“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”
- Ender Wiggin (from Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card)
Maybe the following is obvious, but it wasn’t initially obvious to me so I’m sharing it anyway.
The term Ideological Turing Test (ITT) was coined by Bryan Caplan and refers to whether someone can articulate and argue the views of an opposing ideology or belief system so convincingly that others cannot tell the difference between the person’s articulation and that of a true believer.
Let’s use the term Complete and Honest Ideological Turing Test (CHITT) to refer to an ITT where not only can you “fool” observers, but also:
You can do so without resorting to any rhetorical tricks such as leaving out relevant information;
You can do so without making the other side look irrational;
You can do this even for very long debates with expert observers who grill you closely;
You can do this in response to any evidence or argument or counterargument that you yourself might use to argue for your true position.
Claim: It’s impossible to pass a CHITT unless you actually agree that from some perspective the other side is rational. Furthermore, you must not have any knockdown arguments for why that other perspective is incorrect. That doesn’t mean you need to *agree* with the other perspective, just that you don’t have a knockdown argument against it.
Reasoning: By the specified criteria, you need to think that no matter what arguments you yourself would throw against the other side, you would not make the other side look irrational even to expert observers. You can of course still have some set of priors that lead you to your true position, while the other side has different priors that lead to their position. But why do you go with your priors and not theirs? If you have a knockdown argument for why your priors are correct, then that’s part of the arguments you could throw at the other side, and we’re back to where we were before. So it must be that you don’t have any knockdown arguments for why you should go with your priors over theirs.
On passing Complete and Honest Ideological Turing Tests (CHITTs)
[Cross-posted from Facebook]
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”
- Ender Wiggin (from Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card)
Maybe the following is obvious, but it wasn’t initially obvious to me so I’m sharing it anyway.
The term Ideological Turing Test (ITT) was coined by Bryan Caplan and refers to whether someone can articulate and argue the views of an opposing ideology or belief system so convincingly that others cannot tell the difference between the person’s articulation and that of a true believer.
Let’s use the term Complete and Honest Ideological Turing Test (CHITT) to refer to an ITT where not only can you “fool” observers, but also:
You can do so without resorting to any rhetorical tricks such as leaving out relevant information;
You can do so without making the other side look irrational;
You can do this even for very long debates with expert observers who grill you closely;
You can do this in response to any evidence or argument or counterargument that you yourself might use to argue for your true position.
Claim: It’s impossible to pass a CHITT unless you actually agree that from some perspective the other side is rational. Furthermore, you must not have any knockdown arguments for why that other perspective is incorrect. That doesn’t mean you need to *agree* with the other perspective, just that you don’t have a knockdown argument against it.
Reasoning: By the specified criteria, you need to think that no matter what arguments you yourself would throw against the other side, you would not make the other side look irrational even to expert observers. You can of course still have some set of priors that lead you to your true position, while the other side has different priors that lead to their position. But why do you go with your priors and not theirs? If you have a knockdown argument for why your priors are correct, then that’s part of the arguments you could throw at the other side, and we’re back to where we were before. So it must be that you don’t have any knockdown arguments for why you should go with your priors over theirs.