SparkUps®
Facilitated Socratic dialogues on the world's most complex and taboo questions, with 3-4 curious minds who seek truth in good faith. The most stimulating conversations you'll ever have.
Pick a question.
Show up curious.
Is AI making us dumber?
Cognitive offloading, epistemic risk, and what it means to think for yourself when the machine is doing most of the thinking.
The Era of the Soul
When AI handles the doing, how do we master the being? Meaning, identity, and human flourishing past the automation cliff.
Radical Candor in Practice
How to say the hard thing with love — and hear it the same way. We'll try it. Live. With each other.
What does positive-sum politics look like?
Beyond left and right, beyond compromise. A first-principles take on win-win civic life.
Ninety minutes.
One question. Four phases.
A SparkUp isn't a debate, a panel, or a lecture. It's a Socratic dialogue with a tight structure — designed so a room of curious strangers can think out loud, in good faith, and leave sharper than they arrived.
The Central Statement
The facilitator opens with a single, provocative claim — the hinge of the night. No throat-clearing. No context dump. You sit with it.
The Opening Round
Each person says where they land on the statement — and why. No interruptions, no rebuttals yet. Everyone is on record, and the room hears every position.
Socratic Dialogue
The facilitator asks open-ended questions and steers the room toward the strongest version of each view. You disagree with ideas, steelman opponents, and follow the argument where it leads.
The Closing Round
Each person says what shifted, what hardened, and what they still don't know. Changing your mind out loud is celebrated — it's the whole point.
An After-Action Report in your inbox.
Every participant gets a written After-Action Report a few days later — a synthesis of the strongest arguments, the cruxes that surfaced, the beliefs that shifted in the room, and personal feedback on your contributions. The conversation ends. The thinking doesn't.
Three core values.
Six commitments.
Every SparkUp® opens with the same compact: a shared set of values worth defending, and a set of rules everyone agrees to before they speak.
A room with one viewpoint isn't a dialogue. We protect the right to disagree — and the responsibility to listen.
No topic is off-limits if it's argued in good faith. Hard questions are why we're here.
Say what you actually think, with care for the person across from you. Politeness without honesty is a waste of the hour.
Every Truth-Seeker Agrees To The Rules of Good-Faith Dialogue Six commitments. Read them once. They make the room work. ▾
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01
Assume good faithRead the strongest version of what someone is saying — not the easiest one to dismiss.
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02
Stay curious, not certainBring questions, not verdicts. The point is to think together, not to win.
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03
Speak from experience"I've found…" and "In my experience…" beat "Everyone knows…" Own your seat in the conversation.
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04
Make space, take spaceIf you've spoken a lot, listen. If you haven't, jump in. The facilitator helps balance the room.
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05
Disagree with the ideaSteelman the argument, not the person. No labels, no caricatures, no contempt.
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06
Be willing to be wrongChanging your mind, out loud, in real time, is the highest form of intellectual honesty. Celebrate it.
What you actually get
out of 90 minutes.
A SparkUp® isn't entertainment, networking, or a debate to be won. It's deliberate practice for the muscles a thinking person needs in the Era of the Soul.
Practice civil disagreement
Hold a position, hear the strongest version of the opposite view, and stay in the conversation. The rarest skill in modern public life — trained, in a small room, on a real question.
Change your mind on hard questions
Bring a belief in. Test it against the room. Leave with a sharper position — sometimes the same one, more deeply held; sometimes a new one you'd never have arrived at alone.
Sharpen your thinking under pressure
Real-time Socratic dialogue forces you to articulate, defend, and revise on the fly. The frameworks you've read about — steelmanning, first principles, charitable interpretation — become reflexes.
Find your people
Small rooms of curious, warm, intellectually honest humans who want to think out loud with you. Most participants come back. Many become friends. You build a reputation as a truth-seeker.
What Truth-Seekers
are saying.
This SparkUp was a master class in how people with different worldviews can find common ground and learn the reasons why they are different in a respectful way.
I enjoyed getting to talk about a topic that is seen as quite fringe and out there without judgement or ridicule. Especially with others who are also interested in the topic.
A chance to bounce ideas off smart conscientious people and learn from them.