Basically I stand by this post and I think it makes a useful addition to the conversation.
“Motte and bailey” is one of the pieces of rationalist lexicon that has wound up fairly widespread. It’s also easy to misuse, because “America” or “Catholics” or “The military industrial complex” are made up of lots of different people who might legitimately different views. The countercharm is recognizing that, and talking to specific people. “Here’s a way to be wrong, here’s a way to be less wrong” seems a worthwhile addition to LessWrong.
Does it make accurate claims, and is there a subclaim I can test? Not easily. There aren’t going to be molecules of bailey or atoms of motte I can get under a microscope, and while I think if I took half an hour on twitter/x I’d be able to find a bunch of examples of people making the Mob and Bailey mistake they’d be fuzzy or arguable examples. Consider the original Motte and Bailey: lots of people seem to find it useful, but I’m not sure I’d get more than 70% agreement on any particular example in the wild.
For followup work, I’d like ideas for how to convince large organizations to change directions. My current best idea is to identify who makes the decisions and to change their minds, and this is pretty well represented by business or sales guides for identifying decisionmakers. There’s also something I’d like more answers in how, as an individual level, to stay on target and not get distracted into arguing with a crowd while simultaneously not making the crowd extra mad at you for ignoring them.
If I could vote on it, I’d give this a small vote for inclusion in the Best Of LessWrong collection.
(Self review)
Basically I stand by this post and I think it makes a useful addition to the conversation.
“Motte and bailey” is one of the pieces of rationalist lexicon that has wound up fairly widespread. It’s also easy to misuse, because “America” or “Catholics” or “The military industrial complex” are made up of lots of different people who might legitimately different views. The countercharm is recognizing that, and talking to specific people. “Here’s a way to be wrong, here’s a way to be less wrong” seems a worthwhile addition to LessWrong.
Does it make accurate claims, and is there a subclaim I can test? Not easily. There aren’t going to be molecules of bailey or atoms of motte I can get under a microscope, and while I think if I took half an hour on twitter/x I’d be able to find a bunch of examples of people making the Mob and Bailey mistake they’d be fuzzy or arguable examples. Consider the original Motte and Bailey: lots of people seem to find it useful, but I’m not sure I’d get more than 70% agreement on any particular example in the wild.
For followup work, I’d like ideas for how to convince large organizations to change directions. My current best idea is to identify who makes the decisions and to change their minds, and this is pretty well represented by business or sales guides for identifying decisionmakers. There’s also something I’d like more answers in how, as an individual level, to stay on target and not get distracted into arguing with a crowd while simultaneously not making the crowd extra mad at you for ignoring them.
If I could vote on it, I’d give this a small vote for inclusion in the Best Of LessWrong collection.