Formally verifying all arguments takes work, and how easy it is depends on how nuanced or complex a given argument is. But noticing and pointing out obvious errors is something I think most people can do.
In Jacob’s exchange above, a passerby can easily notice that the goalposts have shifted and say “hey, it seems like you’re shifting your goalposts.”
Whether this works depends a lot on whether people expect that sort of criticism to be leveled fairly. In many corners of the internet, people (rightly) assume that complaining about goal-post-moving is a tactic employed against your outgroup.
I’m quite optimistic about solving this problem on LessWrong in particular. I’m much less optimistic about solving it in all corners of the EA-and-Rationalsphere.
Jacob’s example is presumably a caricature, but even then, with a little charity, I can empathize with Someone. Here’s how I might translate the debate:
Someone: I believe hypothesis “most people buy cows” is most likely, therefore “cash-transfers are good”.
Jacobian: Really? I believe hypothesis “most people buy food” is more likely (presumably I’m saying this to imply “cash-transfers are bad”)
Someone: I don’t agree that hypothesis “most people buy food” implies “cash-transfers are bad”.
Ideally, the two people would do battle until they agree on the values of P(“most people buy cows”) and P(“most people buy food”), but that would take a lot of work, and if they don’t agree on the implications of those hypotheses, there is no point in it. The reply “I don’t think your counterargument disagrees with my conclusion” is reasonable. It is based on the assumption that Jacobian really was disagreeing with the conclusion, rather than just the argument. This assumption is both easy to make and easy to correct though.
Regarding solutions, I wish we could force people to explicitly answer questions. For example, suppose Someone’s last reply said
Someone: Yes, really. But regardless, do you think that malnourished people don’t deserve to buy a bit of food?
Jacobian: I don’t actually think that. Now, why really?
And even better if we also forced people to ask specific questions with useful answers we could have
Jacobian: Why do you believe this? I thought most of the money was spent on quality-of-life things like metal roofs and better food.
Someone: I read it in [X]. But regardless, do you think that malnourished people don’t deserve to buy a bit of food?
Jacobian: I don’t actually think that. Now, regarding [X], I think it disagrees with [Y].
The point is that Someone isn’t derailing the discussion by saying what they wanted to say. They are derailing the discussion by ignoring earlier questions. If they did answer those, then the original thread of discussion would be easy to preserve.
Also, this is easy to enforce. It should be clearly visible, which questions have explicit answers and which don’t, even without an understanding of what is being discussed.
Of course, I might not want to answer a question if I don’t think it’s relevant. But at that point, you, or some third party, should be able to say “why didn’t you answer question X?”, and I should answer it (or say “I don’t know”/”I don’t understand the question”).
Formally verifying all arguments takes work, and how easy it is depends on how nuanced or complex a given argument is. But noticing and pointing out obvious errors is something I think most people can do.
In Jacob’s exchange above, a passerby can easily notice that the goalposts have shifted and say “hey, it seems like you’re shifting your goalposts.”
Whether this works depends a lot on whether people expect that sort of criticism to be leveled fairly. In many corners of the internet, people (rightly) assume that complaining about goal-post-moving is a tactic employed against your outgroup.
I’m quite optimistic about solving this problem on LessWrong in particular. I’m much less optimistic about solving it in all corners of the EA-and-Rationalsphere.
Jacob’s example is presumably a caricature, but even then, with a little charity, I can empathize with Someone. Here’s how I might translate the debate:
Someone: I believe hypothesis “most people buy cows” is most likely, therefore “cash-transfers are good”.
Jacobian: Really? I believe hypothesis “most people buy food” is more likely (presumably I’m saying this to imply “cash-transfers are bad”)
Someone: I don’t agree that hypothesis “most people buy food” implies “cash-transfers are bad”.
Ideally, the two people would do battle until they agree on the values of P(“most people buy cows”) and P(“most people buy food”), but that would take a lot of work, and if they don’t agree on the implications of those hypotheses, there is no point in it. The reply “I don’t think your counterargument disagrees with my conclusion” is reasonable. It is based on the assumption that Jacobian really was disagreeing with the conclusion, rather than just the argument. This assumption is both easy to make and easy to correct though.
Or another way to put it, is that “someone” unskillfully said “the argument I offered is not a crux for me.”
Regarding solutions, I wish we could force people to explicitly answer questions. For example, suppose Someone’s last reply said
Someone: Yes, really. But regardless, do you think that malnourished people don’t deserve to buy a bit of food?
Jacobian: I don’t actually think that. Now, why really?
And even better if we also forced people to ask specific questions with useful answers we could have
Jacobian: Why do you believe this? I thought most of the money was spent on quality-of-life things like metal roofs and better food.
Someone: I read it in [X]. But regardless, do you think that malnourished people don’t deserve to buy a bit of food?
Jacobian: I don’t actually think that. Now, regarding [X], I think it disagrees with [Y].
The point is that Someone isn’t derailing the discussion by saying what they wanted to say. They are derailing the discussion by ignoring earlier questions. If they did answer those, then the original thread of discussion would be easy to preserve.
Also, this is easy to enforce. It should be clearly visible, which questions have explicit answers and which don’t, even without an understanding of what is being discussed.
Of course, I might not want to answer a question if I don’t think it’s relevant. But at that point, you, or some third party, should be able to say “why didn’t you answer question X?”, and I should answer it (or say “I don’t know”/”I don’t understand the question”).