The best ways to develop contrarian ideas about a field is to get to the frontiers of knowledge in the field and notice promising gaps.
To notice promising gaps, think from First Principles. Be strict about the world and willing to break rules.
Of course, there’s good reasons that most trends exist. Most of your contrarian ideas will be wrong. But you only have to be right a few times.
Special Use Cases for contrarian thinking
- Writing essays (you need good ideas to How to Write Better)
- Starting up (the fastest growing startups are the ones that are based on contrarian ideas How to Get Startup Ideas)
- Being a comedian