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To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

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Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#51

Post by ehnto »

Retra wrote: post #41
jobu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually I try to resolve disagreements by asking questions. Either they end up poking holes in their own arguments or I learn where I made a mistake. Telling someone they're wrong is useless. After that they can only think of reasons why they're correct.

I've learned plenty (and changed my mind many times) from having people simply tell me that I'm wrong.

I have found programmers to be far more receptive to blunt criticism than my other non-programmer friends. I think it's just a frame of mind to accept that will be wrong a lot and that is fine.

It would take a whole lot of cognitive dissonance to get through a decent sized software project and imagine it is all flawless or couldn't be even slightly better in some way.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#52

Post by xupybd »

conistonwater wrote: post #27
rayiner wrote: post #16

Learning how to do this is an essential skill. Most people are not idiots. If they disagree with you, it's probably not because they are being irrational, but because they're starting from a different premise, making different assumptions, or assigning different values to different aspects of the problem. Only when you understand their argument well enough to articulate it in your own words can you effectively presen…

Is that actually true? The entire literature on cultural cognition, and the myside bias, and all the other failures of rationality seems to point to it being pretty common for people to disagree irrationally. The advice given here is rather one-sided: one must assume the other person disagrees rationally. That's a huge assumption that is sometimes, maybe often, not justified, yet it's not mentioned. Furthermore, the…

Often people are not as irrational as you'd think. It's just they only connect the dots one or two at a time. So, much of the knowledge they already have is not questioned. More often than not people appear to be irrational because they have learned something that is either false or perhaps true but very different to a false belief you hold. They appear irrational when assessing the same situation as you but arriving at different conclusions, because they are holding to a very different set of assumptions. People (my self included) are not very good at being aware of our underlying assumptions.

I guess that is being irrational given that you are not taking all the assumptions into account, but it's the level of rationality that most people operate at.

However if your talking about an emotionally charged situation, yeah rationality be damned emotions are running that show.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#53

Post by Xcelerate »

It would be incredibly difficult, but I've always wished we could develop a (formal) axiomatic system of morality, such that with independent axioms that each person takes as true by default, all of that person's positions on the major issues would be immediately derivable from the axioms and would essentially be indisputable. Heated emotional debates that last for hours would instead turn into each party running a short computer program to determine whether their views are compatible.

For example, one such axiom (not being rigorous here) may be "human life is valuable". If someone else takes "human life has no inherent worth", then you're kind of at an impasse, as each statement forms the basis of entirely different systems of morality.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#54

Post by megablast »

M_Grey wrote: post #32

It's the complete opposite of what seems to be the increasingly reigning trend online at least, and all too often offline. That is to say this is good advice, but a really shocking number of people seem to unaware that the least effective teacher is the one who informs you that you're a pointless moron before trying to correct you. I'm constantly amazed at people who think their genius is so valuable that anyone woul…

If somebody calls you a pointless moron, they are probably not trying to teach you anything.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#55

Post by donw »

geowwy wrote: post #38
rayiner wrote: post #16

Learning how to do this is an essential skill. Most people are not idiots. If they disagree with you, it's probably not because they are being irrational, but because they're starting from a different premise, making different assumptions, or assigning different values to different aspects of the problem. Only when you understand their argument well enough to articulate it in your own words can you effectively presen…

>> If they disagree with you, it's probably not because they are being irrational... It's interesting to compare this POV with the Scott Adams'. In his school of thought all people are mostly irrational, even if they think otherwise: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147595892021/how-persuaders-see...

Oddly enough, I think that both of these viewpoints work together very nicely.

Human beings are, generally speaking, irrational. We have a sort of flashlight'o'rationality that we can shine on specific things for periods of time, but most of how we behave is guided by a mixture of instinct, culture, emotion, and our life experiences.

It is pretty well-established that even highly rational people tend to choose a position and then build chains of logic to support it. As a very strong case in point, look at how the world of mathematicians worked to "correct" Marilyn vos Savant's solution to the Monty Hall problem.

And while we can work to change our habits, to instill more rational behaviors, we are still operating from within a system that is mostly irrational and emotional. And more importantly, we have to either want to change, or be made to want to change.

This is rarely accomplished by telling somebody that they are wrong.

Personally, I tend to think of human beings as being rational-at-the-core, but with that rational core being surrounded and filtered by a wall of culture, emotion, and experience.

So when people disagree with me, it is because their chain of logic is based on a different cultural-emotional-experience state than mine.

And if I can not understand where they are coming from -- listening is a superpower here -- I can not hope to either learn the thing that they know and I don't, and nor can I hope to change their minds.

Now, when it comes to arguing for a viewpoint, it is our natural instinct to defend ourselves -- a verbal challenge to what we believe is still very much an "attack".

The simplest way to bypass this reflex, is to start from a position where you are on the "same team". To agree with where they are right, and to validate the parts of their position that you share.

From there, you can then work in small steps and gentle pressure to engage both their rational core, as well as their culture-emotion-experience filter.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#56

Post by h4nkoslo »

This is also known as the "shit sandwich" (when leavened with another helping of praise on the other end), and is instantly recognizable once you see the pattern. The risk is that your initial praise is seen as disingenuous by its recipients, or that it goes too far and reifies their underlying value system when it actually is contradictory to yours.

Incidentally, Barack Obama was particularly good at this construction in his first term, but fell victim to the first trap. Pre-Trump Republicans in general fall victim to the second, when they have any effective rhetoric at all.

Like most rhetorical devices, it works better in person than in print.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#57

Post by h4nkoslo »

M_Grey wrote: post #32

It's the complete opposite of what seems to be the increasingly reigning trend online at least, and all too often offline. That is to say this is good advice, but a really shocking number of people seem to unaware that the least effective teacher is the one who informs you that you're a pointless moron before trying to correct you. I'm constantly amazed at people who think their genius is so valuable that anyone woul…

The goal of online conversation is usually not to convince the purported target of the rhetoric.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#58

Post by xupybd »

Xcelerate wrote: post #53

It would be incredibly difficult, but I've always wished we could develop a (formal) axiomatic system of morality, such that with independent axioms that each person takes as true by default, all of that person's positions on the major issues would be immediately derivable from the axioms and would essentially be indisputable. Heated emotional debates that last for hours would instead turn into each party running a s…

Another example is the abortion debate, every one is quick to show the evils of the other side of the debate. But often they simply disagree on when human life starts and fail to ever identify that as the issue. Because of this most discussions on this topic become far more vitriolic than productive.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#59

Post by JoeAltmaier »

xupybd wrote: post #58
Xcelerate wrote: post #53

It would be incredibly difficult, but I've always wished we could develop a (formal) axiomatic system of morality, such that with independent axioms that each person takes as true by default, all of that person's positions on the major issues would be immediately derivable from the axioms and would essentially be indisputable. Heated emotional debates that last for hours would instead turn into each party running a s…

Another example is the abortion debate, every one is quick to show the evils of the other side of the debate. But often they simply disagree on when human life starts and fail to ever identify that as the issue. Because of this most discussions on this topic become far more vitriolic than productive.

One interesting observation was, that human life is continuous and has been for a million years. Don't know how that changes the discussion but its interesting.
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