I agree that one should be aware of what their opponents literally believe, instead of strawmanning them. Also, it should be acceptable to say: “I didn’t really spend time to research what they believe, but they have a bad reputation among the people I trust, so I go along with that judgment”, if that indeed is the case.
On the other hand, the example about religious proselytising—there may be a difference between why people do things, and why it works. Like this, but on a group level. So, you should understand the motivation of your outgroup, but also the mechanism. More generally, you should understand the mechanism of everything, including yourself. Your opponents are implemented on broken hardware, and so are you, and it’s actually the same type of hardware. But when you work on this level, you should be skeptical not only about your opponents, but also about yourself and your allies. If you fail to apply the same skepticism towards yourself, you are doing it wrong—not because you are too unfair to your opponents, but because you are too naive about yourself.
I agree that one should be aware of what their opponents literally believe, instead of strawmanning them. Also, it should be acceptable to say: “I didn’t really spend time to research what they believe, but they have a bad reputation among the people I trust, so I go along with that judgment”, if that indeed is the case.
On the other hand, the example about religious proselytising—there may be a difference between why people do things, and why it works. Like this, but on a group level. So, you should understand the motivation of your outgroup, but also the mechanism. More generally, you should understand the mechanism of everything, including yourself. Your opponents are implemented on broken hardware, and so are you, and it’s actually the same type of hardware. But when you work on this level, you should be skeptical not only about your opponents, but also about yourself and your allies. If you fail to apply the same skepticism towards yourself, you are doing it wrong—not because you are too unfair to your opponents, but because you are too naive about yourself.