I haven’t listened to the debate (I’d read it if it was transcribed), but I want to object to a part of your post on a meta level, namely the part where you say:
To me, he is very far from a model for a rationalist
Being able to effectively convince people, to reliably influence their behavior, is perhaps the biggest general-purpose power a human can have. Don’t dismiss an effective arguer as “not rationalist”. On the contrary, acknowledge them as a scary rationalist more powerful than you are.
The word “rationalist” means something fairly narrow. We shouldn’t make it into an applause light, a near synonym of “people we like and admire and are allied with”. Being reliably effective, on the other hand, is a near synonym of being rational(ist).
If Adams employed “dark arts” in his debate, the only thing that necessarily means is that he wasn’t engaged in an honest effort to discover the truth. But that’s not news—it was a public debate staged in order to convince the audience! So Adams used a time-honored technique of achieving this goal—how very rational of him. At least, it’s rational if he succeeded, and I assume you think he did succeed in convincing some of the audience, otherwise you wouldn’t bother to post a denunciation.
Similarly, the name “Dark Arts” is misleading. They are (if I may channel Professor Quirrell for a moment) extremely powerful Arts everyone should cultivate if they can, and use where appropriate: not when honestly conversing with a fellow rationalist to discover the truth, but when aiming to convince people who are not themselves trained in rationality, and who (in your estimation) will not come by their beliefs rationally, whether or not they end up believing the truth.
This is a near cousin of politics (in the social sense, not the government sense). Politics is a mind-killer and it’s important to keep politics-free spaces for various purposes including the pursuit of truth. But we should not say “rationalists should not engage in politics”, any more than “rationalists should never try to convince non-rationalists of anything”.
ETA: I’m not claiming Adam is a rationalist or is good at being a rationalist; I’m not familiar enough with him to tell. I’m only claiming that the fact he is or tries to be a good persuader in a debate and uses Dark Arts isn’t evidence that he isn’t.
I think the term “Dark Arts” is used by many in the community to refer to generic, truth-agnostic ways of getting people to change their mind. I agree that Scott Adams demonstrates mastery of persuasion techniques, and that this is indeed not necessarily evidence that he is not a “rationalist”.
However, the specific claim made by James_Miller is that it is a “model rationalist disagreement”. I think that since Adams used the persuasion techniques that Stabilizer mentioned above, it’s pretty clear that it isn’t a model rationalist disagreement.
I haven’t listened to the debate (I’d read it if it was transcribed), but I want to object to a part of your post on a meta level, namely the part where you say:
Being able to effectively convince people, to reliably influence their behavior, is perhaps the biggest general-purpose power a human can have. Don’t dismiss an effective arguer as “not rationalist”. On the contrary, acknowledge them as a scary rationalist more powerful than you are.
The word “rationalist” means something fairly narrow. We shouldn’t make it into an applause light, a near synonym of “people we like and admire and are allied with”. Being reliably effective, on the other hand, is a near synonym of being rational(ist).
If Adams employed “dark arts” in his debate, the only thing that necessarily means is that he wasn’t engaged in an honest effort to discover the truth. But that’s not news—it was a public debate staged in order to convince the audience! So Adams used a time-honored technique of achieving this goal—how very rational of him. At least, it’s rational if he succeeded, and I assume you think he did succeed in convincing some of the audience, otherwise you wouldn’t bother to post a denunciation.
Similarly, the name “Dark Arts” is misleading. They are (if I may channel Professor Quirrell for a moment) extremely powerful Arts everyone should cultivate if they can, and use where appropriate: not when honestly conversing with a fellow rationalist to discover the truth, but when aiming to convince people who are not themselves trained in rationality, and who (in your estimation) will not come by their beliefs rationally, whether or not they end up believing the truth.
This is a near cousin of politics (in the social sense, not the government sense). Politics is a mind-killer and it’s important to keep politics-free spaces for various purposes including the pursuit of truth. But we should not say “rationalists should not engage in politics”, any more than “rationalists should never try to convince non-rationalists of anything”.
ETA: I’m not claiming Adam is a rationalist or is good at being a rationalist; I’m not familiar enough with him to tell. I’m only claiming that the fact he is or tries to be a good persuader in a debate and uses Dark Arts isn’t evidence that he isn’t.
I think the term “Dark Arts” is used by many in the community to refer to generic, truth-agnostic ways of getting people to change their mind. I agree that Scott Adams demonstrates mastery of persuasion techniques, and that this is indeed not necessarily evidence that he is not a “rationalist”.
However, the specific claim made by James_Miller is that it is a “model rationalist disagreement”. I think that since Adams used the persuasion techniques that Stabilizer mentioned above, it’s pretty clear that it isn’t a model rationalist disagreement.
I agree, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.