Today I’d say that that violates conservation of expected evidence, though I didn’t know the term at the time.
This feels like maybe applying the rule on a wrong level?
If I want to figure out whether X is true, then I cannot predict in which direction the evidence will move me.
But if I know that someone else is a motivated thinker, I can quite easily predict that they will creatively find a way how to interpret any evidence as a support for their preferred outcome. And a good way to counter it is to show both branches of the algorithm they will use, before they actually get to choose one (and deny the other).
Yeah, like I note a few paragraphs down, he probably meant it as something like that. That wasn’t how he phrased it, though—he said that answering the question was something that he could “only lose”, i.e. that either response would be decisive against his position. Saying “no matter what I say, you can then make an argument that shows I’m wrong” is the opposite of countering someone’s point.
This feels like maybe applying the rule on a wrong level?
If I want to figure out whether X is true, then I cannot predict in which direction the evidence will move me.
But if I know that someone else is a motivated thinker, I can quite easily predict that they will creatively find a way how to interpret any evidence as a support for their preferred outcome. And a good way to counter it is to show both branches of the algorithm they will use, before they actually get to choose one (and deny the other).
Yeah, like I note a few paragraphs down, he probably meant it as something like that. That wasn’t how he phrased it, though—he said that answering the question was something that he could “only lose”, i.e. that either response would be decisive against his position. Saying “no matter what I say, you can then make an argument that shows I’m wrong” is the opposite of countering someone’s point.