slightly, and what moved them. If the question comes up again on the drive home, it did its job.
Four ways to use the list
Around the dinner table
- 1One person reads a question aloud and nobody answers for thirty seconds.
- 2Go around once. Each person gives a position and one reason, with no interruptions.
- 3Open it up. Anyone may challenge anyone, and the reader uses the follow-up from the note when things slow down.
- 4When it runs down, the person who spoke least picks the next question.
Stand on the line, for classrooms and youth groups
- 1Name one wall of the room for each side of the question, with the middle of the floor for undecided.
- 2Read the question and have everyone stand where their answer is.
- 3Ask one person from each end, then one from the middle, to explain their spot.
- 4Invite people to move if they heard something convincing, and ask the movers what did it.
Five minutes at the start of a meeting
Choose one question from For work, or a Funny one for a team that is new to each other, and put it in the invitation so people arrive with an answer. Go around quickly, one or two sentences each, with the most senior person last. Do not tie it to the agenda. Its job is to get every voice into the room before the real business starts.
Alone with a notebook
Any question from About life or Right and wrong works as a writing prompt. Write your answer in three sentences, then the strongest objection to it, then your reply to the objection. Arguing against yourself on paper is a quick way to find out whether you believe what you wrote.