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> What helps you to sympathize and communicate with others? I try to - Remember virtually no individual or group is 100% right or 100% incorrect about things

> What helps you to sympathize and communicate with others? I try to - Remember virtually no individual or group is 100% right or 100% incorrect about things which require interpretation or value judgements. Even people who I think are often terribly wrong can still occasionally be right about some topic. - Consider sometimes people can reach a generally correct conclusion based on incorrect reasoning, interpretation or data. Conversely, sometimes people can reach substantially incorrect conclusions based on correct reasoning, interpretation or data. - Not to let my feelings about a person or group's other positions influence my assessments about a position in a different domain. - Be aware of the basis and degree of my own preconceived feelings and biases related to a topic. - Remember that everyone is influenced to some degree by their personal experiences, context, knowledge and feelings, even if we're not aware of it. - Ensure I fully understand the other person's position. Especially that I'm not making assumptions or drawing conclusions which may over-simplify, extend or 'extreme' what they're actually saying. I also try to imagine possible 'steelman' forms of their arguments which may be stronger, clearer or more nuanced than what they are saying. - Separate assertions about objective facts from subjective interpretation or conclusions such as policy. Especially that future outcomes cannot be objective facts because they haven't happened. - Apply extra charitable interpretation in areas where I may have strong pre-held notions. - Stay open-minded and ask clarifying questions in a reasonable and neutral tone. - Focus my responses on the most key elements of the arguments actually being made versus the person, style, tone or my feelings.

roenxi 6y ago
> Consider sometimes people can reach a generally correct conclusion based on incorrect reasoning, interpretation or data. Conversely, sometimes people can reach substantially incorrect conclusions based on correct reasoning, interpretation or data. I'm worried this one will get lost in amongst all the other good points. Human society has numerous mechanisms (traditions and ethics being the big ones, but also rules and stories) that are there to guide people to make good decisions even if they can't explain why they are good. Everyone knows lying is bad, for example. But in my experience the behaviour of a lot of people shows they don't actually understand why - I suspect they think it is bad because they fear punishment more than because they understand global optimum equilibriums. It is remarkably common for good ideas to be floating around that people struggle to justify.
- nemosaltat 6y ago
  That point stood out to me as well. In The Problems of Philosophy [0], Bertrand Russell summarizes this phenomenon nicely > At first sight we might imagine that knowledge could be defined as "true belief." When what we believe is true, it might be supposed that we had achieved a knowledge of what we believe. But this would not accord with the way in which the word is commonly used. To take a very trivial instance: If a man believes that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, he believes what is true, since the late Prime Minister was Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. But if he believes that Mr. Balfour was the late Prime Minister, he will still believe that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, yet this belief, though true, would not be thought to constitute knowledge. If a newspaper, by an intelligent anticipation, announces the result of a battle before any telegram giving the result has been received, it may by good fortune announce what afterwards turns out to be the right result, and it may produce belief in some of its less experienced readers. But in spite of the truth of their belief, they cannot be said to have knowledge. Thus it is clear that a true belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from a false belief. [0] (https://www.wmcarey.edu/crockett/russell/xiii.htm https://www.wmcarey.edu/crockett/russell/xiii.htm)
- ThomPete 6y ago
  there is a third possibility. Sometime people reach different but correct conclusions based on the same information but a different valueset

roenxi 6y ago

> Consider sometimes people can reach a generally correct conclusion based on incorrect reasoning, interpretation or data. Conversely, sometimes people can reach substantially incorrect conclusions based on correct reasoning, interpretation or data. I'm worried this one will get lost in amongst all the other good points. Human society has numerous mechanisms (traditions and ethics being the big ones, but also rules and stories) that are there to guide people to make good decisions even if they can't explain why they are good. Everyone knows lying is bad, for example. But in my experience the behaviour of a lot of people shows they don't actually understand why - I suspect they think it is bad because they fear punishment more than because they understand global optimum equilibriums. It is remarkably common for good ideas to be floating around that people struggle to justify.

nemosaltat 6y ago
That point stood out to me as well. In The Problems of Philosophy [0], Bertrand Russell summarizes this phenomenon nicely > At first sight we might imagine that knowledge could be defined as "true belief." When what we believe is true, it might be supposed that we had achieved a knowledge of what we believe. But this would not accord with the way in which the word is commonly used. To take a very trivial instance: If a man believes that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, he believes what is true, since the late Prime Minister was Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. But if he believes that Mr. Balfour was the late Prime Minister, he will still believe that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, yet this belief, though true, would not be thought to constitute knowledge. If a newspaper, by an intelligent anticipation, announces the result of a battle before any telegram giving the result has been received, it may by good fortune announce what afterwards turns out to be the right result, and it may produce belief in some of its less experienced readers. But in spite of the truth of their belief, they cannot be said to have knowledge. Thus it is clear that a true belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from a false belief. [0] (https://www.wmcarey.edu/crockett/russell/xiii.htm https://www.wmcarey.edu/crockett/russell/xiii.htm)
ThomPete 6y ago
there is a third possibility. Sometime people reach different but correct conclusions based on the same information but a different valueset