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I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

rakejake 8y ago
Very good point. The internet was a great opportunity to test divisive/contrarian hypotheses. In the ideal case, you get counter arguments which will help you come up with a decision rule. Unfortunately it does not work this way in most cases. Today. the mechanics of internet forums works such that on average, the safe milquetoast post gets the most points, so it devolves into a popularity contest of who gets the most Internet points, especially when the person is not anonymous.
sideaccount 8y ago
This could also be considered gaslighting, or just plain old attention seeking behavior.
- asveikau 8y ago
  This sounds like paranoia. I have absolutely no malicious intent, do not make such arguments by lying, and don't do it for attention.
  - sideaccount 8y ago
    That's good.
- nvrspyx 8y ago
  There’s certainly a fine line between playing devil’s advocate to measure the strength of an argument and “trolling”, much like, as an example, there is a fine line between hunting an animal for sustenance and hunting an animal for sport.
  - sideaccount 8y ago
    I completely agree, generally when I play devil's advocate, I preface it with: "Playing devils advocate, how would you respond to this counter point". The fine line is whether or not the other participants in the conversation are aware of your intent to play devil's advocate. If you are the only one who knows you are playing devil's advocate, your intent might be misconstrued. And if they never find out you were playing devils advocate, then well...
    - asveikau 8y ago
      If someone else might hold that view legitimately and it stands on reasonable logic by itself, does it matter if someone is playing "devil's" advocate or not? Maybe this is not devil's advocate but something called empathy?
marstomorrow 8y ago
I have come across this in some friends. It's super interesting but also dangerous. It has taken me sometimes years or a decade to fully come to terms with some past debates. My friends would seemingly hold opinions and cling to them dearly, opinions I felt were so unconscionable I could not imagine holding them. Friendships were strained and maybe some lost. They tell me now that they were doing as you do, and that they did not hold those opinions but were merely testing them and practicing debating, learning about both sides, etc. But I wonder about the unintended consequences of this. How many 'opinions' are out there in the world purely to cause pain? What portion of opinions that are shared on social media or the news actual opinions from those people, vs crafted statements of trolling themselves? When you take the 'other side' for practice, is there really a valid [1] other side to take? I find often that the other side is based on logical fallacies and is not, at its base, a valid argument. I wonder if you are creating distance between you and others while you test out the opinions of propagandists? How valid [1 again] really are all these opinions? [1] Okay here we go with this. I am indeed calling some opinions "invalid". What I mean is, I do not think it is a valid opinion to cause harm to minorities on purpose. I think this is cruel and amounts to a crime in our society. But you will find people advocating it loudly on social media and TV - and their arguments are based on treating humans cruelly for no reason other than the cruelty and other various logical fallacies. If you are to take stances that you don't agree with, please check them logically first before putting those arguments out there in the world. Some things are better understood without trying to understand 'the other side', simply because it is not going to be based in logic and has no possible outcome of being 'understood'.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  If you are to take stances that you don't agree with, please check them logically first before putting those arguments out there in the world. You know, some could make the argument that in order to satisfy the second demand of your sentence here, one has to indulge in the first. I don't know if I would, but maybe that's the point ;)
  - monetus 8y ago
    The irony in this made me chuckle, thanks for that.
rciorba 8y ago
Here's my take on when people do this: Unless someone prefaces their statements with a disclaimer (like "just for the sake of the argument"), I will assume in good faith they believe their own statements. Any later claim to the contrary leaves me with the following choice to make: were they lying then, or are they lying now.
- asveikau 8y ago
  This seems a little extreme. A lot of discussions are too abstract to bother prefacing with "this is not my actual view". I don't think it should be called lying if my own opinion is not very relevant, or the thing being discussed. A lot of the time this can take the shape of "have you considered...?" or "what if...?", so there is a built in hypothetical.
- thomascgalvin 8y ago
  It seems to me that even when a statement is prefaced with something like "just for the sake of the argument", this is just a cover, allowing the writer to state an unpopular (or hateful, or patently wrong) opinion, while hopefully shielding themselves from some of the blowback. It's the whole "I'm just asking the question" phenomena, and I see it a lot with people who claim to be centrists but are more accurately described as right wing reactionaries. It allows them to seed the discussion with bullshit, without having to defend any of it.
  - Fellshard 8y ago
    Presuming that is always the case will also lead you to some very incharitable conclusions, and in turn lead /you/ to take up the lattermost position of the article: taking up positions solely in order to be in opposition.
  - anigbrowl 8y ago
    There's lots of rhetorical contexts where it's a valid approach if both parties are operating in good faith - ie in pursuit of some mutually agreeable truth or within the bounds of some mutually agreed-upon process such as litigation. Many bitter political debates involve the deliberate confusion of substantive and rhetorical claims for deceptive effect.
tomrod 8y ago
This is called Sandboxing, for what it's worth, and it is absolutely essential for understanding an idea. Shane Parrish of Farnam Street and Sam Harris recently sat down and chatted,in part, about this need. Highly recommend giving a listen.[0] [0] https://samharris.org/podcasts/155-mental-models/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/155-mental-models/
empath75 8y ago
I used to do that frequently and eventually came to hold some of those positions. In particular I convinced myself to be pro-choice after sort of arguing about abortion for sport with my very Christian conservative family.
coheeman1 8y ago
This is pretty much what the Sophists did professionally. In the city state of Athens there were no such things as 'lawyers' to represent you. If you had a legal problem and it was brought up to court (typically consisting of dozens, sometimes hundreds of judges) you argued your case yourself. Those who were better orators had a better chance of winning, so the nobility and rich often went to schools where they practiced rhetoric. This obviously meant having to argue over the dumbest and inane things possible, some of these discourses we've managed to preserve over the millennia.
wolf7 8y ago
I would recommend watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4
- asveikau 8y ago
  I watched half of it before deciding I don't understand how this relates. If we're talking about arguments in which the objective truth is unambiguous (eg. who invaded Spain), there is no argument among reasonable people. And I explicitly said I am talking about adopting positions for the purpose of argument not to "attack the other side".

rakejake 8y ago

Very good point. The internet was a great opportunity to test divisive/contrarian hypotheses. In the ideal case, you get counter arguments which will help you come up with a decision rule. Unfortunately it does not work this way in most cases. Today. the mechanics of internet forums works such that on average, the safe milquetoast post gets the most points, so it devolves into a popularity contest of who gets the most Internet points, especially when the person is not anonymous.

sideaccount 8y ago

This could also be considered gaslighting, or just plain old attention seeking behavior.

asveikau 8y ago
This sounds like paranoia. I have absolutely no malicious intent, do not make such arguments by lying, and don't do it for attention.
- sideaccount 8y ago
  That's good.
nvrspyx 8y ago
There’s certainly a fine line between playing devil’s advocate to measure the strength of an argument and “trolling”, much like, as an example, there is a fine line between hunting an animal for sustenance and hunting an animal for sport.
- sideaccount 8y ago
  I completely agree, generally when I play devil's advocate, I preface it with: "Playing devils advocate, how would you respond to this counter point". The fine line is whether or not the other participants in the conversation are aware of your intent to play devil's advocate. If you are the only one who knows you are playing devil's advocate, your intent might be misconstrued. And if they never find out you were playing devils advocate, then well...
  - asveikau 8y ago
    If someone else might hold that view legitimately and it stands on reasonable logic by itself, does it matter if someone is playing "devil's" advocate or not? Maybe this is not devil's advocate but something called empathy?

marstomorrow 8y ago

I have come across this in some friends. It's super interesting but also dangerous. It has taken me sometimes years or a decade to fully come to terms with some past debates. My friends would seemingly hold opinions and cling to them dearly, opinions I felt were so unconscionable I could not imagine holding them. Friendships were strained and maybe some lost. They tell me now that they were doing as you do, and that they did not hold those opinions but were merely testing them and practicing debating, learning about both sides, etc. But I wonder about the unintended consequences of this. How many 'opinions' are out there in the world purely to cause pain? What portion of opinions that are shared on social media or the news actual opinions from those people, vs crafted statements of trolling themselves? When you take the 'other side' for practice, is there really a valid [1] other side to take? I find often that the other side is based on logical fallacies and is not, at its base, a valid argument. I wonder if you are creating distance between you and others while you test out the opinions of propagandists? How valid [1 again] really are all these opinions? [1] Okay here we go with this. I am indeed calling some opinions "invalid". What I mean is, I do not think it is a valid opinion to cause harm to minorities on purpose. I think this is cruel and amounts to a crime in our society. But you will find people advocating it loudly on social media and TV - and their arguments are based on treating humans cruelly for no reason other than the cruelty and other various logical fallacies. If you are to take stances that you don't agree with, please check them logically first before putting those arguments out there in the world. Some things are better understood without trying to understand 'the other side', simply because it is not going to be based in logic and has no possible outcome of being 'understood'.

dvtrn 8y ago
If you are to take stances that you don't agree with, please check them logically first before putting those arguments out there in the world. You know, some could make the argument that in order to satisfy the second demand of your sentence here, one has to indulge in the first. I don't know if I would, but maybe that's the point ;)
- monetus 8y ago
  The irony in this made me chuckle, thanks for that.

rciorba 8y ago

Here's my take on when people do this: Unless someone prefaces their statements with a disclaimer (like "just for the sake of the argument"), I will assume in good faith they believe their own statements. Any later claim to the contrary leaves me with the following choice to make: were they lying then, or are they lying now.

asveikau 8y ago
This seems a little extreme. A lot of discussions are too abstract to bother prefacing with "this is not my actual view". I don't think it should be called lying if my own opinion is not very relevant, or the thing being discussed. A lot of the time this can take the shape of "have you considered...?" or "what if...?", so there is a built in hypothetical.
thomascgalvin 8y ago
It seems to me that even when a statement is prefaced with something like "just for the sake of the argument", this is just a cover, allowing the writer to state an unpopular (or hateful, or patently wrong) opinion, while hopefully shielding themselves from some of the blowback. It's the whole "I'm just asking the question" phenomena, and I see it a lot with people who claim to be centrists but are more accurately described as right wing reactionaries. It allows them to seed the discussion with bullshit, without having to defend any of it.
- Fellshard 8y ago
  Presuming that is always the case will also lead you to some very incharitable conclusions, and in turn lead /you/ to take up the lattermost position of the article: taking up positions solely in order to be in opposition.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  There's lots of rhetorical contexts where it's a valid approach if both parties are operating in good faith - ie in pursuit of some mutually agreeable truth or within the bounds of some mutually agreed-upon process such as litigation. Many bitter political debates involve the deliberate confusion of substantive and rhetorical claims for deceptive effect.

tomrod 8y ago

This is called Sandboxing, for what it's worth, and it is absolutely essential for understanding an idea. Shane Parrish of Farnam Street and Sam Harris recently sat down and chatted,in part, about this need. Highly recommend giving a listen.[0] [0] https://samharris.org/podcasts/155-mental-models/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/155-mental-models/

empath75 8y ago

I used to do that frequently and eventually came to hold some of those positions. In particular I convinced myself to be pro-choice after sort of arguing about abortion for sport with my very Christian conservative family.

coheeman1 8y ago

This is pretty much what the Sophists did professionally. In the city state of Athens there were no such things as 'lawyers' to represent you. If you had a legal problem and it was brought up to court (typically consisting of dozens, sometimes hundreds of judges) you argued your case yourself. Those who were better orators had a better chance of winning, so the nobility and rich often went to schools where they practiced rhetoric. This obviously meant having to argue over the dumbest and inane things possible, some of these discourses we've managed to preserve over the millennia.

wolf7 8y ago

I would recommend watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4

asveikau 8y ago
I watched half of it before deciding I don't understand how this relates. If we're talking about arguments in which the objective truth is unambiguous (eg. who invaded Spain), there is no argument among reasonable people. And I explicitly said I am talking about adopting positions for the purpose of argument not to "attack the other side".