I use this technique all the time, and I highly recommend it.
One nit: I think you have to be careful that your wording doesn’t undermine your strategy. For example: “It’s awesome that you care enough about helping people to give up your own money for strangers. I just think that checking out GiveWell would help you help people even more.” I think the word ‘just’ is often a red flag, and it has that appearance to me here. This reads to me like “I am pushing my agenda on you, but inserting a compliment first to try to defuse it a bit.” I think this is a big improvement over just being straight-up hostile, but I also think it’s more effective if you’re less blatant about it.
So instead of something that reads like “I’m on your side, but have you considered...”, aim for more like “I’m on your side, and here’s something that’s on your side too!” (This is closely related to the standard advice to use “and” instead of “but”.) For example, “It’s awesome that you care enough about helping people to give up your own money for strangers. I do my own charitable contributions through a company called GiveWell—are you familiar with it?”
Of course this presupposes you’re not already in the middle of an argument in which they’ve already dissed GiveWell, thus demonstrating their familiarity with it. In that case I think the correct response really depends intimately on what their objection is. I don’t think there’s any case where the best thing to say is “Applause lights for your thing, but have you considered my thing?” In general I have found that the only way to take full advantage of the “I’m on your side” strategy without getting caught out, is to have truly internalized their side, and be enough inside their head that you already understand their objections, and either agree, or else realize that you have additional relevant perspective on why you don’t have those objections yourself.
In the social justice space, I think the notion of ‘concern trolling’ exists as an immune response to something much like the pattern you’re recommending—“I am on your side but X” is a ‘concern troll’ if your counterparty’s perception is that you’re not in fact genuinely on their side, but just saying that to try to get people to lower their defenses and consider X. To avoid this reaction you need to really be convincingly on their side, not just saying so.
I think your defusal-of-fury examples read much more like something I would wholeheartedly endorse the use of.
I use this technique all the time, and I highly recommend it.
One nit: I think you have to be careful that your wording doesn’t undermine your strategy. For example: “It’s awesome that you care enough about helping people to give up your own money for strangers. I just think that checking out GiveWell would help you help people even more.” I think the word ‘just’ is often a red flag, and it has that appearance to me here. This reads to me like “I am pushing my agenda on you, but inserting a compliment first to try to defuse it a bit.” I think this is a big improvement over just being straight-up hostile, but I also think it’s more effective if you’re less blatant about it.
So instead of something that reads like “I’m on your side, but have you considered...”, aim for more like “I’m on your side, and here’s something that’s on your side too!” (This is closely related to the standard advice to use “and” instead of “but”.) For example, “It’s awesome that you care enough about helping people to give up your own money for strangers. I do my own charitable contributions through a company called GiveWell—are you familiar with it?”
Of course this presupposes you’re not already in the middle of an argument in which they’ve already dissed GiveWell, thus demonstrating their familiarity with it. In that case I think the correct response really depends intimately on what their objection is. I don’t think there’s any case where the best thing to say is “Applause lights for your thing, but have you considered my thing?” In general I have found that the only way to take full advantage of the “I’m on your side” strategy without getting caught out, is to have truly internalized their side, and be enough inside their head that you already understand their objections, and either agree, or else realize that you have additional relevant perspective on why you don’t have those objections yourself.
In the social justice space, I think the notion of ‘concern trolling’ exists as an immune response to something much like the pattern you’re recommending—“I am on your side but X” is a ‘concern troll’ if your counterparty’s perception is that you’re not in fact genuinely on their side, but just saying that to try to get people to lower their defenses and consider X. To avoid this reaction you need to really be convincingly on their side, not just saying so.
I think your defusal-of-fury examples read much more like something I would wholeheartedly endorse the use of.