It’s a fine post, but I don’t love this set of recommendations and justifications, and I feel like rationalist norms & advice should be held to a high standard, so I’m not upvoting it in the review. I’ll give some quick pointers to why I don’t love it.
Truth-Seeking: Seems too obvious to be useful advice. Also I disagree with the subpoint about never treating arguments like soldiers, I think two people inhabiting opposing debate-partners is sort of captured by this and I think this is a healthy truth-seeking process.
Non-Violence: All the examples of things you’re not supposed to do in response to an argument are things you’re not supposed to do anyway. Also it seems too much like it’s implying the only response to an argument is a counter-argument. Sometimes the correct response to bad argument is to fire someone or attempt to politically disempower them. As an example, Zvi Mowshowitz presents evidence and argument in Repeal the Jones Act of 1920 that there are a lot of terrible and disingenuous arguments being put forward by unions that are causing a total destruction of the US shipping industry. The generator here of arguments seems reliably non-truth-tracking, and I would approve of someone repealing the Jones act without persuading such folks or spending the time to refute each and every argument.
Non-Deception: I’ll quote the full description here:
“Never try to steer your conversation partners (or onlookers) toward having falser models. Where possible, avoid saying stuff that you expect to lower the net belief accuracy of the average reader; or failing that, at least flag that you’re worried about this happening.”
I think that the space of models one walks through is selected for both accuracy and usefulness. Not all models are equally useful. I might steer someone from a perfectly true but vacuous model, to a less perfect but more practical model, thereby net reducing the accuracy of a person’s statements and beliefs (most of the time). I prefer something more like a standard of “Intent to Inform”.
Various other ones are better, some are vague, many things are presented without justification and I suspect I might disagree if it was offered. I think Zack M. Davis’s critique of ‘goodwill’ is good.
It’s a fine post, but I don’t love this set of recommendations and justifications, and I feel like rationalist norms & advice should be held to a high standard, so I’m not upvoting it in the review. I’ll give some quick pointers to why I don’t love it.
Truth-Seeking: Seems too obvious to be useful advice. Also I disagree with the subpoint about never treating arguments like soldiers, I think two people inhabiting opposing debate-partners is sort of captured by this and I think this is a healthy truth-seeking process.
Non-Violence: All the examples of things you’re not supposed to do in response to an argument are things you’re not supposed to do anyway. Also it seems too much like it’s implying the only response to an argument is a counter-argument. Sometimes the correct response to bad argument is to fire someone or attempt to politically disempower them. As an example, Zvi Mowshowitz presents evidence and argument in Repeal the Jones Act of 1920 that there are a lot of terrible and disingenuous arguments being put forward by unions that are causing a total destruction of the US shipping industry. The generator here of arguments seems reliably non-truth-tracking, and I would approve of someone repealing the Jones act without persuading such folks or spending the time to refute each and every argument.
Non-Deception: I’ll quote the full description here:
“Never try to steer your conversation partners (or onlookers) toward having falser models. Where possible, avoid saying stuff that you expect to lower the net belief accuracy of the average reader; or failing that, at least flag that you’re worried about this happening.”
I think that the space of models one walks through is selected for both accuracy and usefulness. Not all models are equally useful. I might steer someone from a perfectly true but vacuous model, to a less perfect but more practical model, thereby net reducing the accuracy of a person’s statements and beliefs (most of the time). I prefer something more like a standard of “Intent to Inform”.
Various other ones are better, some are vague, many things are presented without justification and I suspect I might disagree if it was offered. I think Zack M. Davis’s critique of ‘goodwill’ is good.