A friend of mine once suggested a stand-up-comedy type model for philosophy (“stand-up philosophy”). I think this could have some good dynamics. Imagine philosophers competing to blow the minds of the audience and judges.
I like the idea of stand-up philosophy. I worry at the implied goal though; if it’s to blow people’s minds that might create incentives to signal and to pursue goals such as being exciting or original rather than accurate, precise, or convincing.
I agree, but I think there is a place for both fun and seriousness. Also, I personally feel like stand-up comedy sometimes is the best way to get certain serious points across, and I’d expect the same thing to be true of stand-up philosophy. Seems like a happy consequence of babbling.
That’s all up to the judges, audience, and participants. If you took a typical comedy crowd, then of course you’d basically just get comedy out, with maybe a bit of a philosophical twist. If academic philosophers started doing stand-up philosophy with each other, then you’d get something else. LWers would get yet a third thing.
If we assume that the judges are the best we could select, well, then you still get some distortion from the fact that they probably have to judge fairly quickly and will be prone to certain human biases (eg judging attractive people more highly).
I think it’s totally desired to have some originality bias; accuracy, precision, and convincingness are legitimately not worth much without originality. OTOH, yeah, this can train some bad habits.
Most judges (in my very limited knowledge) don’t go completely on gut feeling, but rather, have a rubric. For example, judges might rate contestants on Originality, Accuracy, Precision, and Convincingness and add up the scores. Or subtracting points for each standard bias/fallacy, or whatever. This sort of thing can help avoid overly skewed judging.
Very cool idea! My weak understanding is that this is something like what orators would do historically. Actually I guess there is a spectrum where giving a lecture is on one end and stand-up is on the other. I’m not sure where people fell historically.
A friend of mine once suggested a stand-up-comedy type model for philosophy (“stand-up philosophy”). I think this could have some good dynamics. Imagine philosophers competing to blow the minds of the audience and judges.
I like the idea of stand-up philosophy. I worry at the implied goal though; if it’s to blow people’s minds that might create incentives to signal and to pursue goals such as being exciting or original rather than accurate, precise, or convincing.
I agree, but I think there is a place for both fun and seriousness. Also, I personally feel like stand-up comedy sometimes is the best way to get certain serious points across, and I’d expect the same thing to be true of stand-up philosophy. Seems like a happy consequence of babbling.
That’s all up to the judges, audience, and participants. If you took a typical comedy crowd, then of course you’d basically just get comedy out, with maybe a bit of a philosophical twist. If academic philosophers started doing stand-up philosophy with each other, then you’d get something else. LWers would get yet a third thing.
If we assume that the judges are the best we could select, well, then you still get some distortion from the fact that they probably have to judge fairly quickly and will be prone to certain human biases (eg judging attractive people more highly).
I think it’s totally desired to have some originality bias; accuracy, precision, and convincingness are legitimately not worth much without originality. OTOH, yeah, this can train some bad habits.
Most judges (in my very limited knowledge) don’t go completely on gut feeling, but rather, have a rubric. For example, judges might rate contestants on Originality, Accuracy, Precision, and Convincingness and add up the scores. Or subtracting points for each standard bias/fallacy, or whatever. This sort of thing can help avoid overly skewed judging.
Very cool idea! My weak understanding is that this is something like what orators would do historically. Actually I guess there is a spectrum where giving a lecture is on one end and stand-up is on the other. I’m not sure where people fell historically.
I can’t see this being net-positive. Blowing the minds of the general public is more about confidence and presentation then depth.
Oh, it doesn’t have to be the general public. I doubt it would be. You could select good judges.