Paul Graham claims there are three key components:
Few institutional feedback loops for independent-mindedness through adolescence:
By the time they reach adulthood, most people know roughly how smart they are … because they’re constantly being tested and ranked according to it. But schools generally ignore independent-mindedness… So we don’t get anything like the same kind of feedback about how independent-minded we are.
It matters a lot who you surround yourself with. If you’re surrounded by conventional-minded people, it will constrain which ideas you can express, and that in turn will constrain which ideas you have. But if you surround yourself with independent-minded people, you’ll have the opposite experience: hearing other people say surprising things will encourage you to, and to think of more.
Get curious over rationalistic hygiene:
When you hear someone say something, stop and ask yourself “Is that true?” … The end goal is not to find flaws in the things you’re told, but to find the new ideas that had been concealed by the broken ones. So this game should be an exciting quest for novelty, not a boring protocol for intellectual hygiene.