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Three important lessons from Peter Boghossian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian) on managing deep d
by Jun8 7y ago
Three important lessons from Peter Boghossian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian) on managing deep disagreements:
1. Measure your differences. Rather than devolve into Yes, it is/No, it isn't black and white argument create a scale and place your positions on it. To someone defending "US is a patriarchy", say "If Saudi Arabia is 9/10 on the patriarchy scale where do you think the US is?"
2. Imagine a world where you are wrong. Ask them "What evidence would change your mind?" or "Under what condition may that belief be wrong?"
3. Know what you know. People often confuse the ability to know something with actually knowing something, i.e. they overestimate their actual knowledge on most topic. Ask explanations and questions like "How do you know that?"
- Mirioron 7y agoThe problem with all of this is that it starts by assuming that your conversation partner is talking to you in good faith. This isn't always true. Sometimes the other party simply wishes to argue with you to show others on which side of some line they are on. In those cases, arguing with them is usually a waste of time and can instead get you in trouble with the masses on the "other side".
- panarky 7y agoMost people aren't professional trolls. Most people are willing to talk about polarizing topics if you take the time to build a little rapport and demonstrate authentic respect for them as human beings. Where I usually go wrong is that I bring a lot of facts to the conversation in an attempt to convince my partner that she's wrong, to change her mind, to "win" the argument. This almost never works. I'm not very good at this yet, but I've been trying to move from the "debate" frame to a non-competitive, reciprocal, sharing/learning frame. That means I have to work on myself. If I want my partner to be skeptical about her beliefs, I need to show genuine skepticism about my own beliefs. And some people are so dogmatic that they'll never question what they think they know. In these situations I switch to a "learning" mode and try to understand how they came to believe what they believe. Is it religion, or their social group? Some people think "good people" believe X, so to be a good person they also must believe X. They won't critically examine X because if they stopped believing it, it means they haven't been a good person all these years. Instead, they latch onto every bit of confirming evidence, and ignore all evidence to the contrary. Vaccine deniers want to be good parents, and they would feel horrible if their child got hurt by a vaccine they could have prevented. Bringing facts to discussions with vaccine deniers only strengthens their resolve. Asking questions to understand why they believe what they believe is illuminating for me, whether or not it helps instill a bit of doubt in their minds. But sure, if you don't have rapport, if your partner doesn't argue in good faith, if they're performing for a crowd, then maybe it's best to end the conversation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hackcasual 7y agoThe authors of this article are arguably professional trolls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_Studies_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_Studies_affair
- microcolonel 7y agoNot professional trolls, but experts in academic trolling. Professional trolls make a living on trolling itself, these premiere experts in academic trolling have demonstrated a methodology for determining the willingness of the research community to endorse the truthfulness of deliberately-meaningless just-so nonsense and sweet nothings. The bad-faith actors in this case are the publishers who claim to have read, understood, and verified articles which are little more than epistemological dogwhistle spaghetti.
- hackcasual 7y agoThe trolling was paying to publish nonsense papers in 0 impact score vanity rags and convincing people that implied something about the academic rigor of the fields themselves.
- specialist 7y agoI applaud your intent, efforts. IRL, I've given up. I just nod and smile, make reassuring noises. In my less dejected moments, I'm in the Belief as Attire camp (h/t LessWrong). But mostly I now assume Belief as Identity, heavily impacted by one's fear response (or lack thereof).
- algaeontoast 7y agoI agree with all the points made above, however, very few of those would have value if the person arguing against you resorts to just calling you names, yelling, or defaulting to "nazi", "racist", "white male" etc...
- watwut 7y ago> To someone defending "US is a patriarchy", say "If Saudi Arabia is 9/10 on the patriarchy scale where do you think the US is?" That does not measure difference. That sounds like bad faith attempt to shift the topic. It is the sort of tactic that makes it impossible to discuss X as long as there are places and people who got it worst. It is not managing disagreement, it is just rightfully annoying the other side, because they cant talk about original topic and definition of patriarchy and what not.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- emj 7y agoI'm a believer in those kind of questions, but I think you are right it's hard to be able to judge such things you easily fall in the binary trap. Your disagreemnet leads you to formulate your questions in a non-neutral way, so it feels like trolling.
- jjeaff 7y agoThat's basically how every Republican argument defending Trump goes right now. Oh, well this or that Democrat is even worse or just as bad.