I rather like Eliezer’s description of ethical writing given in rule six here. I’m honestly not sure why he doesn’t seem to link it anymore.
Ethical writing is not “persuading the audience”. Ethical writing is not “persuading the audience of things I myself believe to be true”. Ethical writing is not even “persuading the audience of things I believe to be true through arguments I believe to be true”. Ethical writing is persuading the audience of things you believe to be true, through arguments that you yourself take into account as evidence. It’s not good enough for the audience unless it’s good enough for you.
That’s what I was going to reply with. To begin with, a rationalist style of rethoric should force you to write/speak like that, or make it easy for the audience to tell whether or not you do.
(Rationalist rethoric can mean at least three things: ways of communication you adopt in order to be able to deliver your message as rationally and honestly as possible, not in order to persuade; techniques that persuade rationalists particularly well; or new forms of dark arts discovered by rationalists)
(We should distinguish between forms of rhetoric that optimize for persuasion and those that optimize for truth. Eliezer’s proposed “ethical writing” seems to optimize for truth. That is, if everyone wrote like that, we would find out more truths and lying would be harder, or even persuading people of untruths. Though it’s also awfully persuasive… On the other hand, political rhetoric probably optimizes for persuasion, in so far as it involves knowingly persuading people of lies and bad policies.)
I rather like Eliezer’s description of ethical writing given in rule six here. I’m honestly not sure why he doesn’t seem to link it anymore.
That’s what I was going to reply with. To begin with, a rationalist style of rethoric should force you to write/speak like that, or make it easy for the audience to tell whether or not you do.
(Rationalist rethoric can mean at least three things: ways of communication you adopt in order to be able to deliver your message as rationally and honestly as possible, not in order to persuade; techniques that persuade rationalists particularly well; or new forms of dark arts discovered by rationalists)
(We should distinguish between forms of rhetoric that optimize for persuasion and those that optimize for truth. Eliezer’s proposed “ethical writing” seems to optimize for truth. That is, if everyone wrote like that, we would find out more truths and lying would be harder, or even persuading people of untruths. Though it’s also awfully persuasive… On the other hand, political rhetoric probably optimizes for persuasion, in so far as it involves knowingly persuading people of lies and bad policies.)