Non Zero Questions Get Non Zero Answers

Asking the right questions for a better world.

Photo by Alessio Zaccaria on Unsplash

Asking the Right Questions

I gave a talk to the Prohuman Foundation Ambassadors recently, defending the concept of radical moderation as the principled rejection of all binary choices.

In the Q&A, someone asked the excellent question of whether there might be situations where the binary is forced on us, as in the case of Gaza. Doesn’t the situation come down, he asked, to whether Israel has a right to exist?

That question requires a binary answer, either yes or no. There’s no doubt that we’re confronted with a number of similar binary choice questions in our shared lives.

“Does a fetus have a right to life?”
“Should women have a right to choose what happens to their bodies?”
”Should we have open borders?”
“Does Israel have a right to exist?”
”Is female genital mutilation wrong?”

These questions all point to something important about human morality. They are deeply important questions about what we should do and what we want to be as a community.

They are also completely and utterly wrongheaded and almost always useless.

The problem with such questions is twofold.

First, these questions encourage us to form opposing teams—“Team Yes” and “Team No.” As such, they animate our toxic tribalism and divide us, pushing people into rigid camps.

Second, they almost always carry complex layers of meaning—legal, moral, and social—that we don’t actively unpack.

For example, the question of whether a fetus has a right to life should lead us to ask clarifying questions that never actually get asked in most public debates. Questions about U.S. constitutional interpretations, precedents like Roe v. Wade, and contextual questions about maternal or fetal health and additional questions about ability and disability.

Philosophers and legal scholars can’t even agree on what rights are, let alone how they should be applied in complex contexts.

The Limits of Binary Thinking

Solving the problems that these questions are rooted in is deeply important, but binary choice questions don’t point us toward solutions.

Binary choice questions oversimplify human challenges, obscuring potential solutions.

And instead of clarifying the problem and helping us understand the different sides, they reinforce zero-sum thinking—where one side’s gain is the other’s loss.

Not only don’t we see the problem clearly, but we also aren’t operating in the right incentive structure to look for constructive solutions.

What’s really at stake in the questions above is:

• Abortion: how do we protect two complex and sometimes competing sets of needs and interests when two humans share the same body?

• Immigration: how do we balance the needs of people to escape brutal conditions in their home country against the needs and interests of political communities to define their borders and protect their shared values?

• Gaza: how can we balance the needs and interests of two distinct peoples who lay claim to the same area of land with the added historical complication of hundreds (or thousands) of years of conflict?

But what if we shifted the way we ask questions to get better answers?

Instead of binary frameworks, we need to get at the root of what we really care about, which is to find a way for people to navigate these conflicts that protects human life and, ideally, promotes peace and human flourishing.

Shifting to Problem-Solving and Curiosity

When we ask nuanced nonzero questions, we open up possibilities:

• What legal, policy or social levers exist?

• Who are the “conflict entrepreneurs” (to use Amanda Ripley’s phrase); who benefits from keeping this conflict going?

• What social norms, political structures, or interest groups block progress in resolving the conflict?

• What examples do we have from other kinds of problems that might relate to this one? Do we have precedent or successful experiments in other contexts that we might be able to try out here?

Asking these questions is harder because they force us to delve into complex human dynamics. They involve people or groups sharing resources and space, often with fundamentally conflicting worldviews.

But asking these questions is critically important if we’re going to solve anything at all. Asking these questions moves us from toxic tribalism mode to problem-solving mode.

In some cases, we may arrive at partial solutions that solve problems but don’t make those with hardline views on either side particularly happy. That’s often the best we can do.

For example, we might decide to grant fetuses rights akin to infants after a specific gestational period, except in extreme cases like threats to maternal health. This “solution”, as imperfect as it is, is actually what most Americans support. But you wouldn’t know that we have a nuanced position with broad public support by asking the binary choice question our politicians and the media routinely ask.

Conflict Entrepreneurs Encourage Binary Thinking

And there’s good reason for that. Binary thinking appeals to those in power because it activates toxic tribalism, fear, and anger—emotions that drive voting and allegiance. Leaders benefit from encouraging such thinking, as it simplifies complex issues into “us versus them.”

Binary thinking also gets clicks. People make money when we are channeled into binary-inspired outrage instead of thoughtful and nuanced conversations. And because thoughtful and nuanced conversations take work, we end up with a tsunami of forces that push us toward binary choices.

But we don’t have to fall for it. By embracing curiosity and problem-solving, we can resist the binary frameworks imposed on us. As a society, we can challenge the structures that thrive on division and work toward nuanced, inclusive solutions.

When Binary Choices Work

With all that said, is it really true that binary choices are always useless or harmful?

Maybe there are a few situations when binary choices do work.

I suspect though that those are likely to be times when individuals who have thought deeply about their values have to make decisions. In those situations, a binary choice can be deeply powerful.

Yes/no questions that might have meaning for specific individuals might include:

Do I believe in a loving God?
Should I risk my life to fight for my country?
Do I think Crossfit is the best workout ever?

These questions can be binary choices because they relate directly to the kind of person you are. This doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t interrogate them internally and make adjustments as needed. But these binary choices work because they’re not questions at all. They’re statements of value that you may or may not have as an individual.

In an important sense these aren’t really questions we ask because we already know what the answer will be.

An atheist will answer the first with a resounding “no!” and a believer with a resounding “yes!” and for both those are perfectly compatible answers.

But here’s the important variable: binary choice questions can work for individuals who can both create and enforce the values they care about. They do not and cannot work for pluralistic societies where we cannot (and should not) coerce other people to believe the things we believe.

Human history contains long and terrible stretches of people trying to force their beliefs on others.

These questions become meaningless for the average person when they turn into:

Should everyone believe that a loving God exists?
Should people fight for their country?
Should everyone do Crossfit?

These are questions philosophers and scientists can and should grapple with, but they don’t help us solve basic human social problems because they’re too far removed from the realities of human social life.

They are also questions that, when translated from individual values into group goals, become deeply dangerous.

If I determine that a loving God exists, the next obvious step is to ensure everyone worships Him. What do I do if some people refuse?

What do we do if some people disagree with our contention that people should fight for their country, right or wrong?

My belief that everyone should do Crossfit is harder to force on other people, but that kind of belief makes people not want to hang out with you. You become the kind of person who believes Crossfit is the best workout ever and because you can’t force people to Crossfit you just shame and ridicule other people’s workouts on the internet.

That’s a bad approach too, not to mention a waste of everyone’s time.

Two Big Rules

The danger of asking binary choice questions about our most pressing problems is not just the toxic tribalism that it animates (though that’s bad enough). It’s also that we live in complex and pluralistic societies where disagreement about values is the norm rather than the exception. Binary choices in pluralistic societies lead to bad outcomes.

To live peacefully with each other, we need broad meta rules that binary choices gloss over in dangerous ways.

The first meta rule is that in a pluralistic society where people have different goals and values, we cannot and should not coerce other people to believe the things we believe.

The second meta rule is that in a pluralistic society where people have different goals and values, we can and should focus on eliminating the pits. This is worth doing both because most people can agree on a pit when they see one and because pits get us out of binary choice mode and into creative problem solving mode.

Asking whether a fetus has a right to life doesn’t do anything help the terrified pregnant 16 year old whose parents don’t know she’s pregnant.

But thinking about her as stuck in a pit gets us thinking creatively about ways to get her out. What resources can she access in the community? Are there people who can mediate the conversation with her parents? Is she safe at home, and if not, how can we help?

These questions are harder but they’re also more useful. And they’re the ones we need to practice asking. They’re also the ones we need to hold our politicians accountable for asking too.

Resources for Asking Better Questions

There are lots of great resources out there for how to ask better questions and I know I’m missing some in the list below. Resources range from asking better questions in parenting and personal relationships all the way up to asking better questions about policy problems, so pick which area you’re most interested in focusing on and dive deep.

Some to check out:

1. Peter Coleman’s Polarization Detox and other resources on his webpage help us move past binary choice thinking.

2. Amanda Ripley’s book High Conflict asks us to explore the “understory” of conflict, which often starts in false binary choices. Her website Good Conflict has printable toolkits about active listening and “looping”, both of which help us escape false binaries.

3. Martin Carcasson from the Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State invites us to think about these issues as wicked problems and not as binary choices. We get better solutions (though never perfect ones) and learn to assess tradeoffs too.

4. Monica Guzman’s book I Never Thought of it That Way provides a great framework for thinking about how to get curious, including how to ask curious questions (instead of leading ones).

5. Kevin Dutton’s book Black and White Thinking

6. A number of resources in the “bridging” movement, including Braver Angels, the Pluralist Lab model, Be the Bridge, and many other train students and regular folks in how to ask more curious and more non zero questions.

I’m definitely missing great resources here, so please add your favorites in the comments.

And as always, let me know what you think! How can we get better at asking Non Zero questions?

What kinds of incentives do we need to develop in public life to encourage this kind of thinking? What else did I miss?

Leave a comment below! And as always, subscribe and share if you like what you read!