Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively • Hacker News Board

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#81

Post by aardshark » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 12:54 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

I'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…

I don't find your second point compelling in the slightest.

From reading your other responses, my conclusion is that in any hypothetical argument, you wouldn't consider either side to have better reasoning than the other and if you did, you would chalk it up to your own emotional biases.

Your attitude seems incompatible with the concept that one argument can be better than another.

Is my assessment inaccurate or is there some nuance here that I've missed?

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#82

Post by quietbritishjim » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

I'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…

> The entire purpose of emotions is that they are they only place where human motivation comes from.

I agree that this is literally true, but only so long as you include intellectual curiosity as an "emotion". In fact I would count it as an emotion, exactly for the reason that you said - ultimately all human motivation can only be explained by emotion - combined with the fact that clearly most people and even some animals do some things solely out of curiosity. Just like all emotions, curiosity exists because its presence increases your chances of survival (having hunger at the right time decreases your chances of dying due to lack of food, having curiousity at the right time decreases your chances of dying due to lack of knowledge of the environment). Of course it's a lot weaker than other emotions (e.g. if a furious lion is running towards you but has a very strange spot on its nose, you're probably going to run away rather than investigate).

All that sounds like supreme pedantry, but it's important due to this other thing you said:

> everyone argues from an emotional perspective

I think most people reading this sentence would interpret the word "emotional" here in a subtly different way: to exclude intellectual curiousity. The implication is therefore "no one ever really argues because they're just curious about the truth". I agree with the literal meaning of this sentence, but not with that interpretation of "emotion", and not with that conclusion.

I'm sure I see this sort of mix up a lot: two statements that both sound completely reasonable on their own, but use the same word with a subtly but critically different meaning, forcing you to draw a conclusion (because you can't disagree with either part individually) that isn't really true.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#83

Post by ArnoVW » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

phobosanomaly wrote: post #29

Aeolun wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 commonly argue positions I don't necessarily agree with. Often these are ideas that I don't agree with, but I can't articulate exactly why I disagree. When I argue it, I can get others to argue against the idea, and so I can discover points that I may not have been able to put to words. It's essentially idea farming .

Plato called it dialectic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#84

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #74

da39a3ee wrote: post #8

> "An argument should be a collaboration between two people to find the truth." This makes me sad because I agree. And yet, in the USA, your right-wing uncle probably isn't that interested in the truth. And the new generation of identity-politics liberals are the generation who have grown up taught in an academic world infested with post-modernism; they are also less interested in truth, but to their credit, very int…

I wonder how these comparisons manage to take hold and spread. Being balanced doesn't mean being somewhere in the middle between thinking the Earth is flat and thinking the Earth is spherical. It's neither, but it's certainly closer to one of them. What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? I also can't help but notice the incredible irony in repudiating identity politics and post-mod…

> What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring?

Hi, I'm happy to debate this sensibly. Two major areas in which the identity politics movement is inconsistent with how a scientific rationalist society should behave are these:

1. The movement to deny that biological sex is an overwhelmingly important factor shaping human biology, just as it shapes the biology of other mammals. See

https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution-deniers/

https://quillette.com/2020/07/30/think-cancel-culture-doesnt...

2. Deplatforming people with reasonable, rational viewpoints. Richard Dawkins is an example. Look at the most recent deplatforming by a university historical society that has recently become identity-politics oriented (The Hist at Trinity College Dublin). They deplatformed him because "we value our members comfort above all else". So, that is an example of what I said, and that which you took exception to: the identity politics movement being less interested in truth than other things (here "comfort").

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#85

Post by croon » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

da39a3ee wrote: post #84

croon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how these comparisons manage to take hold and spread. Being balanced doesn't mean being somewhere in the middle between thinking the Earth is flat and thinking the Earth is spherical. It's neither, but it's certainly closer to one of them. What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? I also can't help but notice the incredible irony in repudiating identity politics and post-mod…

> What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? Hi, I'm happy to debate this sensibly. Two major areas in which the identity politics movement is inconsistent with how a scientific rationalist society should behave are these: 1. The movement to deny that biological sex is an overwhelmingly important factor shaping human biology, just as it shapes the biology of other mammals. See https:/…

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette

Dawkins wasn't "deplatformed" for his legitimate views, but for islamophobia, which is completely legitimate.

> In 2013, Dawkins came under fire for a series of statements regarding Islam that seemed to blur the line between reason-based resistance to dogma and xenophobic prejudice. He views Islam as the "greatest force for evil in the world today"[35][36] and stated that "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge,"[37].

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#86

Post by liamrosen » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

nor0ck wrote: post #68

Bring the site back up. Been getting this error lately. > Bandwidth Limit Exceeded > The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

Should be back soon. Have a ticket in with my hosting.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#87

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #85

da39a3ee wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? Hi, I'm happy to debate this sensibly. Two major areas in which the identity politics movement is inconsistent with how a scientific rationalist society should behave are these: 1. The movement to deny that biological sex is an overwhelmingly important factor shaping human biology, just as it shapes the biology of other mammals. See https:/…

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette Dawkins wasn't "deplatformed" for his legitimate views, but for islamophobia, which is completely legitimate. > In 2013, Dawkins came under fire for a series of statements regarding Islam that seemed to blur the line between reason-based resistance to dogma and xenophobic prejudice. He views Islam as the "greatest force for evil in the world today"[35][36] and stated that "All…

Do you not think that criticizing a religion is an acceptable thing for someone (e.g. an academic) to do? Indeed, that it would be a terrible thing if our academics were not free to criticize cultural movements such as religions? He wasn't speaking at a kindergarten; he was speaking at a university society that exists to platform intellectual debate.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#88

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #85

da39a3ee wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? Hi, I'm happy to debate this sensibly. Two major areas in which the identity politics movement is inconsistent with how a scientific rationalist society should behave are these: 1. The movement to deny that biological sex is an overwhelmingly important factor shaping human biology, just as it shapes the biology of other mammals. See https:/…

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette Dawkins wasn't "deplatformed" for his legitimate views, but for islamophobia, which is completely legitimate. > In 2013, Dawkins came under fire for a series of statements regarding Islam that seemed to blur the line between reason-based resistance to dogma and xenophobic prejudice. He views Islam as the "greatest force for evil in the world today"[35][36] and stated that "All…

Wow, have you read the RationalWiki entry for Quillette? Just that entry is a good example of how the intolerance of the identity politics movement is spreading into domains that a rational society should be protecting. Read the articles in Quillette that I linked to by Colin Wright -- he was (before his career was ended by identity politics people) very obviously just an evolutionary biologist, not some sort of right wing nutcase!

Compare the Quillette entry with their stated purpose:

  Our purpose here at RationalWiki includes:

  Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement;
  Documenting the full range of crank ideas;
  Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism;
  Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#89

Post by dionidium » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

ElFitz wrote: post #56

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

I'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…

> The entire purpose of emotions is that they are they only place where human motivation comes from. Trying to separate "logic" vs. "emotion" when dealing with humans is a fools' game in my opinion. Not only that. Another aspect is that emotions and "instinct" are much, much older, from an evolutionary perspective, than our very recent reasoning abilities, and way more widespread amongst the animal kingdom than reaso…

> So, while far from perfect, they work. Emotions and instinct kept most of our ancestors and most of the currently living animals both alive and thriving.

It's not just that they work; they matter in and of themselves. For example, it may literally be true that I'm more likely to die from falling furniture than from terrorism, but the fact that I fear terrorism more than falling furniture is relevant on its own terms. The emotions we feel about something like terrorism are real. They have a direct impact on quality of life. And you're not just going to reason people out of them. You can read me the statistics every morning, but my relative fear levels aren't likely to change.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't be educated or that we shouldn't make an effort to control our emotions; it's just to say that the emotions are real and it's ridiculous to dismiss them as irrelevant.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#90

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #42

jhardy54 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that people with autism don't have emotions? I'm trying to understand your comment but I'm having a hard time coming up with a generous interpretation.

My son has mild Asperger syndrome. He has emotions, but I've never seen anyone better at keeping a debate grounded in reason. To an emotional person, he could seem vexingly detached and flat. To my way of thinking, he's just masterful at keeping the discussion on track.

Just to clarify, here's a little more detail about what he's like during a friendly debate (usually with family members):

- He doesn't lose track of the underlying logic, despite any emotionalism that the other party might be exhibiting.

- He doesn't get flustered nearly as quickly as most of his opponents.

- He has more endurance for the debate than most of his opponents do. Usually he's willing to keep on banging away at the argument long after his opponent has lost the will to debate. (No idea if this is a common trait for people with Asperger syndrome, or just something unique to him as an individual.)

Also, I think there are two versions of "flat" speech in this context:

(1) Simply not getting worked up to the same extent as the other person in the debate, like I describe above. I imagine this is what the ancestor comment was referring to.

(2) Speaking with abnormally small variations in tone, volume, and cadence. I.e., what some people refer to "robotic" speech. I think some people associate this with Asperger syndrome.

Interestingly, although my son is shows more telltale Asperger signs than I do, I'm more prone to "flat" speech. Especially when I'm tired, and doubly so if I'm on Adderall.