Yes, I agree that this can be a big problem. Right now, I expect to have made a change, but I can also imagine having made no change. I think there are actually observable properties that you can look at and use to predict how effective any non-trivial attempt to change someone’s behavior with rational argument is going to be. Framing matters of course: if they aren’t an intellectual, then you can’t relate to them like one. But for example, high g and high metacognitive ability are indicators in my experience, and my friend has both, even if it’s not on the level of many LWers, for example.
But an important thing to note is that I’ve sort of reinterpreted events to avoid flak from the commentariat. We’re both blue-collar workers, so my everyday conversations don’t look entirely like this; in fact, there’s a lot more aggression involved. So, because my friend prides himself on his intelligence, and knows a little bit about rationality, and believes in the virtue of Hard Work, and I’m the only person in my social circle with a reputation for the ability to consistently generate deep responses and persuade anyone given enough time, I can say things like, “I’m going to keep breaking you down,” and it’s actually productive. And I really drive it home when he contradicts himself in non-obvious ways, especially when it’s something like “You can be as rational as you want and all it will do is frustrate me more. I’m not trying to use my higher-order brain functions right now. I’m trying to vent not to get over it.” And he’s kind of amused by how irrational he knows he sounds, but keeps going anyway. And I’ll say, “Bullshit. You laugh as you speak and you know how ridiculous you sound. You just sat there and talked about how you came up with reasons to get more angry. You’re already using your higher-order brain functions. And I bet you’re frustrated, but it’s not the only thing that rationality is doing.” And part of this is indicating that if he doesn’t try harder to control his impulses, I won’t just throw my hands up and mourn the fact that all was for naught; I’ll get angry eventually, and he’ll have to deal with that. In the end, the aggression does little harm, and lots of good. I find in lower socioeconomic classes that learning and teaching are more often of the form “Make X feel stupid for believing Y so that they believe Z instead, and do it in a lighthearted but slightly aggressive way.” And there are better ways, but it works, and it’s what many people know, so it’s easier to use it than to change it all at once. I believe that this can be hard for some LWers to accept, because they’re not used to being outside of high IQ, rationalist bubbles. In those bubbles, people are typically underconfident about their ability to self-regulate and underconfidence in that ability grants you status. But in my bubble, overconfidence in your ability to self-regulate is the norm, and overconfidence grants you status more often than underconfidence. So you have to act way more confident than you might in your usual epistemic mode, because this is the only way you can relate to someone who’s extremely confident about their ability to self-regulate and who looks for confidence rather than a lack of it to evaluate the accuracy of someone’s judgment in situations like these. And the overconfidence really isn’t all that dangerous for a rationalist, because it’s usually really simple stuff that can’t result in astronomical failure. And likewise, you have to be willing to get angry, because you’re playing chicken in a bubble where most people remove their steering wheels before they even put the key in the ignition.
It’s also worth saying that I’m particularly sensitive to affect-laden situations like this because of people I lived with previously, so I also related that, and he is motivated not only by an understanding that he’ll make me angry if he doesn’t control his impulses enough, but that he’ll cause me rather substantial emotional discomfort beyond that. Anyway, ultimately, I think stories of ineffectiveness are examples of people failing the Art, rather than the Art failing people. And obviously you have to pick worthwhile people to use your Art with. Some people really are extremely hard to reach or unreachable.
The article didn’t reflect any of this because I was trying to make the content more relatable to my expected audience without offending their sensibilities or including a bunch of caveats that would make the article read in a contrived way.
Yes, I agree that this can be a big problem. Right now, I expect to have made a change, but I can also imagine having made no change. I think there are actually observable properties that you can look at and use to predict how effective any non-trivial attempt to change someone’s behavior with rational argument is going to be. Framing matters of course: if they aren’t an intellectual, then you can’t relate to them like one. But for example, high g and high metacognitive ability are indicators in my experience, and my friend has both, even if it’s not on the level of many LWers, for example.
But an important thing to note is that I’ve sort of reinterpreted events to avoid flak from the commentariat. We’re both blue-collar workers, so my everyday conversations don’t look entirely like this; in fact, there’s a lot more aggression involved. So, because my friend prides himself on his intelligence, and knows a little bit about rationality, and believes in the virtue of Hard Work, and I’m the only person in my social circle with a reputation for the ability to consistently generate deep responses and persuade anyone given enough time, I can say things like, “I’m going to keep breaking you down,” and it’s actually productive. And I really drive it home when he contradicts himself in non-obvious ways, especially when it’s something like “You can be as rational as you want and all it will do is frustrate me more. I’m not trying to use my higher-order brain functions right now. I’m trying to vent not to get over it.” And he’s kind of amused by how irrational he knows he sounds, but keeps going anyway. And I’ll say, “Bullshit. You laugh as you speak and you know how ridiculous you sound. You just sat there and talked about how you came up with reasons to get more angry. You’re already using your higher-order brain functions. And I bet you’re frustrated, but it’s not the only thing that rationality is doing.” And part of this is indicating that if he doesn’t try harder to control his impulses, I won’t just throw my hands up and mourn the fact that all was for naught; I’ll get angry eventually, and he’ll have to deal with that. In the end, the aggression does little harm, and lots of good. I find in lower socioeconomic classes that learning and teaching are more often of the form “Make X feel stupid for believing Y so that they believe Z instead, and do it in a lighthearted but slightly aggressive way.” And there are better ways, but it works, and it’s what many people know, so it’s easier to use it than to change it all at once. I believe that this can be hard for some LWers to accept, because they’re not used to being outside of high IQ, rationalist bubbles. In those bubbles, people are typically underconfident about their ability to self-regulate and underconfidence in that ability grants you status. But in my bubble, overconfidence in your ability to self-regulate is the norm, and overconfidence grants you status more often than underconfidence. So you have to act way more confident than you might in your usual epistemic mode, because this is the only way you can relate to someone who’s extremely confident about their ability to self-regulate and who looks for confidence rather than a lack of it to evaluate the accuracy of someone’s judgment in situations like these. And the overconfidence really isn’t all that dangerous for a rationalist, because it’s usually really simple stuff that can’t result in astronomical failure. And likewise, you have to be willing to get angry, because you’re playing chicken in a bubble where most people remove their steering wheels before they even put the key in the ignition.
It’s also worth saying that I’m particularly sensitive to affect-laden situations like this because of people I lived with previously, so I also related that, and he is motivated not only by an understanding that he’ll make me angry if he doesn’t control his impulses enough, but that he’ll cause me rather substantial emotional discomfort beyond that. Anyway, ultimately, I think stories of ineffectiveness are examples of people failing the Art, rather than the Art failing people. And obviously you have to pick worthwhile people to use your Art with. Some people really are extremely hard to reach or unreachable.
The article didn’t reflect any of this because I was trying to make the content more relatable to my expected audience without offending their sensibilities or including a bunch of caveats that would make the article read in a contrived way.