Well this is surprising… I never expected to see you here.
OTOH, I get the sense that not only did you seemingly fail to understand your opponents, it seems like you didn’t even try. There is a reason why the ITT is recommended. If you can’t pass the ITT, the least you could do is steel man their position; as it is, you’ve presented a laughable strawman. Or as the black belt Bayesian says:
If you’re interested in being on the right side of disputes, you will refute your opponents’ arguments. But if you’re interested in producing truth, you will fix your opponents’ arguments for them. To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you [also] must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse.
I think that’s the minimum standard of epistemic rigour you should hold yourself to—least of all because you preached it yourself.
It is very rarely helpful to say just “You have misunderstood and strawmanned the opposing position”. Either the person you’re addressing is trying to understand correctly (in which case you could have helped by saying something about what you think is wrong with their presentation of the position) or they aren’t (in which case you are wasting your time engaging at all).
Well this is surprising… I never expected to see you here.
OTOH, I get the sense that not only did you seemingly fail to understand your opponents, it seems like you didn’t even try. There is a reason why the ITT is recommended. If you can’t pass the ITT, the least you could do is steel man their position; as it is, you’ve presented a laughable strawman. Or as the black belt Bayesian says:
I think that’s the minimum standard of epistemic rigour you should hold yourself to—least of all because you preached it yourself.
It is very rarely helpful to say just “You have misunderstood and strawmanned the opposing position”. Either the person you’re addressing is trying to understand correctly (in which case you could have helped by saying something about what you think is wrong with their presentation of the position) or they aren’t (in which case you are wasting your time engaging at all).
Noted.