It seems to me that flat contradiction without any communication of being open to being convinced is a strongly suboptimal invitation to update the speaker. This is especially so in cases of strongly asymmetric information (either direction).
‘Song and dance’ appears to me to be a dysphemism (perhaps unintentional) for ‘communicating what you mean’ as opposed to ‘indicating something in the general vein and hoping the receiver figures out what you meant’.
Edited to add: option A is much more reasonable than I credited it, so while I’ll stand by my first paragraph above, it’s not particularly relevant to the post above. And yes, option 3 could be streamlined.
without any communication of being open to being convinced
For me, you can take that I’m open to being convinced as the null hypothesis. Most civilized people are. Aren’t you?
dysphemism
Thank you! I’ve been looking for that word forever.
‘Song and dance’ appears to me to be a to be a dysphemism (perhaps unintentional) for ‘communicating what you mean’
Not really, because ‘communicating what you mean’ was not what I meant. I was referring to kabuki dance of your ritualized formula for disagreement to stroke a person’s ego so that he doesn’t feel a threat to his status by my disagreeing with him.
I don’t think the fellow is really confused about whether I’m open to being convinced of the error of my ways. If I say “I think you’re wrong because of X”, does not the human impulse to reciprocity sanction and invite him to respond in kind?
Does that fellow really need it explained to him that if I disagree with him on when the bus is coming, that he is free and invited to disagree with me right back? I don’t think so.
He: The bus is coming at 3:00. Me: No, it’s coming at 3:10; that’s when I caught it yesterday. He: But yesterday was Friday. Saturday has a different schedule.
That seems like an everyday, ordinary human conversation to me, that no one should get all excited or offended about.
I strongly suspect that tone and body language are a key component in whether the statement “that’s not right” is interpreted as “I disagree, let’s talk about it” or “shut up and think what I think”.
I further suspect that a tendency to interpret ambiguous or missing subtext in a negative or overly critical way correlates strongly with being “thin-skinned”. This is partly based on having both of these characteristics myself. A potential counter-argument here is that it is not “rational” or useful to always assume the worst in personal interactions if you have evidence to follow instead (Have people generally meant the worst things possible when I have been unsure in the past?), but the important thing to remember here is that we are not dealing with people who have had time to be trained in that way. A martial arts master does not go all out against a beginner knowing that they will one day be able to handle it.
It would be unwise to alienate a group of potential rationalists if there is a relatively simple way to avoid it. If it would cripple the discourse or otherwise be quite detrimental to implement any sort of fix, then I would not advocate that course of action. However, I believe that to not be the case.
At this time, I would like to agree with RichardKennaway’s observation that Plasmon’s option A was quite different from the situation posited by Submitter B, and further agree with his hypothesis that even option A is some sort of improvement (largely due to the word “may”).
My conclusion is that a few changes of word choices would be a low-cost, medium-reward first step in the right direction. This would include using words such as “may”, particularly in the context of someone’s perceived domain of expertise or cherished belief. Also, explicitly starting an evidence based conversation while voicing your disagreement.
Example: I disagree with your statement that “Most civilized people are [open to being convinced]”. As (anecdotal) evidence, I submit the large number of Americans who are closemindedly religious.
For me, you can take that I’m open to being convinced as the null hypothesis. Most civilized people are.
If one considers sufficiently impersonal topics like bus schedules? Yes, for the most part.
Microcultures with strong elements of authority will have a much harder time with this assumption, even in horizontal interactions. I would not call all of these uncivilized, though I’m not a fan of them.
It’s not complicated to frame a conversation as a search for truth as opposed to a vs. argument. Many people go overboard in this. I agree that this is obnoxious. I maintain that a flat contradiction is in many cases insufficient, especially in those cases where the matter at hand is contentious or personal, or there is any degree of hostility or unease between the conversants.
Option A wasn’t a flat contradiction only. In fact, the original person wrote it up in a more pussy footing way than I would.
Flat contradiction would be “you’re wrong”. I agree that’s not an invitation to further discussion.
My usual comment would be of the form:
“That’s wrong. Blah di blah isn’t blah di blee, it’s hooty hooty.”
It’s “you’re wrong” plus some evidence on which I based my disagreement. Would that be unclear to you personally, that you’re welcome to disagree and cite evidence for your disagreement in turn?
Maybe we could try an example so that we’re talking about something concrete. I just don’t think it’s a mystery. I think that a great many people get very touchy when it comes to being disagreed with. I’m of another species that likes to be disagreed with, because then we have a contradiction to resolve, and that’s fun and potentially productive.
I’m sorry: for reasons I do not understand, I misunderstood what you were referring to with ‘option A’. Your response made perfect sense and mine did not.
That didn’t seem like an accurate characterization of option A to me, so I gave a concrete example:
Flat contradiction would be “you’re wrong”.
and a concrete example of the option A alternative:
“That’s wrong. Blah di blah isn’t blah di blee, it’s hooty hooty.”
It would have been better to be more concrete.
Was that the issue?
I feel that in these more personal discussions abstract terms gets used, and each side is picturing a very different part of the spectrum for their concretes.
I think it was that I kind of short-circuited ‘option 1’ into meaning ‘the first option mentioned’, and from there ‘what the guy said in the first place’. This is not what you were referring to by ‘option 1’, and even though it’s an understandable error, I still should have been able to pick up on it from the context of the parent and grandparent comment to yours.
It seems to me that flat contradiction without any communication of being open to being convinced is a strongly suboptimal invitation to update the speaker. This is especially so in cases of strongly asymmetric information (either direction).
‘Song and dance’ appears to me to be a dysphemism (perhaps unintentional) for ‘communicating what you mean’ as opposed to ‘indicating something in the general vein and hoping the receiver figures out what you meant’.
Edited to add: option A is much more reasonable than I credited it, so while I’ll stand by my first paragraph above, it’s not particularly relevant to the post above. And yes, option 3 could be streamlined.
It works just fine with a lot of people.
For me, you can take that I’m open to being convinced as the null hypothesis. Most civilized people are. Aren’t you?
Thank you! I’ve been looking for that word forever.
Not really, because ‘communicating what you mean’ was not what I meant. I was referring to kabuki dance of your ritualized formula for disagreement to stroke a person’s ego so that he doesn’t feel a threat to his status by my disagreeing with him.
I don’t think the fellow is really confused about whether I’m open to being convinced of the error of my ways. If I say “I think you’re wrong because of X”, does not the human impulse to reciprocity sanction and invite him to respond in kind?
Does that fellow really need it explained to him that if I disagree with him on when the bus is coming, that he is free and invited to disagree with me right back? I don’t think so.
He: The bus is coming at 3:00.
Me: No, it’s coming at 3:10; that’s when I caught it yesterday.
He: But yesterday was Friday. Saturday has a different schedule.
That seems like an everyday, ordinary human conversation to me, that no one should get all excited or offended about.
I strongly suspect that tone and body language are a key component in whether the statement “that’s not right” is interpreted as “I disagree, let’s talk about it” or “shut up and think what I think”.
I further suspect that a tendency to interpret ambiguous or missing subtext in a negative or overly critical way correlates strongly with being “thin-skinned”. This is partly based on having both of these characteristics myself. A potential counter-argument here is that it is not “rational” or useful to always assume the worst in personal interactions if you have evidence to follow instead (Have people generally meant the worst things possible when I have been unsure in the past?), but the important thing to remember here is that we are not dealing with people who have had time to be trained in that way. A martial arts master does not go all out against a beginner knowing that they will one day be able to handle it.
It would be unwise to alienate a group of potential rationalists if there is a relatively simple way to avoid it. If it would cripple the discourse or otherwise be quite detrimental to implement any sort of fix, then I would not advocate that course of action. However, I believe that to not be the case.
At this time, I would like to agree with RichardKennaway’s observation that Plasmon’s option A was quite different from the situation posited by Submitter B, and further agree with his hypothesis that even option A is some sort of improvement (largely due to the word “may”).
My conclusion is that a few changes of word choices would be a low-cost, medium-reward first step in the right direction. This would include using words such as “may”, particularly in the context of someone’s perceived domain of expertise or cherished belief. Also, explicitly starting an evidence based conversation while voicing your disagreement.
Example: I disagree with your statement that “Most civilized people are [open to being convinced]”. As (anecdotal) evidence, I submit the large number of Americans who are closemindedly religious.
If one considers sufficiently impersonal topics like bus schedules? Yes, for the most part.
Microcultures with strong elements of authority will have a much harder time with this assumption, even in horizontal interactions. I would not call all of these uncivilized, though I’m not a fan of them.
It’s not complicated to frame a conversation as a search for truth as opposed to a vs. argument. Many people go overboard in this. I agree that this is obnoxious. I maintain that a flat contradiction is in many cases insufficient, especially in those cases where the matter at hand is contentious or personal, or there is any degree of hostility or unease between the conversants.
Option A wasn’t a flat contradiction only. In fact, the original person wrote it up in a more pussy footing way than I would.
Flat contradiction would be “you’re wrong”. I agree that’s not an invitation to further discussion.
My usual comment would be of the form: “That’s wrong. Blah di blah isn’t blah di blee, it’s hooty hooty.”
It’s “you’re wrong” plus some evidence on which I based my disagreement. Would that be unclear to you personally, that you’re welcome to disagree and cite evidence for your disagreement in turn?
Maybe we could try an example so that we’re talking about something concrete. I just don’t think it’s a mystery. I think that a great many people get very touchy when it comes to being disagreed with. I’m of another species that likes to be disagreed with, because then we have a contradiction to resolve, and that’s fun and potentially productive.
I’m sorry: for reasons I do not understand, I misunderstood what you were referring to with ‘option A’. Your response made perfect sense and mine did not.
You thought I meant “flat contradiction”?
That didn’t seem like an accurate characterization of option A to me, so I gave a concrete example:
and a concrete example of the option A alternative:
It would have been better to be more concrete.
Was that the issue?
I feel that in these more personal discussions abstract terms gets used, and each side is picturing a very different part of the spectrum for their concretes.
I think it was that I kind of short-circuited ‘option 1’ into meaning ‘the first option mentioned’, and from there ‘what the guy said in the first place’. This is not what you were referring to by ‘option 1’, and even though it’s an understandable error, I still should have been able to pick up on it from the context of the parent and grandparent comment to yours.