I know you lampshade this towards the end of the post, but I dislike “argument” and “debate” as contexts for discussing discourse. As implied in Centola’s book, more minds are changed by discourse than by debate. I know it’s obtuse to use a phrase like “collaborative truth seeking” but it would be nice if there were more people standing up for the “collaborative truth seeking” vibes.
Most debate that gets much attention is toxic (like the PETA activism in the Toxoplasma article) but I think the concept of debate is important. Finding a point of contradiction, and knowing that at least one of you is wrong, and talking critically about it using arguments and evidence (topical reasoning not ad hominems), is a good activity. It’s not the same as collaboration and can still be productive even if the participants don’t have collaborative or friendly attitudes, which is a feature with some positive potential. There are many ways debate can go wrong but I don’t think they’re insurmountable.
I skimmed some of your writing on critical fallibilism and related topics. I like it. Maybe I’ll try to find time to read more sometime : )
I forgot to mention I do have affection for the term “argument” as it is used in logic and proof. I also like incentivization structures that promote people who are not friendly towards one another to work towards shared goals. And I think competition can be useful both in incentivization structures, and can be intrinsically fun. But the things that “debate” normally points to in natural language doesn’t seem worth trying to salvage. There might be some kind of hyperstition cascade thing going on with the word “debate”, but it feels in some way more complex than a simple slur type cascade.
Finding a point of contradiction, and knowing that at least one of you is wrong, and talking critically about it using arguments and evidence
I’d say you have to do a lot of work to have enough shared context to know that at least one of you is wrong. I like the “at least one” sentiment, since both people can be wrong, but both people can also be right and just using language differently and failing to really connect with one another. The parts doing all the work are sharing world models, synchronizing terminology, locating differences in world modelling, and looking at evidence. The debate framing doesn’t seem to add much to that.
This is awesome. Thank you. I’m sorry I won’t be responding with the same level of effort.
I would like to engage more with this sometime in the future. I’m especially interested in the claims about indecisive and decisive epistemology. Am I understanding correctly that “critical fallibalism” is the name you’ve given to your decisive epistemology?
I’ll also give a few thoughts on a few parts that stuck out to me.
Would it be better if all debates were friendly and collaborative? If so, what makes debate different than collaborative truth seeking besides the existence of bad, adversarial debates?
I think debate implies opposing claims defended by people representing those claims. This representation doesn’t seem like a good incentive. Any participant should be incentivized to point out relevant flaws or reinforcing evidence wherever they see it.
I feel like nontrivial claims are not usually well stated enough to actually create a shared understanding. So either people make statements without actually getting on the same page and then need to either work backwards to get on the same page, or argue past each other without realizing.
In general, I place high value on having a good answer to the question, “If I’m wrong, and someone else knows it, how will I be corrected?” I do my best to correct my own errors, but I also want to be correctable by others.
I really like this sentiment. I wish to be less wrong, and welcome help!
I think this is important so people aren’t ignored due to poor culture fit, low social status, poor ability to get attention from crowds, lack of credentials, and other heuristics that are different than actually being wrong.
I really like this as well. I feel it is productive to think of language and communication and coordination as technologies. I think our communication technology is getting more powerful which leads us both to new communication strategies and new communication issues. I am hopeful that someday our communication technology will be sufficiently advanced that we can meaningfully have large scale consensus, rather than the awkward indirect, representative, and generally cumbersome and ineffectual ways that people currently must communicate with other people and systems they feel the need to understand and influence.
Am I understanding correctly that “critical fallibalism” is the name you’ve given to your decisive epistemology?
Yes.
I would like to engage more with this sometime in the future.
Great.
I think debate implies opposing claims defended by people representing those claims. This representation doesn’t seem like a good incentive. Any participant should be incentivized to point out relevant flaws or reinforcing evidence wherever they see it.
I agree that it’s better if people think critically about their own position/side and share the results, rather than focusing on winning, but I think debate can still be productive without that.
I am hopeful that someday our communication technology will be sufficiently advanced that we can meaningfully have large scale consensus
Yeah I’d like to see that. There’s a lot of room for improvement. I’d like a world where government policies usually have 80%+ support instead of commonly being pushed through with under 60% support. Relevantly, Claude claims:
Monroe (1979) found that about two-thirds of policy outcomes were consistent with majority opinion in the 1960–79 period. Sage Journals
That consistency declined from 63% in the 1960–79 period to 55% in the 1980–93 period, and further to about 53% by the end of the 1990s. PubMed Central
Page and Gilens found that even when 60–70% of Americans favored a particular policy change, that change was only implemented about 40% of the time. Institute for Policy Research
Policies supported by economic elites were adopted 60–70% of the time, while policy changes favored by a majority of all voters were enacted just 30% of the time. MinnPost
A proposed policy change with low elite support was adopted only about 18% of the time, rising to about 45% with high elite support. The Journalist’s Resource
Sounds like we got worse at consensus in the last 50 years :(
Thanks for your comments and links.
Most debate that gets much attention is toxic (like the PETA activism in the Toxoplasma article) but I think the concept of debate is important. Finding a point of contradiction, and knowing that at least one of you is wrong, and talking critically about it using arguments and evidence (topical reasoning not ad hominems), is a good activity. It’s not the same as collaboration and can still be productive even if the participants don’t have collaborative or friendly attitudes, which is a feature with some positive potential. There are many ways debate can go wrong but I don’t think they’re insurmountable.
I skimmed some of your writing on critical fallibilism and related topics. I like it. Maybe I’ll try to find time to read more sometime : )
I forgot to mention I do have affection for the term “argument” as it is used in logic and proof. I also like incentivization structures that promote people who are not friendly towards one another to work towards shared goals. And I think competition can be useful both in incentivization structures, and can be intrinsically fun. But the things that “debate” normally points to in natural language doesn’t seem worth trying to salvage. There might be some kind of hyperstition cascade thing going on with the word “debate”, but it feels in some way more complex than a simple slur type cascade.
I’d say you have to do a lot of work to have enough shared context to know that at least one of you is wrong. I like the “at least one” sentiment, since both people can be wrong, but both people can also be right and just using language differently and failing to really connect with one another. The parts doing all the work are sharing world models, synchronizing terminology, locating differences in world modelling, and looking at evidence. The debate framing doesn’t seem to add much to that.
Awesome.
I wrote a response essay about debate: https://criticalfallibilism.com/in-defense-of-debate/
This is awesome. Thank you. I’m sorry I won’t be responding with the same level of effort.
I would like to engage more with this sometime in the future. I’m especially interested in the claims about indecisive and decisive epistemology. Am I understanding correctly that “critical fallibalism” is the name you’ve given to your decisive epistemology?
I’ll also give a few thoughts on a few parts that stuck out to me.
I think debate implies opposing claims defended by people representing those claims. This representation doesn’t seem like a good incentive. Any participant should be incentivized to point out relevant flaws or reinforcing evidence wherever they see it.
I feel like nontrivial claims are not usually well stated enough to actually create a shared understanding. So either people make statements without actually getting on the same page and then need to either work backwards to get on the same page, or argue past each other without realizing.
I really like this sentiment. I wish to be less wrong, and welcome help!
I really like this as well. I feel it is productive to think of language and communication and coordination as technologies. I think our communication technology is getting more powerful which leads us both to new communication strategies and new communication issues. I am hopeful that someday our communication technology will be sufficiently advanced that we can meaningfully have large scale consensus, rather than the awkward indirect, representative, and generally cumbersome and ineffectual ways that people currently must communicate with other people and systems they feel the need to understand and influence.
Yes.
Great.
I agree that it’s better if people think critically about their own position/side and share the results, rather than focusing on winning, but I think debate can still be productive without that.
Yeah I’d like to see that. There’s a lot of room for improvement. I’d like a world where government policies usually have 80%+ support instead of commonly being pushed through with under 60% support. Relevantly, Claude claims:
Sounds like we got worse at consensus in the last 50 years :(