I suppose I should be more specific—I disbelieve people when they ask for additional evidence about something they are treating adversarially, claiming it would reverse their position. Because people ask for additional evidence a lot, and in my experience it’s much more likely that it’s what they think sounds like a good justification for their point of view, or an interesting thing to mention. The signal is lost in the noise.
The problem with that is that a basic rationality issue is to ask one’s self what would make you change your mind. And in fact that’s a pretty useful technique. It is useful to check if something is actually someone’s true rejection, but that’s a distinct from blanket assumptions of disbelief. Frankly, this also worries me, because I try to be clear what would actually convince me when I’m having a disagreement with someone, and your attitude if it became widespread would make that actively unproductive. It might make more sense to instead look carefully at when people say that sort of thing and see if they have any history of actually changing their positions when confronted with evidence or not.
It is effectively discouraging people to engage in rational behavior that is when people are behaving minimally honestly pretty useful for actually resolving disagreements and changing minds.
Actively disbelieving people when they state explicitly what will convince them to change their mind seems like a bad policy.
I suppose I should be more specific—I disbelieve people when they ask for additional evidence about something they are treating adversarially, claiming it would reverse their position. Because people ask for additional evidence a lot, and in my experience it’s much more likely that it’s what they think sounds like a good justification for their point of view, or an interesting thing to mention. The signal is lost in the noise.
Also see the story here.
The problem with that is that a basic rationality issue is to ask one’s self what would make you change your mind. And in fact that’s a pretty useful technique. It is useful to check if something is actually someone’s true rejection, but that’s a distinct from blanket assumptions of disbelief. Frankly, this also worries me, because I try to be clear what would actually convince me when I’m having a disagreement with someone, and your attitude if it became widespread would make that actively unproductive. It might make more sense to instead look carefully at when people say that sort of thing and see if they have any history of actually changing their positions when confronted with evidence or not.
Why would it be actively unproductive? I just wouldn’t believe you in some cases :P I can be more quiet about it, if you’d like.
It is effectively discouraging people to engage in rational behavior that is when people are behaving minimally honestly pretty useful for actually resolving disagreements and changing minds.