Eliezer—this is an interesting list, but perhaps it has more to do with you than with the people you’re talking to.
For instance, when I was younger I had many arguments that ended in debates over definitions. (apparently the source of three of your above examples), but that’s because I wanted (and was hanging out with people who wanted) to win for winnings sake. It was how that group determined status.
This is a list of symptoms—what are the things you’re doing in conversation that reduce people to saying things like this to escape? (or, alternatively, why are you talking to people who care more about proving to you that they’re not listening than they do about learning from you? [and you learning from them])
why are you talking to people who care more about proving to you that they’re not listening than they do about learning from you?
It’s a good question, but if I were to guess I’d say that Eliezer thinks that changing those people’s minds would help reduce existential risk. For example they might be people working on UFAI, or otherwise not taking existential risk seriously enough.
What can we do (in conversation, as opposed to writing a blog post about it) to avoid triggering these conversation halters, or to overcome them? Anyone have ideas?
the majority of these don’t require much effort to defeat, the most difficult IMO are:
Appeal to permanent unknowability which is more or less based on Appeal to inescapable assumptions.
while something like Appeal to unquestionable authority could be easily defeated by say showing said authority to have been wrong on even a single occasion, the above pair are not so easily dealt with-I’m assuming if someone uses those conversation halters they’re not unqualified to continue the discussion given irrationality but rather it is an issue of which axiom/s to use.
note that if the conversation reaches the point where it’s about initial assumptions then that is a good sign, if both sides see that it is their priors being discussed it can save both a lot of effort, and in fact those two particular conversation halters might even indicate a rationalist with differing priors, while the other convo-halters are more or less indicators of inaccurate priors, or outright irrationality-for eg. # Appeal to personal freedom.
as the post says, defining what constitutes an end to the debate before the debate occurs would eliminate almost any attempt at halting, a simple reminder of the agreed upon conditions would suffice, but if the debate has winnowed out the layers and it’s a battle of the priors, well, at least you’ve eliminated the majority of counter arguments, and frankly I don’t think there is any way to overcome it easily.
Eliezer—this is an interesting list, but perhaps it has more to do with you than with the people you’re talking to.
For instance, when I was younger I had many arguments that ended in debates over definitions. (apparently the source of three of your above examples), but that’s because I wanted (and was hanging out with people who wanted) to win for winnings sake. It was how that group determined status.
This is a list of symptoms—what are the things you’re doing in conversation that reduce people to saying things like this to escape? (or, alternatively, why are you talking to people who care more about proving to you that they’re not listening than they do about learning from you? [and you learning from them])
It’s a good question, but if I were to guess I’d say that Eliezer thinks that changing those people’s minds would help reduce existential risk. For example they might be people working on UFAI, or otherwise not taking existential risk seriously enough.
What can we do (in conversation, as opposed to writing a blog post about it) to avoid triggering these conversation halters, or to overcome them? Anyone have ideas?
the majority of these don’t require much effort to defeat, the most difficult IMO are: Appeal to permanent unknowability which is more or less based on Appeal to inescapable assumptions.
while something like Appeal to unquestionable authority could be easily defeated by say showing said authority to have been wrong on even a single occasion, the above pair are not so easily dealt with-I’m assuming if someone uses those conversation halters they’re not unqualified to continue the discussion given irrationality but rather it is an issue of which axiom/s to use.
note that if the conversation reaches the point where it’s about initial assumptions then that is a good sign, if both sides see that it is their priors being discussed it can save both a lot of effort, and in fact those two particular conversation halters might even indicate a rationalist with differing priors, while the other convo-halters are more or less indicators of inaccurate priors, or outright irrationality-for eg. # Appeal to personal freedom.
as the post says, defining what constitutes an end to the debate before the debate occurs would eliminate almost any attempt at halting, a simple reminder of the agreed upon conditions would suffice, but if the debate has winnowed out the layers and it’s a battle of the priors, well, at least you’ve eliminated the majority of counter arguments, and frankly I don’t think there is any way to overcome it easily.