I suppose you could use master rationalist skillz to answer the question “What will persuade person X?” but this relies on person X being persuadable by the best arguer rather than the best facts, which is not itself a characteristic of master rationalists.
The more the evidence itself leans, the more likely it is that a reasonably rational arbiter and a reasonably skillful evidence-collecter-and-presenter working on the side of truth, cannot be defeated by a much more skillful and highly-paid arguer on the side of falsity.
A master rationalist can still be persuaded by a good arguer because most arguments aren’t about facts. Once everyone agrees about facts, you can still argue about goals and policy—what people should do, what the law should make them do, how a sandwich ought to taste to be called a sandwich, what’s a good looking dress to wear tonight.
If everyone agreed about facts and goals, there wouldn’t be much of an argument left. Most human arguments have no objective right party because they disagree about goals, about what should be or what is right.
One obvious reply would be to hire rationalists only to adjudicate that which has been phrased as a question of simple fact.
To the extent that you do think that people who’ve learned to be good epistemic critics have an advantage in listening to values arguments as well, then go ahead and hire rationalists to adjudicate that as well. (Who does the hiring, though?) Is the idea that rationalists have an advantage here, enough that people would still hire them, but the advantage is much weaker and hence they can be swayed by highly paid arguers?
One obvious reply would be to hire rationalists only to adjudicate that which has been phrased as a question of simple fact.
If the two parties can agree on the phrasing of the question, then I think it would be better to hire experts in the domain of the disputed facts, with only minimal training in rationality required. (Really, such training should be required to work in any fact-based discipline anyway.)
Is the idea that rationalists have an advantage here, enough that people would still hire them, but the advantage is much weaker and hence they can be swayed by highly paid arguers?
If there’s a tradition of such adjudication—and if there’s a good supply of rationalists—then people will hire them as long as they can agree in advance on submitting to arbitrage. Now, I didn’t suggest this; my argument is that if this system somehow came to exist, it would soon collapse (or at least stop serving its original purpose) due to lawyer-y behavior.
If there’s a tradition of such adjudication—and if there’s a good supply of rationalists—then people will hire them as long as they can agree in advance on submitting to arbitrage.
You know, this actually makes (entirely unintended) sense. If the rationalists are obliged to express their evaluations in the form of carefully designed and discrete bets then they are vulnerable to exploitation by others extracting arbitrage.
Presumably, “arbitration”—and that’s a good point, and with clear precedents in the physical world. Nevertheless, “lawyer-y” behavior hasn’t prevented a similar mutual-agreement-based system from flourishing, at least in the USA.
The biggest difference is that arbitrators are applying a similarly mutually-agreed-upon law, where rationalists mediating a non-rationalist dispute would be applying expertise outside the purview of the parties involved. That’s where your point about advocacy-like behavior becomes important.
Technically, you cannot rationally argue for anything.
I suppose you could use master rationalist skillz to answer the question “What will persuade person X?” but this relies on person X being persuadable by the best arguer rather than the best facts, which is not itself a characteristic of master rationalists.
The more the evidence itself leans, the more likely it is that a reasonably rational arbiter and a reasonably skillful evidence-collecter-and-presenter working on the side of truth, cannot be defeated by a much more skillful and highly-paid arguer on the side of falsity.
A master rationalist can still be persuaded by a good arguer because most arguments aren’t about facts. Once everyone agrees about facts, you can still argue about goals and policy—what people should do, what the law should make them do, how a sandwich ought to taste to be called a sandwich, what’s a good looking dress to wear tonight.
If everyone agreed about facts and goals, there wouldn’t be much of an argument left. Most human arguments have no objective right party because they disagree about goals, about what should be or what is right.
One obvious reply would be to hire rationalists only to adjudicate that which has been phrased as a question of simple fact.
To the extent that you do think that people who’ve learned to be good epistemic critics have an advantage in listening to values arguments as well, then go ahead and hire rationalists to adjudicate that as well. (Who does the hiring, though?) Is the idea that rationalists have an advantage here, enough that people would still hire them, but the advantage is much weaker and hence they can be swayed by highly paid arguers?
If the two parties can agree on the phrasing of the question, then I think it would be better to hire experts in the domain of the disputed facts, with only minimal training in rationality required. (Really, such training should be required to work in any fact-based discipline anyway.)
If there’s a tradition of such adjudication—and if there’s a good supply of rationalists—then people will hire them as long as they can agree in advance on submitting to arbitrage. Now, I didn’t suggest this; my argument is that if this system somehow came to exist, it would soon collapse (or at least stop serving its original purpose) due to lawyer-y behavior.
You know, this actually makes (entirely unintended) sense. If the rationalists are obliged to express their evaluations in the form of carefully designed and discrete bets then they are vulnerable to exploitation by others extracting arbitrage.
Presumably, “arbitration”—and that’s a good point, and with clear precedents in the physical world. Nevertheless, “lawyer-y” behavior hasn’t prevented a similar mutual-agreement-based system from flourishing, at least in the USA.
The biggest difference is that arbitrators are applying a similarly mutually-agreed-upon law, where rationalists mediating a non-rationalist dispute would be applying expertise outside the purview of the parties involved. That’s where your point about advocacy-like behavior becomes important.