I think about this kind of issue a lot myself. My conclusion is along the lines of Hanson’s X isn’t about X—debating isn’t really about discovering truth, for most people in most forums (LWers might be able to do better).
Indeed, it’s not even clear to me that debate ever works. In science, debate is useful mostly to clarify positions, the meaning of terms, and the points of disagreement. It is never relied upon to actually obtain truth—that’s what experiments are for.
One problem that debates inevitably encounter is the failure to distinguish questions of “is” from questions of “ought”. We can potentially come to an agreement about answers to is-questions. It will be harder to agree about ought-questions.
Almost all debates involve mixtures of is-questions and ought-questions. Ideally, we would lay out a system of terminal values (answers to basic ought-questions), then ask a bunch of is-questions, and figure out what policy leads to the best fulfillment of the values. Of course, people never do this, either because the answers to the is-questions can’t be reliably obtained, or because debate isn’t about finding truth.
To get better answers to policy questions, we should do something similar to what Wall St. types do when they need to evaluate a security. Build a big spreadsheet that expresses the relationship between the is-Q and ought-Q values, plug in values for the ought-Q numbers and estimates for the is-Q numbers, and see what comes out. The model should also be tested under various assumptions for the is-Q numbers.
Every rationalist should be willing to revise his support of any policy, if new information about the is-Q numbers appears. Furthermore, he should be able to express what kind of new is-Q information would lead him to revise his policy support. For example, if you support international treaties to limit CO2 emissions, you should be to say under what conditions you would reverse your support (the same is true if you don’t support such treaties, of course).
I think about this kind of issue a lot myself. My conclusion is along the lines of Hanson’s X isn’t about X—debating isn’t really about discovering truth, for most people in most forums (LWers might be able to do better).
Indeed, it’s not even clear to me that debate ever works. In science, debate is useful mostly to clarify positions, the meaning of terms, and the points of disagreement. It is never relied upon to actually obtain truth—that’s what experiments are for.
One problem that debates inevitably encounter is the failure to distinguish questions of “is” from questions of “ought”. We can potentially come to an agreement about answers to is-questions. It will be harder to agree about ought-questions.
Almost all debates involve mixtures of is-questions and ought-questions. Ideally, we would lay out a system of terminal values (answers to basic ought-questions), then ask a bunch of is-questions, and figure out what policy leads to the best fulfillment of the values. Of course, people never do this, either because the answers to the is-questions can’t be reliably obtained, or because debate isn’t about finding truth.
To get better answers to policy questions, we should do something similar to what Wall St. types do when they need to evaluate a security. Build a big spreadsheet that expresses the relationship between the is-Q and ought-Q values, plug in values for the ought-Q numbers and estimates for the is-Q numbers, and see what comes out. The model should also be tested under various assumptions for the is-Q numbers.
Every rationalist should be willing to revise his support of any policy, if new information about the is-Q numbers appears. Furthermore, he should be able to express what kind of new is-Q information would lead him to revise his policy support. For example, if you support international treaties to limit CO2 emissions, you should be to say under what conditions you would reverse your support (the same is true if you don’t support such treaties, of course).