I think that some of the best online disagreements I’ve seen are when someone breaks out of the disagreement and just synthesizes the positions to be like “here’s the complicated reality”. I definitely don’t think the hierarchy of disagreement as it stands now is about putting forth that best reasonable case, it’s about refuting points.
I agree that it the name of the hierarchy may have to be changed to get to the most important levels, but if you’re trying to raise the standard of discourse you may want that?
Or if you want to raise the standard of discourse it may in fact make sense to call it the hierarchy of disagreement, but actually have the highest levels he about true truthseeking, as a useful headfake.
This is definitely not the definitive guide to having a productive discourse, as it only concerns itself with one subsection of it. Synthesizing positions, changing your mind and absorbing evidence are all important, but are skillsets in their own right and might be better tackled in separate guides if we don’t want the image to become a sprawling multidimensional flowchart. If you’re interested I could start working on those other guides, but I’d have to find a way to summarize the literature since people tend to lose interest if a guide has too many elements.
Personally, I think the highest level of a disagreement is to transform it into a dialogue, and I’d like a guide to productive disagreements to include that (even if there was a seperate hierarchy for productive dialogues). It seems like there’s a crux here but I don’t know what it is.
What would change your mind about including that as a level on the chart?
Do you think that:
Actually, turning it into a dialogue is a separate move that’s not more effective than steelmanning.
People who saw the chart aren’t ready to hear about turning a disagreement into a dialogue.
It’s dishonest to talk about dialogue on a chart that’s about disagreement.
Good comment. My main problem is that ‘turning it into a dialogue’ is not a very concrete actionable technique. What do you mean by that, the socratic method?
I think that some of the best online disagreements I’ve seen are when someone breaks out of the disagreement and just synthesizes the positions to be like “here’s the complicated reality”. I definitely don’t think the hierarchy of disagreement as it stands now is about putting forth that best reasonable case, it’s about refuting points.
I agree that it the name of the hierarchy may have to be changed to get to the most important levels, but if you’re trying to raise the standard of discourse you may want that?
Or if you want to raise the standard of discourse it may in fact make sense to call it the hierarchy of disagreement, but actually have the highest levels he about true truthseeking, as a useful headfake.
This is definitely not the definitive guide to having a productive discourse, as it only concerns itself with one subsection of it. Synthesizing positions, changing your mind and absorbing evidence are all important, but are skillsets in their own right and might be better tackled in separate guides if we don’t want the image to become a sprawling multidimensional flowchart. If you’re interested I could start working on those other guides, but I’d have to find a way to summarize the literature since people tend to lose interest if a guide has too many elements.
Personally, I think the highest level of a disagreement is to transform it into a dialogue, and I’d like a guide to productive disagreements to include that (even if there was a seperate hierarchy for productive dialogues). It seems like there’s a crux here but I don’t know what it is.
What would change your mind about including that as a level on the chart?
Do you think that:
Actually, turning it into a dialogue is a separate move that’s not more effective than steelmanning.
People who saw the chart aren’t ready to hear about turning a disagreement into a dialogue.
It’s dishonest to talk about dialogue on a chart that’s about disagreement.
Something else I’m not recognizing?
Good comment. My main problem is that ‘turning it into a dialogue’ is not a very concrete actionable technique. What do you mean by that, the socratic method?