How to Disagree • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Disagree

#51

Post by wallflower » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 3:44 AM UTC

JesseAldridge wrote: post #39

On my to-do someday list is a site for recording and organizing debates. Arguments would appear as boxes of text, organized into a tree structure. Opposing arguments could be added as children to a parent node. Arguments could be filtered by up/down voting or some other system. Debate trees could be searched. Etc... Somebody really should make this. I remember messing with some Flash site somewhere that did something…

I think you're on to something here. If the debates weren't structured (e.g. on a single site) but distributed across blogs.

Something that can automatically categorize the blogosphere discussion - e.g. who's agreeing/who's disagreeing (what's the median level of agreement/disagreement). I'd like it for the sole feature of finding/filtering out the (sometimes useless) echo-chamber opinions - to surface the divergent disagreements/opinions

User-originated voting is good but combining it with intelligent algorithmic appraisal (what they are voting by what they are saying) might be interesting

Re: How to Disagree

#52

Post by wallflower » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 3:53 AM UTC

xlnt wrote: post #32

wallflower wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hanging out the other day at a mixer and the subject of travel came up. There were some well-traveled people but it evolved into a pissing contest, their travel resume vs. the other person's. It seemed almost they were trying to one-up the other even when talking about their personal experiences (e.g. Punta Cana is alright for scuba. But. Have you been to Dominica? No? Well let me tell you...) Reading this YC t…

if one side "wins" an argument that means the losing side gets ruled out. thus you both win in the search for the truth, because you've discovered that a particular position is false.

"The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is." Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize laureate

Re: How to Disagree

#53

Post by pius » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 3:54 AM UTC

xlnt wrote: post #42

pius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case it wouldn't be deceit as much as it is manipulation. To avoid any political insinuations, I could recast this as appeal to status quo. It's common to argue against new ideas in this way.

How can you question using conservative arguments? They have been used for centuries, and they've served us pretty well. :)

Funny. :D

Re: How to Disagree

#54

Post by Alex3917 » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 3:55 AM UTC

wanorris wrote: post #41

Alex3917 wrote: post #37

I wish more people wrote stuff like this. There are a million writing books on grammar and style, but god forbid someone ever write something about what makes good ideas...

As mascarenhas already posted, Aristotle spent quite a bit of time on the topic, and his ideas are still studied, though perhaps not as widely as they should be.

The way I read it, the PG essay was meant less as a statement about the absolute nature of reality and more as an attempt to get people to suck less. Even if Aristotle came up with some superset of these ideas 2400 years ago, I think there is still some value here.

Re: How to Disagree

#55

Post by mynameishere » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 3:56 AM UTC

The next level up we start to see responses to the writing, rather than the writer. The lowest form of these is to disagree with the author's tone.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123400

Re: How to Disagree

#56

Post by omouse » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 4:04 AM UTC

anewaccountname wrote: post #25

henning wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, by definition.

No, by definition (or at least English convention) if you "win" an argument you are not winning, but rather "winning" in the sarcastic "wink, wink" sense.

Uh, define "win". And stop using sneer quotes like that. If you want to say it's an alleged win then say so.

Re: How to Disagree

#57

Post by h34t » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 4:09 AM UTC

brlewis wrote: post #13

This is a nice catalog of some common forms of disagreement, but I'm not convinced that this set of six is exhaustive, nor am I convinced that if other forms are added that the set will remain well-ordered.

Each level (DH0,1,2,etc.) could include a variety of forms of disagreement, instead of just one. The resulting chart would become a rough guide to their relative strengths: move "up" the chart for better forms, and "down" for the bad ones (eliminate the one-to-one relationship between "DH-level" and "Form of Disagreement").

It would become more comprehensive, but also harder to present in a simple, compelling, immediately understandable way. Not sure if it'd be worth it.

Re: How to Disagree

#58

Post by jimbokun » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 4:10 AM UTC

pius wrote: post #48

One thing that isn't mentioned in this essay is an appreciation of the concept of having a "preponderance of evidence." In U.S. law, for example, this concept is introduced directly through the burden of proof hierarchy (terms like reasonable suspicion, clear and convincing evidence, reasonable doubt, etc.). While only DH4-DH6 can strictly prove an argument wrong, there are many, many situations in which it is infeas…

"At the end of the day, it depends on your audience. Just ask Karl Rove and James Carville. ;)"

I believe their area of expertise is propaganda, not argument.

(But I suppose both could be a form of rhetoric.)

Re: How to Disagree

#59

Post by pg » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 4:13 AM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #6

Mind if I extend your Disagreement Hierarchy? DH-1. Flamebaiting. This is when you preempt that with which you would disagree by stating your case in such a way as to elicit quick disagreement (in the form of DH0 to DH6). Usually done by noticing a subset of all data, forming a hypothesis to explain only that subset, and presenting it as a conclusion. Often done without even realizing it. The relational database mode…

I considered making DH-1 be physical violence...

Re: How to Disagree

#60

Post by jimbokun » Sat, Mar 29, 2008, 4:13 AM UTC

DocSavage wrote: post #24

PieSquared wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... Doesn't Slashdot sort of do this? Not completely, but to some extent, it does have "Flamebait" or "Interesting" or "Insightful" 'ratings' for comments. I don't really think that's too useful, because it's usually pretty obvious what category the comment falls in after reading it anyway...

Those kinds of tags are too broad. I was thinking of some javascript to let you highlight subparts of a comment then tag it with a more specific label, like "Straw Man Argument." People would probably view the comment differently, but readers (and the author) could then see 60% of people thought part of his comment wasn't useful. Ad hominem and straw dog attacks, for example, might be unintentionally inserted in the…

Startup idea!

Make it so you can tag arbitrary pages from within your browser, and other people visiting the page can see the tags if they wish. Imagine the fun of doing this with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, in addition to blogs and discussion forums, etc. etc.