Earn points by reading books that oppose your viewpoints

Another idea I have to activate the curiosity empathy loop is more digitally focused.

Amazon is going to be my strategic partner in this initiative. Here’s how this revolutionary program works.

Kindle will launch a new recommendation engine that suggests books that are inversely based on your reading patterns. Rather than suggesting similar titles based on books you have recently bought, the algorithm will analyze your recent reading history. It identifies patterns in the topics and viewpoints you favorite. Then curates a list that present contrasting perspectives, challenging your current beliefs and fostering curiosity and empathy.

There’s even a little button that says, meet your mental match, read the opposition, your beliefs may experience turbulence, and, this book will give you hives.

But as you read, the app tracks your progress and the number of passages you highlight. And the best part is, the whole process is gamified. Earn points by reading books that oppose your viewpoints.

You get credits for consuming at least thirty percent of a book containing opposing views, which you can use to redeem rewards and other incentives, like gift cards, hardware, exclusive preview copies of upcoming releases, and discounts for virtual therapy sessions to unhook you from the shame spiral after diving into controversial topics.

There’s even an integration with your dating app. Rack up enough points, and you’ll receive profit badges that show potential mates you’re willing and able to challenge yourself intellectually.

If that doesn’t get you a date, I don’t know what will.

Kindle ultimately could become responsible for sparking significant changes in how people interact with diverse perspectives. Now curiosity and empathy will be at the forefront of our digital reading experiences.

Lincoln did a version of this back in the eighteen sixties. He intentionally included political adversaries in his cabinet, believing that surrounding himself with diverse perspectives would strengthen his administration.

He referred to this as his team of rivals. Three of his cabinet members had previously run against him in the election. Goodwin, whose pulitzer prize novel about this story also became an academy award winning film, had to this to say.

Lincoln’s explanation at the time was that these were the strongest men in the country. He declared that at a time of peril, the country needed to have the strongest men, and that he couldn’t deprive it of those talents.

By putting his rivals in his cabinet, he had access to a wide range of opinions, which he realized would sharpen his own thinking. It also gave him a way of keeping all those conflicting opinions together.

Having all those opinions in his cabinet not only helped him; it helped the country as well.

Now that’s what I call a curiosity empathy loop.

Name me one sitting president in modern politics who would do such a thing. You can’t. Because humility like that has gone the way of the dodo. We don’t do that kind of thing anymore.

We’re too political, too angry, and too convinced we’re right. About everything. And nobody can listen, I mean truly listen, to someone who is different from them, if they’re polarized, pissed off and prideful.

Are you actually interested in new ideas, or do you know what you know, and that’s the end of it?