I’ve changed my mind on a few big things recently, or at least clarified my doubts. Somewhere along the way, I noticed that the correct side (as I judge) on controversial issues tends to use evidence and careful logical argument, and the incorrect side tends to use indignation, invocation of taboos, straw-manning, and scoffing.
I find logical arguments more convincing than social authority, so a lot of the fact that the “correct” arguments use logos (logical argument) instead of ethos (social argument) could be selection. This explains the above, but fails to explain the extreme polarization on some issues where one side uses mostly logos and the other uses mostly ethos.
So if logos has a reliable correlation with the truth (either because logos-tending people more reliably produce truth, or because only truth can be armed with logos), that has some interesting implications. For one, you can get a quick estimate of correct side in a controversy just by surface-level syntactical analysis.
That idea has disagreed with previous beliefs in interesting ways that have not yet been resolved:
I ran into some holocaust deniers, who tended to cite “facts” (that may or may not have been true or representative) and attempt to make arguments, while the defense couldn’t say anything better than “I can’t understand how people can deny the holocaust” and “that’s just not OK”. This is probably because a random holocaust denier is intelligent and well-researched (holocaust denial is their hobby), while an average “defense attorney” on this one is the average person (who is nearly illiterate). On this one, I’d still bet on the conventional account, but the level of repression that holocaust denial gets, and the use of logos vs ethos makes me want to examine this one a bit more closely. (Also, the holocaust deniers mix in all sorts of global jewish conspiracy shit that would be stupid to bring up even if it were true.)
I’ve noticed that feminism tends to be argued with ethos (“that’s totally not OK, etc”). On this one, I think pathos is more appropriate (“here’s how that makes me feel”). I was going to say that the median antifeminist argument was just a bunch of idiotic misogyny, but then I duckduckgo’d for “feminism FAQ”, and got this, which I have a negative reaction to, but uses logos. I can’t in 30 seconds find a better representative of feminism than jezebel, which I find idiotic at times.
The case of feminism is interesting because it’s the only one where ethos is being used by the prosecution.
I’m getting bored of writing this, but...
So I’ll either be slipping even further into the dark side, or I’ll revise some of my latest updates. If the latter, it will be because the prosecution tends to be the small outside group, which tends to be intelligent and well-researched, which I find too convincing.
So, does anyone else have thoughts on this logos/ethos x truth/lies corellation?
How people form their opinions matters. The bottom-line-writing process, after all, is not “how do you defend your conclusions?” but “how did you form your conclusions?
In other words, not “what do we hear from X’s towards non-X’s in arguments?” but “on what basis do people acquire X views in the first place?” (We do not live in a world where these are equivalent. If they were, then all rationalists would automatically become perfectly persuasive speakers — which is not the case.)
When I think of a person becoming a feminist, I think of a person who had a lot of previous personal experiences with gender relations, different treatment of men and women, etc.; who is then exposed to feminist ideas, and finds that these ideas offer ways to describe or explain experiences they could not relate (or explain the importance or value of) in non-feminist ways of talking about (e.g.) upbringing, relationships, workplaces, etc.
When I think of a person becoming a Holocaust denier … well … I don’t really have much of a model of that, since I’ve never observed the process — but I don’t get the sense that it has a lot to do with previous personal experiences. Rather, it might have to do with them having read some Holocaust anecdotes and history (in school) for which they are now accepting the explanation “these anecdotes were written by a fraudulent conspiracy” rather than “these anecdotes are pretty much accurate”. I’m not sure what the motivation is, though, if it isn’t either ① politics, or ② the usual “I know a secret” found in a lot of conspiracy theory.
I can’t in 30 seconds find a better representative of feminism than jezebel
Damn. Yvain nails it again. His model of the situation is spot-on, but I’m scratching my head about something:
He argues that signaling, etc cause the socially-dominant position to atrophy and drift to maximum absurdity, but then he simultaneously claims that the socially dominant position is reliably correct. Maybe it’s just my prior from having recently had my faith in the Cathedral shaken, but this seems like one more good argument why the socially dominant position is bullshit.
Curiosity is a wonderful feeling! I actually don’t know which way this will go, and it feels great. I’m getting a lot of practice at changing my mind and getting very epistemically self-skeptical. Fuck I love being a rationalist...
On to part two… (EDIT, your link has a stray trailing underscore that causes 404)
I’ve changed my mind on a few big things recently, or at least clarified my doubts. Somewhere along the way, I noticed that the correct side (as I judge) on controversial issues tends to use evidence and careful logical argument, and the incorrect side tends to use indignation, invocation of taboos, straw-manning, and scoffing.
I find logical arguments more convincing than social authority, so a lot of the fact that the “correct” arguments use logos (logical argument) instead of ethos (social argument) could be selection. This explains the above, but fails to explain the extreme polarization on some issues where one side uses mostly logos and the other uses mostly ethos.
So if logos has a reliable correlation with the truth (either because logos-tending people more reliably produce truth, or because only truth can be armed with logos), that has some interesting implications. For one, you can get a quick estimate of correct side in a controversy just by surface-level syntactical analysis.
That idea has disagreed with previous beliefs in interesting ways that have not yet been resolved:
I ran into some holocaust deniers, who tended to cite “facts” (that may or may not have been true or representative) and attempt to make arguments, while the defense couldn’t say anything better than “I can’t understand how people can deny the holocaust” and “that’s just not OK”. This is probably because a random holocaust denier is intelligent and well-researched (holocaust denial is their hobby), while an average “defense attorney” on this one is the average person (who is nearly illiterate). On this one, I’d still bet on the conventional account, but the level of repression that holocaust denial gets, and the use of logos vs ethos makes me want to examine this one a bit more closely. (Also, the holocaust deniers mix in all sorts of global jewish conspiracy shit that would be stupid to bring up even if it were true.)
I’ve noticed that feminism tends to be argued with ethos (“that’s totally not OK, etc”). On this one, I think pathos is more appropriate (“here’s how that makes me feel”). I was going to say that the median antifeminist argument was just a bunch of idiotic misogyny, but then I duckduckgo’d for “feminism FAQ”, and got this, which I have a negative reaction to, but uses logos. I can’t in 30 seconds find a better representative of feminism than jezebel, which I find idiotic at times.
The case of feminism is interesting because it’s the only one where ethos is being used by the prosecution.
I’m getting bored of writing this, but...
So I’ll either be slipping even further into the dark side, or I’ll revise some of my latest updates. If the latter, it will be because the prosecution tends to be the small outside group, which tends to be intelligent and well-researched, which I find too convincing.
So, does anyone else have thoughts on this logos/ethos x truth/lies corellation?
How people form their opinions matters. The bottom-line-writing process, after all, is not “how do you defend your conclusions?” but “how did you form your conclusions?
In other words, not “what do we hear from X’s towards non-X’s in arguments?” but “on what basis do people acquire X views in the first place?” (We do not live in a world where these are equivalent. If they were, then all rationalists would automatically become perfectly persuasive speakers — which is not the case.)
When I think of a person becoming a feminist, I think of a person who had a lot of previous personal experiences with gender relations, different treatment of men and women, etc.; who is then exposed to feminist ideas, and finds that these ideas offer ways to describe or explain experiences they could not relate (or explain the importance or value of) in non-feminist ways of talking about (e.g.) upbringing, relationships, workplaces, etc.
When I think of a person becoming a Holocaust denier … well … I don’t really have much of a model of that, since I’ve never observed the process — but I don’t get the sense that it has a lot to do with previous personal experiences. Rather, it might have to do with them having read some Holocaust anecdotes and history (in school) for which they are now accepting the explanation “these anecdotes were written by a fraudulent conspiracy” rather than “these anecdotes are pretty much accurate”. I’m not sure what the motivation is, though, if it isn’t either ① politics, or ② the usual “I know a secret” found in a lot of conspiracy theory.
There’s a list of introductory feminism sources in the Feminism 101 article at Geek Feminism Wiki.
Not quite the same thing, but the post as a whole made me thing of Yvian’s Why I Defend Scoundrels part 1 part 2. Edit-Fixed link.
Damn. Yvain nails it again. His model of the situation is spot-on, but I’m scratching my head about something:
He argues that signaling, etc cause the socially-dominant position to atrophy and drift to maximum absurdity, but then he simultaneously claims that the socially dominant position is reliably correct. Maybe it’s just my prior from having recently had my faith in the Cathedral shaken, but this seems like one more good argument why the socially dominant position is bullshit.
Curiosity is a wonderful feeling! I actually don’t know which way this will go, and it feels great. I’m getting a lot of practice at changing my mind and getting very epistemically self-skeptical. Fuck I love being a rationalist...
On to part two… (EDIT, your link has a stray trailing underscore that causes 404)