I don’t think I agree with step 3 in the second script (step 4 in the third script). I think that would create a bias against understanding the intricacies of arguments that you agree with, which I’m not comfortable with. Maybe you could just restate it as “If you aren’t sure that you agree with the statement, continue reading” or something to that effect.
Edited to add “If you aren’t sure what the conclusion is or aren’t sure you agree with it, continue.” The case where you aren’t sure whether you agree was meant to be excuded by “If you are sure you do”, but wasn’t very clear. The case where you aren’t sure what the conclusion is wasn’t mentioned at all, and it’s an important one since many good articles take awhile to get to the point, or cover a broad range of points, and shouldn’t be aborted early.
Hm. Well, I was thinking in general that you can come to the same conclusion by more than one route and it could be important to see how other people do it. For example, I hold now some libertarian-style beliefs that I held when I was a teenager, but the framework that those beliefs are in is completely different. “Free trade is good because (comparative advantage, economic reasoning” is different than “Free trade is good because people shouldn’t be restricted in who they can sell their goods to!” by a wide margin.
In fact, there have been situations where I’ve changed my mind to be on the other side of an issue by reading something whose conclusion I agree with, because I would see flaws in their arguments, try and overlay my own arguments and find that the same flaws exist in both arguments, leading me to change my beliefs.
Maybe we agree, though, and what you mean by “conclusions” is what I mean by “conclusions and reasoning.”
I don’t think I agree with step 3 in the second script (step 4 in the third script). I think that would create a bias against understanding the intricacies of arguments that you agree with, which I’m not comfortable with. Maybe you could just restate it as “If you aren’t sure that you agree with the statement, continue reading” or something to that effect.
Edited to add “If you aren’t sure what the conclusion is or aren’t sure you agree with it, continue.” The case where you aren’t sure whether you agree was meant to be excuded by “If you are sure you do”, but wasn’t very clear. The case where you aren’t sure what the conclusion is wasn’t mentioned at all, and it’s an important one since many good articles take awhile to get to the point, or cover a broad range of points, and shouldn’t be aborted early.
Hm. Well, I was thinking in general that you can come to the same conclusion by more than one route and it could be important to see how other people do it. For example, I hold now some libertarian-style beliefs that I held when I was a teenager, but the framework that those beliefs are in is completely different. “Free trade is good because (comparative advantage, economic reasoning” is different than “Free trade is good because people shouldn’t be restricted in who they can sell their goods to!” by a wide margin.
In fact, there have been situations where I’ve changed my mind to be on the other side of an issue by reading something whose conclusion I agree with, because I would see flaws in their arguments, try and overlay my own arguments and find that the same flaws exist in both arguments, leading me to change my beliefs.
Maybe we agree, though, and what you mean by “conclusions” is what I mean by “conclusions and reasoning.”