There is this particular tactic I have seen from LessWrongers and nowhere else.
It looks like a cousin of “sealioning”, certainly not unique to LessWrong. If you squint a bit, you might see Socrates as having pioneered it (see Killing Socrates).
The tactic consists of two prongs, both of which I have seen used in isolation in other places than LessWrong. I have not however seen both together with this switching tactic elsewhere. Non-rationalists may also dismiss arguments addressing the big picture by calling them baseless assertions or manipulative or conspiracy theories or whatever, but they will not be in the habit of prompting people to revisit underlying assumptions, and if the proponent does this of his own initiative, they might accuse him of spin and of making elaborate excuses to hold on to an obviously untenable view.
They will not however follow the discussion to these prior assumptions and engage with these, tracing it all the way back to the epistemology of classification, or by some other manner of obfuscation induce the proponent to write several pages of explanation, and only then turn around and accuse him of making things needlessly complicated. That, as far as I can tell, really does seem to be a tactic unique to the LessWrong crowd.
Edited to add:
For clarification, I don’t think it’s solely a matter of degree. The difference is that the LessWrongian approach has an intermediate step of encouraging the added complexity, instead of immediately making accusations of obfuscation. In the non-LW version, the approach is to accuse the overall argument of being baseless or manipulative, and then when more substantiation is added, to accuse the proponent of making excuses. The LessWrongian approach would at this state debate with these, accusing the additional substantiation of being insufficient or baseless or of simply not being argumentation at all, then keep this going for a while, and only after quite a long time turn around and accuse the proponent of obfuscation. That intermediate step is the crucial bit, because it obscures what is going on by causing people to lose track of the conversation, and it creates so many circumlocutions that the charge of obfuscation will seem credible to people who haven’t noticed the tactic that was employed.
It looks like a cousin of “sealioning”, certainly not unique to LessWrong. If you squint a bit, you might see Socrates as having pioneered it (see Killing Socrates).
The tactic consists of two prongs, both of which I have seen used in isolation in other places than LessWrong. I have not however seen both together with this switching tactic elsewhere. Non-rationalists may also dismiss arguments addressing the big picture by calling them baseless assertions or manipulative or conspiracy theories or whatever, but they will not be in the habit of prompting people to revisit underlying assumptions, and if the proponent does this of his own initiative, they might accuse him of spin and of making elaborate excuses to hold on to an obviously untenable view.
They will not however follow the discussion to these prior assumptions and engage with these, tracing it all the way back to the epistemology of classification, or by some other manner of obfuscation induce the proponent to write several pages of explanation, and only then turn around and accuse him of making things needlessly complicated. That, as far as I can tell, really does seem to be a tactic unique to the LessWrong crowd.
Edited to add:
For clarification, I don’t think it’s solely a matter of degree. The difference is that the LessWrongian approach has an intermediate step of encouraging the added complexity, instead of immediately making accusations of obfuscation. In the non-LW version, the approach is to accuse the overall argument of being baseless or manipulative, and then when more substantiation is added, to accuse the proponent of making excuses. The LessWrongian approach would at this state debate with these, accusing the additional substantiation of being insufficient or baseless or of simply not being argumentation at all, then keep this going for a while, and only after quite a long time turn around and accuse the proponent of obfuscation. That intermediate step is the crucial bit, because it obscures what is going on by causing people to lose track of the conversation, and it creates so many circumlocutions that the charge of obfuscation will seem credible to people who haven’t noticed the tactic that was employed.