If I said [to him] “You’re wrong; x is true”, then—even if he listened to me—he wouldn’t have thought through it. He’d just be copying my ideas. Which isn’t what I want. I don’t want people to copy my beliefs. I want people to think sensibly.
For a long time, when I’m walking people through this, they won’t even know what my beliefs are. Usually they’ll think I agree with them. But if they think about it hard, they’ll realize that they have no idea what I believe, because I have to clean up their idea to reason before that is even relevant.
I watched the rest of that video (the person was telling their story of asking pointed questions to a “socialist” about their policy of funding college education). I think the problem with this is that while this might marginally move a person closer to actually thinking, it is unclear to me to which degree this is a symmetric weapon.
Asking the “right” open ended questions seems pretty powerful in leading someone astray.
Asking the “right” open ended questions seems pretty powerful in leading someone astray.
It is somewhat more difficult than leading them the right way. Also, you may start the habit of thinking, which may continue after you stop asking the questions, so it no longer goes in a direction you control.
But yes, it is a question of degree. You can mislead people by:
bringing their attention to some things (privileging a hypothesis), and simultaneously taking it away from other things (because attention is a limited resource);
leveraging their existing incorrect beliefs to make them conclude wrong things even from correct data (rather than examine those beliefs);
and of course, it is never just asking questions, but also subtly making assumptions, etc.
I watched the rest of that video (the person was telling their story of asking pointed questions to a “socialist” about their policy of funding college education). I think the problem with this is that while this might marginally move a person closer to actually thinking, it is unclear to me to which degree this is a symmetric weapon.
Asking the “right” open ended questions seems pretty powerful in leading someone astray.
It is somewhat more difficult than leading them the right way. Also, you may start the habit of thinking, which may continue after you stop asking the questions, so it no longer goes in a direction you control.
But yes, it is a question of degree. You can mislead people by:
bringing their attention to some things (privileging a hypothesis), and simultaneously taking it away from other things (because attention is a limited resource);
leveraging their existing incorrect beliefs to make them conclude wrong things even from correct data (rather than examine those beliefs);
and of course, it is never just asking questions, but also subtly making assumptions, etc.