Like it, although it works under the assumption that your fellow debator is a truth seeker. While its nice to hope that this is the case, anecdotal personal evidence would suggest not- many people I have argued with are out to win, not to learn, and to be honest I myself have slipped into such habits. If you still want to argue with such people, because you believe that you might be able to change their minds, or they might have information which could change yours, its possible that the techniques espoused here will be less effective.
It works even when they’re out to win. For added points, it even works when they’re subtly trolling, if you construct your reply sufficiently robustly. The lurkers will even support you in email. Because it is, concisely, a way of truth-seeking and getting along well with your debate partner at the same time.
I speak from recent experience of stuff I learned on LessWrong obtaining the desired effects in an Internet argument recently. Basically, posting here teaches me to write more clearly and concisely and teaches me lots about how to think about thinking.
(LessWrong: the philosophy blog that teaches you how to win at arguing on the Internet!)
(LessWrong: the philosophy blog that teaches you how to win at arguing on the Internet!)
This raises a tiny worry in me. It is possible that we’ve just discovered a set of really effective dark arts, and the dark arts are just so effective that people who believe they aren’t dark arts can use them to convince other people that they are actually good things to do.
No, this is using entirely honest and informative methods that don’t get people’s backs up more than one already intended to. It is a way to achieve a win-win outcome. A good Internet discussion should leave everyone feeling better in some way—it’s not zero sum. Your concern is a reasonable thing to watch out for, however.
The dark arts, as I understand the phrase, are techniques which can be used to persuade people about a position even if the position is false. Therefore logic isn’t a dark art, because it’s pretty hard to persuade someone about a falsity using logic. Ad hominem is a dark art, because it signals that the opponent has low status and people are biased to align their opinions with high-status peers, irrespectively of truth or falsity of the said opinions. Charitable debating style alleviates the status motivations and I don’t see what other biases it can exploit to promote a falsity.
But since we should rely on empirical evidence, let’s test it. The idea of the test is to select a false proposition (not trivially false, as (“2+2=17”), but also not subtly false (“there are ontologically fundamental qualia”) or too technical (“there is an error in the Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s last theorem”) and try to convince people about it on two comparable forums. On the first, use the techniques suspected of darkness, on the second, refrain from using them. Compare the numbers of convinced opponents.
Well, no. In an argument, the truth is a strong strategy—it’s not a bad reflection on truth or winning that sneaky methods can also win. That is, winning doesn’t imply dark artsiness.
Like it, although it works under the assumption that your fellow debator is a truth seeker. While its nice to hope that this is the case, anecdotal personal evidence would suggest not- many people I have argued with are out to win, not to learn, and to be honest I myself have slipped into such habits. If you still want to argue with such people, because you believe that you might be able to change their minds, or they might have information which could change yours, its possible that the techniques espoused here will be less effective.
It works even when they’re out to win. For added points, it even works when they’re subtly trolling, if you construct your reply sufficiently robustly. The lurkers will even support you in email. Because it is, concisely, a way of truth-seeking and getting along well with your debate partner at the same time.
I speak from recent experience of stuff I learned on LessWrong obtaining the desired effects in an Internet argument recently. Basically, posting here teaches me to write more clearly and concisely and teaches me lots about how to think about thinking.
(LessWrong: the philosophy blog that teaches you how to win at arguing on the Internet!)
This raises a tiny worry in me. It is possible that we’ve just discovered a set of really effective dark arts, and the dark arts are just so effective that people who believe they aren’t dark arts can use them to convince other people that they are actually good things to do.
No, this is using entirely honest and informative methods that don’t get people’s backs up more than one already intended to. It is a way to achieve a win-win outcome. A good Internet discussion should leave everyone feeling better in some way—it’s not zero sum. Your concern is a reasonable thing to watch out for, however.
The dark arts, as I understand the phrase, are techniques which can be used to persuade people about a position even if the position is false. Therefore logic isn’t a dark art, because it’s pretty hard to persuade someone about a falsity using logic. Ad hominem is a dark art, because it signals that the opponent has low status and people are biased to align their opinions with high-status peers, irrespectively of truth or falsity of the said opinions. Charitable debating style alleviates the status motivations and I don’t see what other biases it can exploit to promote a falsity.
But since we should rely on empirical evidence, let’s test it. The idea of the test is to select a false proposition (not trivially false, as (“2+2=17”), but also not subtly false (“there are ontologically fundamental qualia”) or too technical (“there is an error in the Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s last theorem”) and try to convince people about it on two comparable forums. On the first, use the techniques suspected of darkness, on the second, refrain from using them. Compare the numbers of convinced opponents.
Well, no. In an argument, the truth is a strong strategy—it’s not a bad reflection on truth or winning that sneaky methods can also win. That is, winning doesn’t imply dark artsiness.
Yes, although I would mention that this is the case more commonly than you might suppose.
Edit: That the other party is a truth seeker, I intended to say.