Well, the effect LW had on me was the opposite. Many arguments have subtle sides which are hidden from the first sight, and much of this I have realised reading LW. It can happen that it’s me who misses the point, and it’s very unpleasant after having argued about the point passionately. And even if I am right and the opponent is wrong, I know that the path to the truth isn’t usually simple and short. I used to have beliefs which today I see as clearly wrong. I am fairly confident that today I have beliefs which I would find wrong in the future, and which other better informed people consider wrong even today. If I don’t want to call past myself a moron (I certainly don’t) and don’t want to be called a moron by the wiser people, I should be quite careful in putting the moron label onto others.
So, what to do if you want to be more tolerant, for example, when you meet a religious believer? My advice is based on things that usually help me:
Try to remember that you were effectively an agnostic not long ago, and if your interlocutor deserves to be called a moron for believing in God, you deserved to be called at least a half-moron for being agnostic about the question. Perhaps you wouldn’t like that conclusion.
Try to remember when you have changed your mind about other issues you were pretty certain before. That helps to understand that being mistaken isn’t necessarily the same as being an idiot. (If you can’t remember a single instance when you have abandoned a strongly held belief, take it as evidence that you do something wrong.)
Think about high-status intelligent religious people.
Remember that abstract reasoning about abstract issues like (some modern weak version of) religion or free will isn’t hallmark of practical rationality and intelligence. Being right about abstract problems that don’t affect their life is not every person’s priority.
Before the debate starts, suppose that the interlocutor has a really clever logically consistent theology supported by clever convoluted intuition pumps and that you would need to destroy dozens of Plantingaesque proofs of God to make a good counter-argument. In most of the actual cases your opponent’s argument would rather be “but what keeps the atoms together, if not Jesus”, but it doesn’t matter. A long debate against a skilled theologian demagogue should be such an unpleasant experience that even the slightest chance of that happening should convince you to drop the topic as soon as possible.
In the beginning of any debate, try to think what you want to achieve. The opponent saying “oops, you were right and I was wrong, I deconvert now”? That’s not going to happen, and it’s a rationalist’s obligation not to engage in futile actions.
Modification from religion to Bayesianism or other issues is pretty straightforward.
And whether you indeed should calm down? If you debating style even remotely resembles that of Xah Lee (I don’t have that impression from reading your comments), you should. I have clicked on your link to XL’s rant against Wikipedia. After having read the first sentence, I thought “what a self-conscious jerk”, and at the end of the whole thing I was fairly certain that I am going to ignore all his opinions. If you want to actually communicate with others—rather than voice your opinions—you should avoid that style at all costs.
If you can’t remember a single instance when you have abandoned a strongly held belief…
Ouch. I can’t. Even reading the whole sequences didn’t trigger any feeling of updating. I learned quite a few things, and it just made sense as a whole. But nowhere I saw something that made me jump “wait, what?”, followed by the mandatory Oops.
I probably should take ideas I disagree with as seriously as possible. Surely there is one that will change my mind?
The updating needn’t necessarily be instant, it can take months or years. For me, it is never an instant change. Not much “wait, what?!”, it’s rather more like “this can’t be true, let’s try to find a counter-argument”, followed by “I can’t find a satisfactory counterargument, so there may be some merit in that” after some time gap. But after that, I am able to see that I don’t anymore hold a belief X which I was ready to defend fiercely a while ago.
A wince. I noticed my failure to update a while ago. (Or at least my failure to notice update. That doesn’t feel likely, but I’ve seen my Mother do it, saying “of course” instead of “oops”. It could let me update, which is good, but it wouldn’t get rid of the “I’ve been right all along” feeling, which is bad.)
Well, the effect LW had on me was the opposite. Many arguments have subtle sides which are hidden from the first sight, and much of this I have realised reading LW. It can happen that it’s me who misses the point, and it’s very unpleasant after having argued about the point passionately. And even if I am right and the opponent is wrong, I know that the path to the truth isn’t usually simple and short. I used to have beliefs which today I see as clearly wrong. I am fairly confident that today I have beliefs which I would find wrong in the future, and which other better informed people consider wrong even today. If I don’t want to call past myself a moron (I certainly don’t) and don’t want to be called a moron by the wiser people, I should be quite careful in putting the moron label onto others.
So, what to do if you want to be more tolerant, for example, when you meet a religious believer? My advice is based on things that usually help me:
Try to remember that you were effectively an agnostic not long ago, and if your interlocutor deserves to be called a moron for believing in God, you deserved to be called at least a half-moron for being agnostic about the question. Perhaps you wouldn’t like that conclusion.
Try to remember when you have changed your mind about other issues you were pretty certain before. That helps to understand that being mistaken isn’t necessarily the same as being an idiot. (If you can’t remember a single instance when you have abandoned a strongly held belief, take it as evidence that you do something wrong.)
Think about high-status intelligent religious people.
Remember that abstract reasoning about abstract issues like (some modern weak version of) religion or free will isn’t hallmark of practical rationality and intelligence. Being right about abstract problems that don’t affect their life is not every person’s priority.
Before the debate starts, suppose that the interlocutor has a really clever logically consistent theology supported by clever convoluted intuition pumps and that you would need to destroy dozens of Plantingaesque proofs of God to make a good counter-argument. In most of the actual cases your opponent’s argument would rather be “but what keeps the atoms together, if not Jesus”, but it doesn’t matter. A long debate against a skilled theologian demagogue should be such an unpleasant experience that even the slightest chance of that happening should convince you to drop the topic as soon as possible.
In the beginning of any debate, try to think what you want to achieve. The opponent saying “oops, you were right and I was wrong, I deconvert now”? That’s not going to happen, and it’s a rationalist’s obligation not to engage in futile actions.
Modification from religion to Bayesianism or other issues is pretty straightforward.
And whether you indeed should calm down? If you debating style even remotely resembles that of Xah Lee (I don’t have that impression from reading your comments), you should. I have clicked on your link to XL’s rant against Wikipedia. After having read the first sentence, I thought “what a self-conscious jerk”, and at the end of the whole thing I was fairly certain that I am going to ignore all his opinions. If you want to actually communicate with others—rather than voice your opinions—you should avoid that style at all costs.
Ouch. I can’t. Even reading the whole sequences didn’t trigger any feeling of updating. I learned quite a few things, and it just made sense as a whole. But nowhere I saw something that made me jump “wait, what?”, followed by the mandatory Oops.
I probably should take ideas I disagree with as seriously as possible. Surely there is one that will change my mind?
The updating needn’t necessarily be instant, it can take months or years. For me, it is never an instant change. Not much “wait, what?!”, it’s rather more like “this can’t be true, let’s try to find a counter-argument”, followed by “I can’t find a satisfactory counterargument, so there may be some merit in that” after some time gap. But after that, I am able to see that I don’t anymore hold a belief X which I was ready to defend fiercely a while ago.
Was that “ouch” an oops, or a wince?
A wince. I noticed my failure to update a while ago. (Or at least my failure to notice update. That doesn’t feel likely, but I’ve seen my Mother do it, saying “of course” instead of “oops”. It could let me update, which is good, but it wouldn’t get rid of the “I’ve been right all along” feeling, which is bad.)