There is a pattern of debate where you make an argument of the form “X → Y”, and the other person hears “X is true”, and then retorts with “But X isn’t true!”
There is a viral (and probably fake) meme about prisoners and having breakfast that illustrates this pattern.
Why is it useful to make arguments of this shape? Why not just talk about X directly?
Arguments like this are useful to avoid arguing about points that aren’t actually cruxes and wasting time in a debate.
As a concrete example, it is worth asking the question “if you believed that AGI was dangerous (X) → would you agree it shouldn’t be open sourced (Y)?”
The reason this is useful to establish before talking about whether AGI is actually dangerous or not is that if the other person denies that we shouldn’t open source it even in principle (denies “X → Y”, independent of whether X is true or not, which is a thing more than one person I have debated has bitten the bullet on), then there’s no point in arguing about X, because whether or not it is true, it will not change their view on Y, which is the thing I care about.
If the other person agrees that if it was really that dangerous, then yeah maybe it shouldn’t be open sourced (accepts “X → Y”, but not “X is true”), then it is useful to move on to a discussion about whether X is true or not, because it is an actual crux that could lead to minds being changed.
Mapping out what the cruxes/degrees of freedom are in an opponent’s worldview is the core of understanding the other and hopefully changing minds, rather than wasting time on points that the opponent has already decided to never change their mind on.
Unfortunately, if it takes someone 20 minutes to answer a simple yes or no “X → Y” question, this can still run out the clock. Alas.
There are a number of other recent Tweets from Connor (@NPCollapse) with more thoughts about the debate.
Connor explains more about what he was trying to do here: https://twitter.com/NPCollapse/status/1753902877452439681#m
There are a number of other recent Tweets from Connor (@NPCollapse) with more thoughts about the debate.