Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Disagree

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 61 posts

Re: How to Disagree

#11

Post by nika »

DH0, upvoted to 5 (while my comments are 0 and -1): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138625

This was my first day. I stuck around for a day or two, then I just logged out and stopped participating. Just use this as a site to find links, and when you're not logged in there's no incentive to go see what people said in reply to you, and no focus on karma score or anything. I don't know if the site requires a certain level of karma to submit new items, but I don't really feel like submitting things here when I don't feel like they'll get a fair shake. (There were good discussions on some of my other comments, but another one where it became clear that I no real discussion was possible because of ideology combined with the "fucking idiot" comment were enough to have me stop participating.

This is just FYI. I'd love for there to be a place to have good discussions with people. I don't know how to make HN that place, and so I'm just going to use it as a source of articles to read.

I think all news sites that allow downvoting end up operating as a sort of "smear the queer" system for punishing people who have a minority viewpoint, without regard to how well they articulate it or even what they are actually saying (in some cases.)

Edit: Yes this topic got me to log in, and I'll be logging out now. I don't really want to debate the topic that I got attacked over, as my original comment was actually trying to defend someone else's perspective. Please whether you agree with me or not, take this as "market feedback" of what a new user experienced, and why I'm not participating. Maybe I have thin skin in your opinion, that's fine. Maybe I'm way too wordy to participate on a site like this! That's fine too.

Re: How to Disagree

#12

Post by nika »

hasenj wrote: post #7
runningdogx wrote: post #6

Complementing that essay somewhat, a list of fallacies: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_falla... And cognitive biases: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_cogni... Although not all are equally bad.

I've found that a lot of the listed fallacies can have charitable interpretations. A strawman argument where A proposes X and B attacks Y instead of attacking X can often be a case where X indirectly leads to Y and person B assumes that it is known that X leads to Y. Or, X is just Y in disguise. So it's not necessarily a matter of being fallacious, but fully formalizing an argument is often not feasible, so you take…

I've seen this in action. I think if people would just be in the habit of saying "I believe X leads to Y" that would be sufficient, and doesn't require being too formal. But I think that habit is way above the level of discourse in America, where, near as I can tell ideologies and social news sites reinforce a partisan or "if you're not one of us you're not worth respecting" attitude.

Re: How to Disagree

#13

Post by joubert »

The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation.

The only "problem" is that it may be "objectively" convincing, but it rarely convinces the person who's opinion/belief you refute, especially if there are deep emotional or irrational underpinnings, e.g. religion/fear/indoctrination, etc.

Re: How to Disagree

#14

Post by jdp23 »

"The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation... The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point." This is a subjective statement, presented without evidence [DH6, DH5]. In any particular discussion, the most convincing forms of argument depends on the situation, the information both parties have available and their cognitive styles [DH4]. For example [DH3], sometimes highlighting a person's stake in the issue is often very effective. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2156623

As an analytical thinker, Paul seems to be projecting his own preferences to others [DH1] -- and he's left out some techniques that are extremely effective such as appealing to the emotions.

Re: How to Disagree

#15

Post by djcapelis »

xlorm wrote: post #10
cracki wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make me feel constantly judged, arbitrarily even (because how would you ensure level-headed tagging?). It'd be as bad as downvoting, which is deliberately not possible on HN (with few exceptions).

I was assuming po meant some automatic system. If you wanted to use humans maybe you could have moderators do it. I agree that it'd be dangerous to let anyone tag. People on YouTube usually mark anything they disagree with as spam. Hopefully it wouldn't be the same here though. After reading your comment I realized I've seen downvoted comments but I can't downvote. Is there a karma requirement?

Yes. After you hit a certain karma threshold a down arrow shows up and you are able to downvote. The specific threshold varies, but it's below a thousand and above a hundred.

Re: How to Disagree

#16

Post by stcredzero »

The truly intellectually honest way to disagree: Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Make an earnest attempt to make some form of the idea work in the context of everything you know.

This is my litmus test for first-class minds. I've been using this for the past 25 years and I've found that those who truly take this approach are 1) uncommon, 2) impressively smart, 3) genuinely curious, and 4) seem to offer the highest chance for truly profound and productive interactions.

Most often, people fail this test by not using this technique at all, or trying to pass off its doppleganger.

Such people are very easy to spot. Simply pay attention to the possible interpretations of what other people say. You are looking for the one who's always interpreting what others say in the best possible light and who runs with other's ideas, often in a delightful and surprising way.

EDIT: The fakers are easy to spot, by the their bias towards finding fault for other's ideas or their eager gravitation towards straw-man interpretations when more interesting alternatives are easily imagined.

Re: How to Disagree

#17

Post by krmmalik »

stcredzero wrote: post #16

The truly intellectually honest way to disagree: Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Make an earnest attempt to make some form of the idea work in the context of everything you know. This is my litmus test for first-class minds. I've been using this for the past 25 years and I've found that those who truly take this approach are 1) uncommon, 2) impressively smart, 3) genuinely curious, and 4) se…

Along the lines of the Carnegie school of thought, yes?

Re: How to Disagree

#18

Post by yummyfajitas »

nika wrote: post #11

DH0, upvoted to 5 (while my comments are 0 and -1): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138625 This was my first day. I stuck around for a day or two, then I just logged out and stopped participating. Just use this as a site to find links, and when you're not logged in there's no incentive to go see what people said in reply to you, and no focus on karma score or anything. I don't know if the site requires a certain…

I'd suggest not viewing karma as the reward, but rather your influence. Ad-hominem attacks and downvotes are typically a response to cognitive dissonance - your argument or facts forced someone to rethink views they are emotionally attached to, and they don't like it.

You received at least 3 upvotes, and earl received 4. (Actually, most likely you both received a mix of both upvotes and downvotes.) Since I seriously doubt that those are coming from the same people, you influenced 7 people in some way. You made 4 people uncomfortable about their views, but they were unable to rationally respond. That pushes them a little closer to changing their views.

Well done.

Re: How to Disagree

#19

Post by telemachos »

stcredzero wrote: post #16

The truly intellectually honest way to disagree: Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Make an earnest attempt to make some form of the idea work in the context of everything you know. This is my litmus test for first-class minds. I've been using this for the past 25 years and I've found that those who truly take this approach are 1) uncommon, 2) impressively smart, 3) genuinely curious, and 4) se…

> Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love.

Something like this is often known as the principle of charity[1] or the principle of humanity[2]. There's a ton of interesting philosophical work on such principles (why they might be a good idea, whether they underpin all language use, whether they are part of our default belief-desire model for interacting with other people, etc.).

But the best succinct version I know comes from a friend I went to grad school with: "Don't be an asshole."

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_humanity

Re: How to Disagree

#20

Post by stcredzero »

krmmalik wrote: post #17
stcredzero wrote: post #16

The truly intellectually honest way to disagree: Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Make an earnest attempt to make some form of the idea work in the context of everything you know. This is my litmus test for first-class minds. I've been using this for the past 25 years and I've found that those who truly take this approach are 1) uncommon, 2) impressively smart, 3) genuinely curious, and 4) se…

Along the lines of the Carnegie school of thought, yes?

Probably similar, but it's my own formulation which came out of observing 1) how people are dishonest when they discredit other's ideas unfairly and 2) the actions of people I admire as intellectuals.
Post reply on HN