If you are part of a serious debating society you will be expected to be able to form an argument for or against a concept, viewpoint or position regardless of your personal beliefs.
This is arguing constructively without the entrenched partisan foxholes people dig for themselves which makes it so hard to have civilized discussions and conversation with many people in our current febrile social climate.
Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
31–40 of 109 posts
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't really think any of the tips and strategies in this article are helpful unless both (or all) parties go in to it with this same mindset. You'd be surprised. If there's a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is "devoted follower of the Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively", I think it's possible to have a decent constructive argument with people who are about 30-40 and up. I've certainly done so myself. If y…
>> everyone argues from an emotional perspective. > Certainly you'd agree that there's a scale? It's not black and white. I will edit this part to make that more clear. Actually, not really. You seem to be missing my primary point, which is that thinking that things lie along a single scale where on one hand you have "pure, platonic ideal of reason" and on the other end you have "emotional hysterics". I don't think i…
> > You kind of have to. If you were not emotionally invested in some way, you wouldn’t be arguing.
> That is, I think step one is try to understand why you (and your debate partner) are emotionally incentivized to care about the topic in the first place.
I think this is excellent advise. To add to this, I think often minor details, like the use of some word or terminology can trigger an immediate "emotional reject" response. It then becomes impossible to have a constructive debate because the person will reject all arguments based on that emotional reaction to the minor trigger. It then is very helpful to trace back to the source of the reaction and e.g. agree on different terminology.
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#33I'm trying to build a community of people who want to argue constructively at conferacity.com - hope you'll take a look and get in touch with feedback on how we can improve, or even better, be willing to join and contribute on the site. I particularly hope you might be willing to help if you disagree with the existing writers on the site, that makes your views more valuable!
You can reach me at ghufran@conferacity.com, thanks+++
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't really think any of the tips and strategies in this article are helpful unless both (or all) parties go in to it with this same mindset. You'd be surprised. If there's a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is "devoted follower of the Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively", I think it's possible to have a decent constructive argument with people who are about 30-40 and up. I've certainly done so myself. If y…
>> everyone argues from an emotional perspective. > Certainly you'd agree that there's a scale? It's not black and white. I will edit this part to make that more clear. Actually, not really. You seem to be missing my primary point, which is that thinking that things lie along a single scale where on one hand you have "pure, platonic ideal of reason" and on the other end you have "emotional hysterics". I don't think i…
Sometimes I use emotion in an argument to create ambiguity that the other party fills with some new point.
So, for example, I'm arguing something, I run out of good argument. I dodge by making a vague, emotional point. Then the other party will construct a new argument based on my vague emotional point. This lets me reset and construct a new argument.
It's a way to keep arguing when following a given point down the rabbit hole gets stale.
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#35Intersect with PG's old article? http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#36I'll make these arguments: 1. I don't really think any of the tips and strategies in this article are helpful unless both (or all) parties go in to it with this same mindset. Which means that, for example, I believe it is simply impossible to have these kind of "constructive arguments" on, say, Twitter, for example. One of the things I like most about HN is the guidelines are clear about the goals of the forums, and…
> everyone argues from an emotional perspective You kind of have to. If you were not emotionally invested in some way, you wouldn’t be arguing.
I wonder. I think some politicians argue deliberately and rationally to win over some followers. For them it does not matter what the truth is or whether they believe it themselves but how many people will be convinced to vote for them.
Their followers might not even believe it but still support and spread the argument, for their own selfish reasons.
Say Hitler pronouncing that Jews are an inferior race worthy of destroying. Did his followers really believe that when they agreed with him, or did it just seem in their self-interest to spread such propaganda further, and seize the property of Jews?
Just an example from past but I believe similar examples happen all the time. Some people argue in bad faith. If that is the case there is no reason to argue with them.
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#37Intersect with PG's old article? http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Absolutely. That article inspired the SlateStarCodex article https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/08/varieties-of-argumenta..., which in turn was one of the main inspirations for this guide.
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#38> "Separate Your Arguments From Your Emotions" > "This may sound callous, but if you've tried every strategy in this guide and your debate partner continues to operate at the bottom of the pyramid (for example, continuing to spout inflammatory ad hominem attacks), sometimes the best way to empathize with them is to pretend they have an undiagnosed mental illness. " The article reads like you took every smartass reddi…
> The article reads like you took every smartass redditor on the planet and condensed them down into an article. Why can I not express emotions in an argument, or why do I need to be 'rational', or why can I not be subjective? I don't mean this in an offensive way but why is everyone who argues supposed to pretend they're autistic, because that's honestly how this piece comes across. The author never says you have to…
I've had just as many constructive arguments that were angry, or subjective or whatever else. Hunter S. Thompson wasn't objective, but he was more insightful and sharper and commited to truth than most writers of the time. MLK didn't pull up an excel sheet when he advocated for a cause. Argumentation isn't just about facts, it's about expressing a state of mind and communicating authentically what one thinks, and if someone's angry then they ought to communicate it and I ought to be able to take it, they don't need to pretend to be Spok or something, I don't see the value in that.
I'm not even sure there's an objective definition of what a 'constructive argument' is. You can have an argument to settle a conflict, understand someone better, find an answer to some question, express emotions, demand justice or a hundred other things, a lot of which don't require anything on that list.
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#39I'm trying to build a community of people who want to argue constructively at conferacity.com - hope you'll take a look and get in touch with feedback on how we can improve, or even better, be willing to join and contribute on the site. I particularly hope you might be willing to help if you disagree with the existing writers on the site, that makes your views more valuable! You can reach me at ghufran@conferacity.co…
Just a heads up conferacity.com does not work (address not found) , I needed to go to discourse.conferacity.com, you should probably point the main domain to the discourse subdomain or create some sort of landing page.
Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively
#40> "Separate Your Arguments From Your Emotions" > "This may sound callous, but if you've tried every strategy in this guide and your debate partner continues to operate at the bottom of the pyramid (for example, continuing to spout inflammatory ad hominem attacks), sometimes the best way to empathize with them is to pretend they have an undiagnosed mental illness. " The article reads like you took every smartass reddi…
You can do these things, but the communication would be harder. Because it's difficult to convey subjectivity. But it's easier to convey objectivity. Rationality is the language we have for that.
If you wish to convey your subjectivity, I think art would be a better venue than debate.