4 ms·

There are better ways of doing that. This type of knowledge, we're prone to overapply to others and underapply to ourselves. You see the many flaws of the enemy

There are better ways of doing that. This type of knowledge, we're prone to overapply to others and underapply to ourselves. You see the many flaws of the enemy camp and don't see as many in your own. So you pigeonhole yourself into staying in your camp without realizing. Better to focus on such mantras as "What do I know and why do I think I know it?" or "If homeopathy is effective, I desire to believe homeopathy is effective; and if homeopathy is ineffective, I desire to believe homeopathy is ineffective. Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want." Or if you like memorizing things, anti-epistemology (https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/anti-epistemology https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/anti-epistemology) seems better to spend time on than logical fallacies.

float4 5y ago
Three things that helped my reasoning skills and rationality: - programming / applied maths; - being forced to memorise ~20 logical fallacies in high school; - growing the hell up and learning that being right just doesn't matter. The third point was the most important. As a child / teenager, I always wanted to win discussions. Even if I knew I was wrong, I'd use every trick in the book to try and win an argument nonetheless. Then, I started studying computer science and I met a lot of highly neurotic people who wanted to be right no matter what. I obviously found them extremely annoying before I realised I was in fact one of them. The very words you use ("You see the many flaws of the enemy camp and don't see as many in your own") are the ones I now try to avoid at all times, because viewing the other as the enemy is what really messed up my reasoning skills. Learning to treat a discussion as a genuine learning opportunity has been a huge blessing for me.
- medstrom 5y ago
  I agree, there is no "enemy camp", but people who frequently perceive one should not learn about fallacies or other rhetoric material. Good post.

float4 5y ago

Three things that helped my reasoning skills and rationality: - programming / applied maths; - being forced to memorise ~20 logical fallacies in high school; - growing the hell up and learning that being right just doesn't matter. The third point was the most important. As a child / teenager, I always wanted to win discussions. Even if I knew I was wrong, I'd use every trick in the book to try and win an argument nonetheless. Then, I started studying computer science and I met a lot of highly neurotic people who wanted to be right no matter what. I obviously found them extremely annoying before I realised I was in fact one of them. The very words you use ("You see the many flaws of the enemy camp and don't see as many in your own") are the ones I now try to avoid at all times, because viewing the other as the enemy is what really messed up my reasoning skills. Learning to treat a discussion as a genuine learning opportunity has been a huge blessing for me.

medstrom 5y ago
I agree, there is no "enemy camp", but people who frequently perceive one should not learn about fallacies or other rhetoric material. Good post.