I’ll second a part of your post: some people simply don’t like debate (either debate in person or argumentative writing.) Communicating with a non-debater about a debate-like topic is very strange; it’s like trying to fence against an opponent wielding a bowl of Jello instead of a sword. LessWrong has a number of essays about the ways people debate irrationally (arguments as soldiers, dark side epistemology, etc.) but I think far more of the population just doesn’t debate at all, and will respond blankly if you try to debate them.
People without a debate mindset might think “Oh, I’m not very good at arguments.” People with a debate mindset, I believe, don’t ever think in those terms: if we believe something strongly, it’s because we think we have a good argument for it, and if we don’t have a good argument for it, then we don’t have particularly strong convictions about it. But a non-debater can both believe something deeply and believe she could be out-argued by the opposing view.
For what it’s worth: I consider myself a “debater” in the sense you mean, but there are plenty of things where I believe them, I feel strongly about them, and I believe I could be out-argued by a sufficiently clever articulation of an opposing view, even if that view was wrong.
Out-argued in what sense? Do you think that you wouldn’t be able to see why their arguments were wrong, or just that you wouldn’t be able to persuade an impartial audience that you were more right?
On subjects that I hold strong beliefs in, I anticipate that I could not be out-argued in the first sense. If someone was able to offer such arguments, I would either have to conclude that they were right, or that I didn’t understand the topic as well as I thought I did in the first place, and would have to revise the strength of my beliefs.
I’m not certain that the dividing line between those two senses is as crisp as you make it sound, but I guess I mean something like the latter sense. That is, I can imagine someone articulating their arguments for -P in such a way that their arguments are more compelling than mine are for P, even when P is true.
The dividing line comes from the fact that an impartial audience is not at all the same thing as a rational audience, and there’s a lot more to rhetoric than making arguments that are logically sound and tenable.
My general defence against this is to be too difficult to actually convince. I nod and smile and acknowledge the quality of the arguments but am not actually convinced to change my mind. I may well have taken this too far. (It certainly frustrates the heck out of people.) It’s useful if you know you’re fond enough of new ideas to be susceptible to neophilia-induced bad ideas. It’s somewhat like being just plain dim.
Ah. It sounds like we have different interpretations of what SarahC meant by out-argued.
I don’t believe a clever debater can long-term convince me of the falsehood of something I believe and feel strongly about (sadly, even if it’s true), although they might induce me to go along temporarily.
This is, incidentally, not to say that I can’t be caught up in cultishness, merely to say that clever arguments are sufficient (or, sadly, necessary) to do it. (ETA: er… I meant, of course, “are not sufficient,” which was perhaps clear)
I think there is a difference between (1) people who enjoy verbally competing to be correct, (2) people who enjoy such competition and have formally trained, studied, and practiced it, and (3) people who have trained, studied, practiced and come out disillusioned with strategic communication. When I was 10 I was the first kind of debater. I think many law school students, by stereotype, are the second kind. Having spent two years in college on a policy debate team and later coached a high school debate team I find myself feeling kinship with the third group.
I think formal competitive debate experience plus philosophy can help to calibrate people in very useful ways. Of a proposition Q you can ask what P(Q|H) is for various values of H if you’re sticking to pure Bayesian rationality. You can also have a sense of how difficult it would be to go aff (or neg) on Q (or not-Q) in front of different audiences.
Among skilled debaters where both sides have a research library and knowledge of Q in advance and skilled debaters are the audience, whoever goes aff and controls the content of Q should generally win.
But a good debater should also be able to take a large number of “open questions” as Q, and win in all four scenarios (aff/neg x Q/not-Q) with an arbitrary audience against an unskilled opponent. Watching this second thing happen, and learning to do it, and teaching other people to do it has given me relatively little respect for casual debates as a truth seeking process, but a lot of respect for formal debates as an educational process.
If anyone reading this is picking colleges, I recommend looking for one with a CEDA program and spending a year on the team :-)
I agree that casual debate isn’t so great as a truth seeking process.
What I was saying was that some people seem to have trouble (or dislike) thinking propositionally; I’ve had conversations where I’m proposing an argument and the other person seems to think that I just want to be cheered up or something, and doesn’t realize I actually want to discuss the substance.
I’ll second a part of your post: some people simply don’t like debate (either debate in person or argumentative writing.) Communicating with a non-debater about a debate-like topic is very strange; it’s like trying to fence against an opponent wielding a bowl of Jello instead of a sword.
Speaking as a fencer, I’m having a very hard time imagining what this would actually be like.
Really? I’m not a fencer, but I just imagine a fencer standing in a kitchen while the non-debater pulls out the Jello from the fridge. The fencer stands there confused for a bit, while the non-debater goes on their way, but eventually realizes ze’s a fencer for a reason! The fencer lunges, misses, and hits the bowl, breaking it and spilling the Jello. The non-debater then either gets angry and annoyed, or sighs, pulls out another bowl and begins to make a second batch of Jello.
I’ll second a part of your post: some people simply don’t like debate (either debate in person or argumentative writing.) Communicating with a non-debater about a debate-like topic is very strange; it’s like trying to fence against an opponent wielding a bowl of Jello instead of a sword. LessWrong has a number of essays about the ways people debate irrationally (arguments as soldiers, dark side epistemology, etc.) but I think far more of the population just doesn’t debate at all, and will respond blankly if you try to debate them.
People without a debate mindset might think “Oh, I’m not very good at arguments.” People with a debate mindset, I believe, don’t ever think in those terms: if we believe something strongly, it’s because we think we have a good argument for it, and if we don’t have a good argument for it, then we don’t have particularly strong convictions about it. But a non-debater can both believe something deeply and believe she could be out-argued by the opposing view.
For what it’s worth: I consider myself a “debater” in the sense you mean, but there are plenty of things where I believe them, I feel strongly about them, and I believe I could be out-argued by a sufficiently clever articulation of an opposing view, even if that view was wrong.
Out-argued in what sense? Do you think that you wouldn’t be able to see why their arguments were wrong, or just that you wouldn’t be able to persuade an impartial audience that you were more right?
On subjects that I hold strong beliefs in, I anticipate that I could not be out-argued in the first sense. If someone was able to offer such arguments, I would either have to conclude that they were right, or that I didn’t understand the topic as well as I thought I did in the first place, and would have to revise the strength of my beliefs.
I’m not certain that the dividing line between those two senses is as crisp as you make it sound, but I guess I mean something like the latter sense. That is, I can imagine someone articulating their arguments for -P in such a way that their arguments are more compelling than mine are for P, even when P is true.
The dividing line comes from the fact that an impartial audience is not at all the same thing as a rational audience, and there’s a lot more to rhetoric than making arguments that are logically sound and tenable.
My general defence against this is to be too difficult to actually convince. I nod and smile and acknowledge the quality of the arguments but am not actually convinced to change my mind. I may well have taken this too far. (It certainly frustrates the heck out of people.) It’s useful if you know you’re fond enough of new ideas to be susceptible to neophilia-induced bad ideas. It’s somewhat like being just plain dim.
Ah. It sounds like we have different interpretations of what SarahC meant by out-argued.
I don’t believe a clever debater can long-term convince me of the falsehood of something I believe and feel strongly about (sadly, even if it’s true), although they might induce me to go along temporarily.
This is, incidentally, not to say that I can’t be caught up in cultishness, merely to say that clever arguments are sufficient (or, sadly, necessary) to do it. (ETA: er… I meant, of course, “are not sufficient,” which was perhaps clear)
I think there is a difference between (1) people who enjoy verbally competing to be correct, (2) people who enjoy such competition and have formally trained, studied, and practiced it, and (3) people who have trained, studied, practiced and come out disillusioned with strategic communication. When I was 10 I was the first kind of debater. I think many law school students, by stereotype, are the second kind. Having spent two years in college on a policy debate team and later coached a high school debate team I find myself feeling kinship with the third group.
I think formal competitive debate experience plus philosophy can help to calibrate people in very useful ways. Of a proposition Q you can ask what P(Q|H) is for various values of H if you’re sticking to pure Bayesian rationality. You can also have a sense of how difficult it would be to go aff (or neg) on Q (or not-Q) in front of different audiences.
Among skilled debaters where both sides have a research library and knowledge of Q in advance and skilled debaters are the audience, whoever goes aff and controls the content of Q should generally win.
But a good debater should also be able to take a large number of “open questions” as Q, and win in all four scenarios (aff/neg x Q/not-Q) with an arbitrary audience against an unskilled opponent. Watching this second thing happen, and learning to do it, and teaching other people to do it has given me relatively little respect for casual debates as a truth seeking process, but a lot of respect for formal debates as an educational process.
If anyone reading this is picking colleges, I recommend looking for one with a CEDA program and spending a year on the team :-)
I agree that casual debate isn’t so great as a truth seeking process.
What I was saying was that some people seem to have trouble (or dislike) thinking propositionally; I’ve had conversations where I’m proposing an argument and the other person seems to think that I just want to be cheered up or something, and doesn’t realize I actually want to discuss the substance.
Speaking as a fencer, I’m having a very hard time imagining what this would actually be like.
Really? I’m not a fencer, but I just imagine a fencer standing in a kitchen while the non-debater pulls out the Jello from the fridge. The fencer stands there confused for a bit, while the non-debater goes on their way, but eventually realizes ze’s a fencer for a reason! The fencer lunges, misses, and hits the bowl, breaking it and spilling the Jello. The non-debater then either gets angry and annoyed, or sighs, pulls out another bowl and begins to make a second batch of Jello.
Did that help? :)
Not much, no.
I knew there was a reason I like to hide a glock in my Jello.