文章探讨了一种在社交场合中打破常规对话模式的独特方法：递送小谜题。作者认为，这种“nerd sniping”的方式，特别是通过递送3D打印的、需要思考才能拼合的谜题，能够有效地吸引人们的注意力，并创造出令人难忘的互动体验。这种非语言的互动方式，可以在不打断整体对话流畅性的前提下，为参与者提供一个有趣的挑战。无论是初次见面还是在家中招待客人，将有趣的谜题作为一种引入话题和激发好奇心的方式，都能带来积极的社交效果，并帮助人们更好地记住彼此。文章还推荐了一些适合此类场合的经典和创新谜题。

🧩 递送小谜题作为一种“nerd sniping”的社交技巧，能够有效打破常规对话模式，避免千篇一律的“你做什么工作？”式开场白，创造更具吸引力的初次互动。

💡 这种方法通过提供一个非语言的、需要思考的挑战，能够吸引参与者的注意力，即使是在进行其他交谈时，也能形成一种有趣的背景活动，使互动更具记忆点。

🏠 在家居环境中，将有趣的谜题或新奇的物品随意放置，可以自然地吸引访客的注意，激发他们的好奇心，从而提供一个轻松愉快的交流起点，体现了“理性主义者”的待客之道。

🔍 文章推荐了多种谜题和新奇物品，包括George Hart的拼合谜题、Dino Cube、2x2魔方、Brainstring R，以及MetMo Piston、Ocarina、Jaw harps和Jeweller's Loupes等，这些物品都能有效地吸引注意力并引发思考和讨论。

⚠️ 在使用此方法时需注意，有些人可能更偏好纯粹的口头交流，或者需要对方全神贯注，此时递送谜题可能并不适用，应根据具体情况灵活调整。

Published on August 18, 2025 6:27 AM GMT

We're a community that is especially vulnerable to nerd sniping, as communities go. I'm fond of partaking in a little nerd sniping myself. While the original xkcd paints this pastime in a malicious light, I argue that this is in fact a great thing in general. One of my favorite ways to do this, and one that I think the rationalist community is neglecting, in Handing People Puzzles. 

At Meetups

I once spent a few weeks going to various rationalist meetups in Berkeley, and almost every person I'd meet, I'd start the conversation by silently handing them a small 3D printed puzzle with two pieces that fit together in an unintuitive way. They go for a hand shake? I reach out with a puzzle in my hand. They go for small talk or "So what do you do?", I smile and hand them a puzzle. I know I'm not the only person to ever do this, and hopefully this post means I'm far from the last. 

The reviews for this technique were all around highly enthusiastic. Things that I think worked really well:

It broke the existing conversational mold really well: People were no longer stuck in variations of "So what do you do?". Really committing to the act, turning even normal greetings like handshakes into something else really drives this point home.It was a genuinely engaging puzzle: one outlier solved it in about 30 seconds, the rest of the people took 15-30 minutes. You can vary puzzle difficulty based on how long you want this window to be. Most people can talk while solving this type of fit-things-together puzzle since it's entirely nonverbal, but their attention is still divided.It's memorable: people knew that I was the one handing out the puzzles, and I suspect that that gave them a handle by which to remember other things about me better. 

There are some conditional drawbacks:

Some people really do just want to talk at the meetups, and their puzzling life is already saturated. Let the conversation flow a different way instead.You may want to have shorter conversations than the solve time for any sufficiently interesting puzzle, or you may want to have the person's full and undivided attention, even the parts that would go to background puzzle fidgeting. This strategy is pretty incompatible with that stance.

At Houses

Rationalists tend to have rather distinctive interior design, and this is no accident. There are the standard hallmarks of a nice space: comfy couches, warm lighting, and blankets. There are also the hallmarks of a gathering space for often deeply nerdly people: piles of books, giant whiteboards, and sometimes, though not often enough, puzzles strewn about.

When somebody comes into a space for the first time, they grasp for some way to engage with it: they sit down on the couch, find something to direct their attention to. Hopefully, they find something puzzling on the table to play with, something that piques their curiosity and makes them struggle with something novel for a little bit, for this is the rationalist way. 

I really enjoy when someone new comes into my house and picks up something that fascinates them, and I think this is generally good for the same reasons that I listed about meetup-type social interactions.

Puzzle Recommendations (Not Exhaustive!)

The puzzle I used in my anecdote is the fifth of these from George Hart.Rubik's Cubes are classic, but usually either too easy (for people who know how) or too hard (for people who don't). Variants that I think are great for this purpose are:
Dino Cube (people can usually figure this out without previous knowledgeThe 2x2 Rubik's Cube, which is significantly easier than the 3x3 but still nontrivial for people who aren't familiar.
My house has a Brainstring R (other similar puzzles available at that link) which looks really cool, but is broken so I haven't tried it. Even still, it successfully grabbed the attention of at least one visitor and sparked a conversation.Anomalous objects that aren't classically "puzzles" but that can be very puzzling:
The MetMo Piston, a precision machined air piston that behaves pretty curiously.Musical instruments that are uncommon in Western music and easy to make a sound on:
Ocarinas (you can also 3D print these!)Jaw harps (you can also use a hair tie as a low-quality one, but that doesn't quite fit the purpose of this post.)
Jeweller's Loupes, cheap handheld microscopes with a surprising amount of magnification. Depending on lighting, you can see some people's individual skin cells. I cannot overstate how fun it is to point it at various things in your environment. This exercise also leads to puzzles like "Why does the couch weave look like that?" or "Why do skin cells look like that?"

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