20 ms·

Arguing from compassion (2021)

• teddyh 4y ago
  Of course one should be compassionate and understanding of others, except towards those who are violent, or advocates for violence, or hate, or those who expressly support those who do, or indirectly, or by inaction allow them to exist. …say the people advocating for ostracism and demonization of their opponents. I agree with this article; there is entirely too much of that kind of behavior going on, and not enough of its opposite.
  • chasd00 4y ago
    > or by inaction allow them to exist. So basically anyone who is not as passionate about some random issue as you are. This is a problem, you can’t even ask to talk about something else without becoming the enemy.
    • rendall 4y ago
      I think it's meant sarcastically.
      • throwaway894345 4y ago
        The give away is the second paragraph.
• aspaviento 4y ago
  Is it really necessary all this verbosity to convey ideas? I feel like all this sugarcoat is just to excesively protect people's feelings, a tendency that is spreading everywhere lately.
  • k__ 4y ago
    It makes sense to me. Often, I see people arguing straw or steel with either their limited view of the oponents position or with the basic asumption that their oponent is an idiot or malicious.
    • spacemanmatt 4y ago
      A phrase I have to issue here on occasion is, "they didn't misunderstand you, they just disagree."
      • k__ 4y ago
        One does not exclude the other.
        • spacemanmatt 4y ago
          how much value can you place on a disagreement based on a misunderstanding, though? i don't think that's the relevant case.
          • erezyehuda 4y ago
            I think a big part of this topic discussion is that there's a LOT of value in those- that many disagreements are simply down to having a different understanding about context and facts, and that giving the other person the benefit of the doubt can help people navigate those. It actually seems like one of the most relevant cases to me.
            • spacemanmatt 4y ago
              Understood. And agreed about the nature of many disagreements coming down to context and facts. My comment is aimed at people who seem to insist that other posters don't understand their context or have all the facts, when they actually do and yet continue to disagree.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
  • rendall 4y ago
    Sometimes, when discussing controversial or polarizing ideas, you do need extra signaling to convey that you're taking them seriously. It would be nice to live in a world wherein this could be taken for granted, and someday perhaps we will. Alas, not in these times.
  • oldcigarette 4y ago
    Economics, sociology and psychology all tend to say very little with very many words to the extent that the message gets lost and people don't even know what they are discussing. You see it to a lesser extent in software and math too though - just look at any mathematical article on wikipedia. The "dynamic programming" article is a good one for this. I'm not sure this is a new problem.
    • ramraj07 4y ago
      I agree your premise in a limited context: non fiction books. Non fiction books often pad out very little info into an entire tome simply because that’s one of the few ways you can make money from your idea. But this doesn’t apply just to economics. The most egregious of this are books about programming languages and architecture if you ask me. In philosophy and elsewhere, a good author might write a lot but still be concise. That’s just because they have a lot to say. Or they need more examples. This article wasn’t even that verbose. I don’t see how what he said related to star man though, but that’s a different topic.
    • ChadNauseam 4y ago
      I don't know much about sociology and psychology, but I can say that I'm surprised by this characterization of economics. I'm sure you know what you're talking about, but it's my impression that economics is a subject with a lot of depth, and also tries to communicate its ideas to laypeople with concise approximations like "P=MC"
  • scratcheee 4y ago
    To just convey ideas? Of course it's not necessary. To convince someone to change their world view? This is nowhere near _enough_, just a small start. They were not talking about couching every fact or snippet taught in physics class getting couched in all this extra "sugarcoating". They were talking about the kind of conversations that almost never go well at all - they're trying to improve the odds of an interaction convincing someone to change their polarized viewpoint from 0.01% to 0.03%. For that use-case, obviously there's value in exploring different techniques, given the typical technique (scream at them and then block them) doesn't work well at all at actually changing their mind.
    • aspaviento 4y ago
      No matter how soft and gentle your touch is, when you are trying to change someone else's values, if they are not up to accept other point of views, it will go bad. All this sugarcoat could be interpreted as you trying to patronize them, seeing them as intelectually inferior or who knows what other negative connotation they can infer.
      • scratcheee 4y ago
        Agreed that patting someone on the head and telling them they're a good boy despite their nazi views isn't the right move, though that's pretty clearly a strawman of what's being suggested here.
  • vintermann 4y ago
    Verbosity? By the lingo, I assume the author is at least tangentially associated with the online rationalism thing, Slate Star Codex and Yudkowsky and effective altruism and all that. By their standards, this is a damn haiku.
  • ParetoOptimal 4y ago
    > feel like all this sugarcoat is just to excesively protect people's feelings, a tendency that is spreading everywhere lately. The most rational thing someone can do is accept the reality that acknowledging feelings and emotion are a pre-requisite to problem solving.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  > Anyone who has spent time arguing on social media has heard of the straw man fallacy. I think the main issue is the folly of arguing on social media. It is a setup for dehumanizing and vilifying the other. I think most arguments on social media are about snark and signaling to your own tribe how smart you are more than actually trying to understand the truth or convince people holding a different view. Conversations among friends over a beer are much more likely to enlightening and possibly persuasive.
  • teddyh 4y ago
    The lines between real life and social media are blurring. You hear more and more commonly about people cutting all ties with old friends or even family members about relatively simple things. It’s a more accepted thing to do now – complete ostracism of those who we disagree with – instead of trying to find common ground.
    • Kye 4y ago
      It often turns out the person who got cut off was a giant asshole who 100% deserved it. You might not have sufficient visibility into the experience of the person who cut someone off to judge their actions fairly. You see this a lot in people whose kids have cut off contact. From their perspective, the cutting off was sudden and shocking. From their kid's perspective, it was the last-ditch effort to reclaim autonomy and preserve sanity after a lifetime of abuse and endless attempts to set boundaries and seek change. An outside observer is missing key details.
      • teddyh 4y ago
        I believe that the percieved threshold of “giant asshole who 100% deserved it” is lowering.
        • lotsofpulp 4y ago
          Perhaps dependencies are being reduced. “Cutting off” is harder when you depend, or might need to depend on someone, assuming they have something of use for you.
• safety1st 4y ago
  I'm really impressed by this idea. I've never heard of the idea of "star-manning" an argument before, I presume the author invented it, it's good food for thought. There's another interesting term in here - "ideological capture" - seems like this refers to the state where a person or organization is supporting policy based on ideology or group identity rather than what policy would yield the best outcomes for all of the people involved. I don't think star-manning is a replacement for steel-manning. More like there are situations where no matter how well you steel-man someone's argument, they're not going to listen, because you don't like each other (or each other's views). Maybe the place where this idea is most applicable is when someone else is in an adversarial mode, it's really the person themselves that you need to "star-man" to establish that common ground is possible and get them into a cooperative mode.
  • zmgsabst 4y ago
    I still think steelmanning is the right path to addressing conflict. Even in very tense settings, it’s hard for people to be disagreeable about you accurately relaying their view — maybe even better than they did themselves. That makes people feel listened to and understood, which are powerful motivators in human psychology. I won’t pretend I always do this, but I’ve certainly had the best success inquiring about their position until I can steelman it and only then addressing why I disagree. As Chris Voss would say, you don’t want them to say “you’re right”, you want them to say “that’s right”.
• agentgumshoe 4y ago
  I don't understand how this adds anything different really than assuming the opponent is the worst. I would expect the advice to be 'make no assumptions about the character of the person arguing and instead try to argue purely the content presented.' Star-man seems like some inverse ad-hominem.
  • smeej 4y ago
    Many (most?) people identify with their ideas. They consider their ideas to be parts of, or manifestations of, themselves. This is why, if you attack an idea, the person defending it feels threatened. They go into a fight-or-flight mode, which almost completely deactivates their ability to evaluate your arguments rationally. Star-manning makes clear from the start that you recognize, appreciate, and share their intentions. You aren't opposed to the things they care about the most. You're actually an ally. They don't need to fight you or run from you. From this vantage point, you can discuss strategies for accomplishing the goals you both share, and there is a much higher likelihood they will be open to hearing the reasons you think your strategy will be more effective than they would if their hindbrain activated at the beginning of the conversation.
    • exodust 4y ago
      From the article: "More often, you will run into ordinary people under the influence of bad ideas—ideas that lead them to think and act in misguided, even monstrous ways." So a presumptuous negativity lurks behind starman? The tone is like "we can cure those people infected with bad ideas, with healing power of compassion".
      • rendall 4y ago
        I took that as more a way to reach those readers who already think this way. Kind of "If you are trying to reach someone who is under the influence of ideas you think are bad, try empathizing with the values that led them to these ideas."
        • 4y ago
• roenxi 4y ago
  This is a really good idea for people who are thoughtful and genuinely want to learn the truth. There problems with it in practice. Some people have made their political ideology the foundation that they build their ego on. Any disagreement is intolerable. Others are not thoughtful enough to understand that there can be genuine disagreement in the world of both thought and action which needs to be tolerated. These people will ruin any concept of starmanning that catches hold by using it as a passive-aggressive cudgel ("I'm sure you are a good person and therefore you will immediately cease your opposition and accept my arguments!", "I'm sure you want to be a good person and therefore can't really believe these things you are saying, which are only for bad people!", "Why are you resisting when I'm starmanning you, you must be Hitler 2.0"). But without labelling it, I do endorse the technique. Almost everyone wants the world to get better.
  • synu 4y ago
    Unfortunately this is true, even with non-political topics. Some people will treat sincere questions trying to understand their point of view as attacks and keep escalating/trying to make it personal. In the end there isn’t a lot you can do about it, except learn when to cut bait and move on. I agree with you that it’s still worth trying.
    • throwaway0asd 4y ago
      Just walk away. Unless you are in politics or sales you aren’t forced to convince stupid people of anything. Don’t cast pearls before swine.
      • kgwxd 4y ago
        When swine have the ability to vote, everyone is in politics regardless if they want to be or not. Just ignoring them has major consequences.
        • JasserInicide 4y ago
          Nah, fuck this "everything is politics" attitude. Politics is everywhere because you make it everywhere. It's a big part of the reason why discourse is as fucked up as it is. Every discussion/encounter has to be won/lost based on your ideology.
• amadeuspagel 4y ago
  Much like steelmanning, I fear that starmanning ends up serving as an excuse to ignore the actual thought of your opponents, and to make up some version that feels more comfortable.
  • rendall 4y ago
    That's the opposite of steelmanning. Steelmanning is engaging with the actual thought of your opponents. Strawmanning is ignoring the actual thought of your opponents in favor of an easy-to-counter or ridiculous idea.
• gregwebs 4y ago
  Summary: Focus first on figuring out the common goal that you are both trying to achieve. From there you can try to discuss the differences in approaches to that goal that you have come up with and steel man the other side. This seems like a great approach to gain a better understanding of the big picture context, avoid arguing, and have a productive discussion. What is missing from this essay for me is the acknowledgement that people often do want different things because they do have different values. I think this approach though would make it easier to recognize differences in values and separate out values from facts.
  • rendall 4y ago
    I don't think this is a good summary. My understanding of the idea is to steel-man the opponent's argument and then also add a codicil that describes what compassionate values they have that lead them to that point of view.
    • gregwebs 4y ago
      Yes, I agree your summary is more accurate of what is written in the article. I think the emphasis of mine is an improvement on what is suggested here. Shifting from arguing towards conversation produces better outcomes in my experience.
• throwaway894345 4y ago
  For the folks here who are active on Twitter, the author is definitely worth a follow, especially if you’re trying to build a reprieve from the normal vitriolic Twitter experience. https://mobile.twitter.com/StrangelEdweird https://mobile.twitter.com/StrangelEdweird He also has half a dozen articles for NewsWeek that readers may find interesting: https://www.newsweek.com/authors/angel-eduardo https://www.newsweek.com/authors/angel-eduardo
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  This is how I've operated for most of my adult life. It is generally not received well. It seems to be taken as weakness. It just happened yesterday, on this very forum. I do it anyway, because I'm clean-shaven, and need to look at myself, every morning. I've never thought it needed a name, although the Bowie reference is nice.
  • fritztastic 4y ago
    It can be incredibly draining. I think it's important to also have boundaries and know how to "pick your battles". Some people are unwilling or unable to open themselves up by being sincere, having a genuine discussion can leave people feeling vulnerable and there's a level of trust and willingness to take a risk necessary to truly have a deep discussion about certain topics. Sometimes it's just not possible. Some people have impenetrable barriers they will defend with no regard for how they do so and the way it affects others. That being said I like to think of it like I'm reaching out to someone, and often they don't reach back, in a majority of cases they don't want that contact. Those times when someone does, though, brings me great hope.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
      Absolutely. In yesterday's thread, for example, the other party had a specific agenda, and wouldn't budge, so I let them have it. I did give them a couple of chances, nevertheless. It is annoying, though, when folks cast a willingness to recognize all sides of an argument as being "biased," because it does not agree with their side. I also don't like being called a liar, which is what they did, I assume, because they were unable to comprehend being able to recognize all sides of an issue (I was raised amongst diplomats, so I got that kind of thinking since I was a wee sprog).
  • jimkleiber 4y ago
    > I do it anyway, because I'm clean-shaven, and need to look at myself, every morning. I really appreciate this point. I do this not necessarily to win the argument or change how the other person is thinking/feeling, I do it mostly because I feel better when I do it. Believing someone is out to get me can cause me a lot of fear. Believing they don't care about me can cause me a lot of loneliness. Believing they're trying their best and are swamped with suffering? I actually feel relieved and maybe even grateful that they may have tried so hard to help me. Will I ever know their deepest intentions? Probably not, but I sure feel a lot better when I believe they have good intentions for me. Glad to see you comment on here, you're one of the few names I recognize on HN and appreciate what you said and what you often say, thank you.
• notacoward 4y ago
  Another possibility: instead of assuming anything, ask questions to clarify where the speaker/writer is coming from. In my experience, people who are arguing in good faith will be glad to go along (as long as you're truly questioning and not badgering or cross-examining). People who are arguing in bad faith will resist, evade, try to turn things around etc. The difference is usually apparent as soon as you ask the first question.
• DoreenMichele 4y ago
  I think it's helpful to think in terms of merely trying to explain my point of view and share my knowledge. I'm usually looking for conversation, not argument. Then I don't need to worry so much about winning or making points. It's easier to be kind, compassionate, etc when engaging from that space.
  • jimkleiber 4y ago
    Yes! I want to share what's happening with me and receive what's happening with them. When I read this article, I think I took away that it was mostly about hearing what's happening with others, and I think it's missing that piece of us sharing what's happening with us first.
• igorkraw 4y ago
  > Yes, Nazis and white supremacists represent a particularly deranged set of ideas, but with compassion it is possible to tease the humanity out of even them. If Daryl Davis can convert Klansmen, surely you can find common ground with someone on the other end of the political spectrum. > ...The key (...) is the recognition that (...) most of us are not as opposed to one another as we think. Our discourse is rife with belligerence and bile, and our platforms are designed to stoke polarization. Spoken like someone who hasn't dealt with Nazis and other authoritarian and/or moralistic political radicals before, as well as a false equivalency. The problem with Nazis, white supremacist and tankies is not that they are personally evil, or that we find their ideas morally abhorrent. The problem is that their ideologies require an enemy, an underclass etc., and that the way they want to achieve good things by eradicating a scapegoat with violence. This means that while you can agree, agree to disagree or compromise on whether we should spend amount X,Y or inbetween on $socialprogram, but you can't really do this with the classes of beliefs which are expansionary and authoritarian. You can't do violence to a specific scapegoat group of people "only a little bit" and have them be okay with it. And the reason why people come up with these beliefs are not the same reasoning process that other beliefs are adopted. You cannot logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into. -- Now, all of this is not to demean the idea behind this post. It is true that the only way to deradicalize people is to find the irrational core behind their ideas and try to address that. I've had hour long discussions with "patriots" making BS arguments about the inherent sociocultural predisposition of black people towards crime, consistently trying to dig at why they really believed what they did - in the end, they had a traumatic experience getting mugged. After arriving at this, it was able to empathize, connect with them, and start shaking the beliefs. But importantly, this was after I had interrupted them spreading "race realist" propaganda to a younger colleague of ours. The order of operations when dealing with people holding harmful beliefs (which are almost universally authoritarian, moralistic or of the "fuck you, I got mine" banal egoism) is to 1. stop them from doing harm/do harm reduction 2. try to connect with them as humans and try to deal with the trauma that almost always underlies their beliefs Trying to compromise with people who are unwilling to compromise is how you get the slide into fundamentalist christianity (to quote the republican senator Kinzinger "the christian taliban" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/30/kinzinger-boebert-church-state-christian-taliban https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/30/kinzinger-bo... ) that the US has been experiencing throughout the last decades. If you try to rationally and civilly deal with people not interested in being rational and civil but only about pushing their view of the world onto you, it won't work. In order to get that treatment, the beliefs need to be of a kind which is itself tolerant to others. Secular societies leaving the choice of abortion to women fulfills this condition: no-one is stopping hardcore christians from not aborting. But a society which forces women to come to term but does not also force everyone to donate blood and organs to those in need and does not provide a UBI cannot use the "life must be preserved" argument - it is simply imposing one extremely specific behavioural rule onto one specific subgroup of the population. I know it is a radical take, but there are actual differences between beliefs. Acting as if there isn't does not bridge gaps, it simply pulls us towards extremes.
• possible_option 4y ago
  Steelmanning / starmanning are viable ONLY IF the other part is really arguing in good faith. Assuming good faith is not always effective: it's completely vulnerable to various forms of trolling including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it." Trolls love making people waste their time refuting bullshit. Choose wisely who to argue with.
  • koheripbal 4y ago
    The vast majority of conversations about politics have negative value.
  • closedloop129 4y ago
    >Sealioning (also sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity The audience are the other readers, not the other commenter. It's enough to convince them. If valid arguments are not enough for them then that's their problem.
• amalcon 4y ago
  I see a few folks in these comments essentially saying "If only everyone else would do this!" This rather misses the point. You don't empathize with your opposition for their sake; you do it for your own sake. You do it because you might learn something. You do it because it helps to build relationships, like (say) the famous friendship between the late justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. You even do it because your argument will be more effective. But the bottom line is that you do it because it's better for your own mental health if you try to think of the people around you as good.
  • pjscott 4y ago
    You're right that this has unilateral benefits, but it's even better if something like this becomes encoded in social norms. For example, there are online communities where it's simply expected that you'll assume good faith and basic decency from the people you're arguing with. To do otherwise would be a serious faux pas. There are also online communities where everything immediately devolves into flamewars in which everyone is shouting and no-one is listening, and that is considered normal and inevitable. And then of course there's a whole spectrum in-between. I can tell you from experience: the places with nicer discourse norms are more pleasant and the discussions tend to be much more interesting and productive. (Compare HN with, say, most of Twitter.)
• Telemakhos 4y ago
  I fail to see how praising the opponent differs from an ad hominem fallacy except in tone: addressing the interlocutor instead of the issue still fails to address the issue.
  • JadeNB 4y ago
    > I fail to see how praising the opponent differs from an ad hominem fallacy except in tone: addressing the interlocutor instead of the issue still fails to address the issue. The ad hominem fallacy is meant to end discussion by attacking the interlocutor. This approach is meant to facilitate discussion by fostering a positive relationship with the interlocutor; the positive relationship is a means, not the end.
  • BeetleB 4y ago
    > addressing the interlocutor instead of the issue still fails to address the issue. Logically, you are correct. Realistically, with a lot of people, failing to address the interlocutor will result in a failure to address the issue. The "Let's keep personalities and egos out of this" methodology works in a rather narrow domain.
• BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  Unfortunatly, like NVC, arguing from compassion is really hard to fake. You may force yourself to practice it, and you will improve. But as soon as you get heat up in the moment, it will all go away. What really helps you to progress is to work on yourself (whatever is your favorite tool, therapy, meditation, etc). Because it will improve the compassion you feel (for others, but more importantly, for yourself: a lot of the debate is going on inside), and giving a compassionate shape to your words will then be more natural, fluid, and therefore, will be less likely to melt away in a real life debate. But trying to sound compassionate when you are angry doesn't work very well. And it requires a huge amount of energy to maintain (ask any politician :)). This is one of those areas where "fake it until you make it" shows its limits. However, it does improve the quality of your exchanges a lot on the long run, and for me, it's really worth it. I'm not saying don't try to fake it, but rather, understand where the ceiling is.
  • JadeNB 4y ago
    > But trying to sound compassionate when you are angry doesn't work very well. And it requires a huge amount of energy to maintain (ask any politician :)). But that's a good and self-reinforcing thing! If you are spending all your energy on compassion, then you are not spending your energy on talking angrily, and so are inadvertently lulled into listening, or at least not over-talking. If one can't be genuinely compassionate yet, then at least falling into a neutral non-attacking position is a good thing.
    • BiteCode_dev 4y ago
      I wish. Nowever it's not uncommon to build frustration that way. Let's disregard the fact it's a highway to unhappiness. One day, one may not have enough energy to keep this frustration at bay, then anger will flow. Anger is a funny thing, it can lend you temporarilly a lot of energy (that you pay back with interest later). So even if you didn't have any for compassion, suddenly, you might find you have a lot for destruction. Now don't get me wrong, I think trying and failing at compassion is a worthy action, even when resulting with destruction. In fact, some meditation technics are mostly that: you try to be compassionate, or in the moment, or just observing. You fail. You try again. For years.
• NoGravitas 4y ago
  I want to believe. And in interpersonal interactions, with regular people, in meatspace, it's probably good advice. But in a larger context, we live in a post-truth world, a hyperreality. Sartre noted the use of bad faith to create a false reality as early as 1944: > “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” Since the late 1970s or so, it's gotten worse, as hyper-reality has become a mainstream tool of governance worldwide [1] [2]. People don't just disagree about the interpretation of facts and ideas about what should be done about them, but about the facts themselves. And this disagreement about facts is fostered by powerful interests, some cooperating, some competing, for profit and political reasons, the latter of which is mainly about making coordinated and effective opposition movements impossible in multiple ways. Lana Wachowski, via the character Morpheus: “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. I'd like to think that starmanning would be a tool for making people ready to be unplugged. But the truth is, people will fight to protect the system, especially when they've been convinced that they benefit from it. [1]: https://www.academia.edu/33103253/Hyper_Normalisation_contextualizing_Post_truth_and_Hyper_reality https://www.academia.edu/33103253/Hyper_Normalisation_contex... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thLgkQBFTPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thLgkQBFTPw
  • js8 4y ago
    I think Michael Brooks put it more nicely than Morpheus: Be kind to people, but ruthless to systems.
• Sporktacular 4y ago
  "If you doubt this, ask around. I wager you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want a safer, fairer, more just world for everyone if they could get it." I'll take that wager. I've met a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends. Then there is the deep tribal impulse that is satisfied only at the exclusion of others, almost as a principle. Suggesting they employ the starman in their discussion won't make a difference because it's not a rhetorical problem, it's just how their priorities reflect on how they act in their daily lives. The issue is in assuming the most charitable version of an opponent when we have their actions to guide us instead. For example, right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, not for safety, fairness or justice for everyone. They just want better for their tribe. And we should respond as such based on their actions. And if you assume they want safety, fairness and justice for everyone, their responses will vary from 'sure, why not' to 'of course, that's exactly why we're liberating, cleansing and reappropriating'. Many of us are just selfish bastards, and that's a character flaw.
  • grogenaut 4y ago
    As my friends from college (sample set of 10) got older I noticed where people split conservative or liberal (US centric sorry). My liberal friends are generally concerned for everyone in society and how they'll get screwed over or not. My conservative friends are very concerned about anyone they know, and very worried about how they can't backstop them because of supporting the whole of society. 2 of them would fly / drive across the country at a moments notice to help me out for weeks. But they aren't concerned with people outside that circle. Of the 2 I had deep conversations with, they both were more focused on setting up social circles to support everyone else such as churches, local community, family, which to them is the fallback, not the government. That's about as far as I got.
  • bravura 4y ago
    Yeah. Hurt people hurt people. Many people have a spirit of benevolence, but many other people have endured trauma and deeply believe that the next generation must be hazed too.
• Aunche 4y ago
  >If someone posits, for example, that universal basic income (UBI) could ameliorate the loss of jobs due to automation, a straw man would be, “So you want people to sit at home all day and collect free money?” I don't see how this is a strawman. UBI literally lets people receive free money even if they sit at home all day. At some level, a UBI proponent has to "want" this outcome. If you think that UBI wouldn't cause people to leave the workforce, that's a separate argument.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • ParetoOptimal 4y ago
    Wanting UBI can be purely driven by a desire of a better world and belief that people will contribute more to society on average given space and resources to think and catch their breath. Just because a minority might "sit at home all day and collect free money" doesn't mean the UBI proponent wants it on any level. Projecting this want onto the proponent as part of their argument makes it a strawman.
  • Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
    > I don't see how this is a strawman. Because it is an absurd mischaracterisation of the benefits people see in UBI and most proposals for it. > UBI literally lets people receive free money even if they sit at home all day. See this is where nuance starts showing the straw. There is an important and significant difference between "you want UBI so you can sit at home and do nothing" and "even if you did nothing UBI would still cover you." One of the differences is intent. If you want UBI because you are lazy, is a very different situation from, you wanted UBI for good reasons but ended up using it while unemployed. > At some level, a UBI proponent has to "want" this outcome. Some proponents of UBI do not want it to cover rent + food + bills. So no, some proponents do not want that. Some just want to simplify goverment aid into a single payment. Some want the residuals of automation to be shared by all. In either case it would hardly cover for people to be sitting at home doing nothing.
    • Aunche 4y ago
• jl6 4y ago
  I think this is something you get almost for free when talking to someone you know in a real-world face-to-face conversation. You get full-bandwidth communication with a real human, and it's impossible to ignore their humanity. When you step back from having a conversation with a person you know, to having an argument with a person you don't know, the humanity diminishes - they become just a character on the other side of the room. When you step back from reality altogether, and argue with people online, the humanity is absent entirely (and indeed, the thing you are interacting with might not be human). I conclude that a healthy debate can only take place in the real world and a prerequisite is getting to know the person first.
• dloss 4y ago
  Related: Titanium man: "Taking the core of one’s argument and rearticulating it at a higher level of nuance, sophistication, abstraction, and complexity. The argument is buttressed with more perspectives, contexts, and variables" https://greenteaji108.medium.com/from-the-steelman-to-the-titanium-man-e6228808bfb4 https://greenteaji108.medium.com/from-the-steelman-to-the-ti...
• csours 4y ago
  A post I made elsewhere, which seems pertinent here: Politics and Hermit Crabs Hermit Crabs wear a shell for protection. If they get separated from their shell, they get frantic and often die if they can't find a replacement. They don't like it when people mess with their shell. Imagine coming up with a brilliant, powerful political argument. You can smash the shell right off your opponent. Will they thank you for it? There is a real human psychological need behind people's beliefs. There is lived experience behind these beliefs. It can feel like a real attack when that lived experience is invalidated. People retract into their shell, or attack right back. If their shell is actually busted, they probably won't stick around and find out what else you plan on doing to them; they'll run off and they may find an even worse shell. So what then? Just accept that they will wear a terrible shell forever? I think that you have to accept their current situation. You don't have to accept it forever, but you have to see them where they are now. You can't change their shell, and you shouldn't expect them to change to a shell that matches yours any time soon, but if you don't drive them away, then maybe they can accept that your shell is valid, and find value in your point of view. And to be clear, you don't have to do this for everyone, and you sure don't have to do it on social media. You may not be able to accept anyone's terrible shell right now. That's fine. But remember that we all picked up our shells from our environment; we carry our history around with us.
  • immigrantheart 4y ago
    I am loving this, gonna steal it.
• georgia_peach 4y ago
  On the one hand, he's right. On the other hand, I feel gaslit by the fact that, superficially speaking, someone has built a brand & an income around a BS token like "starmanning". I mean, we've all cast pearls before swine from time to time, but how many of you have managed to make a career out of it?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• chernevik 4y ago
  > To star-man is to not only engage with the most charitable version of your opponent’s argument, but also with the most charitable version of your opponent, by acknowledging their good intentions and your shared desires despite your disagreements. This is all to the good, but it is unfortunate that we need to reinvent this wheel. Thinkers like Plato and JS Mill have made exactly the same point, and other good points besides. We have a rich literature in how to think and how to argue, and we would do well to pay more attention to it.
• cratermoon 4y ago
  Franklin Covey said it succinctly in 1989, "seek first to understand, then to be understood". He called it The Habit of Empathic Communication.
• ParetoOptimal 4y ago
  > No doubt some cynics will bristle at the seeming naïveté of calling for civility towards monsters. I understand their skepticism. Many of our beliefs feel more like identities, and to disagree with those is to negate our very existence. The thought of extending charity to those looking to erase us seems masochistic, even suicidal. But this perception of existential threat is an illusion. Yes, there are monsters in the world, but they’re so few in number that you’re unlikely to actually encounter one. I'm definitely not a cynic, but this really understates the power of the threat that bad ideas can have to peoples existence. That threat is higher based on your specific intersectionality. My socio-economic position personally lets "this perception of existential threat is an illusion" ring true the vast majority of the time. When I was below the poverty line however, the ideas of someone in a position of power about poor people threatened my ability to better my existence. I quite like the idea of "optimism isn't naieve, it's the refusal to accept the present as the future". I believe this is a healthy way of seeing things as long as one doesn't bury their head in the sand about current realities that can be much more depressing than the bright future you can envision.
• rendall 4y ago
  I invited the author on Twitter to participate here on HN, and he said: > Haha that’s a lot of commentary to field, but if you’re in there with everyone you can tell them I’m happy to take questions or have deeper discussions in a livestream or something like that. https://twitter.com/StrangelEdweird/status/1551549769931169792 https://twitter.com/StrangelEdweird/status/15515497699311697... > I also see a few people misunderstanding/misinterpreting #starmanning as being a replacement for steel-manning. It’s meant as an addendum. Steel-manning is about the argument; star-manning is about the arguer. > And there are no exceptions to it. Everyone can be star-manned. https://twitter.com/StrangelEdweird/status/1551550038857449473 https://twitter.com/StrangelEdweird/status/15515500388574494...
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• immigrantheart 4y ago
  Doesn't this require understanding from both sides? Most online discourses are not like this, hence both sides are incentivized to just straw man it.
• fritztastic 4y ago
  I think, from anecdotal personal experience, that a lot of people harbor deep seated emotions of anger, fear, and hostility. This makes it really difficult to communicate with them, as defensiveness and distrust are often a part of their reaction- and they sometimes lash out with personal attacks, whicb can beentally exhausting and discouraging. Even with close family members, it is difficult for me to be able to explain my ideas without encountering a barrier in their reaction where they refuse to consider what I have to say. I think, and this is just my theory, that a lot of people have traumas (sometimes ones they themselves don't realize relate to their associations with the subject being discussed) that make it hard to communicate and they may not know how to approach considering their view might be wrong, or even not wrong but just not the only valid way to look at an issue. It's extraordinarily difficult to approach certain topics without also encouraging people to confront their biases and encourage them to question things they regard as absolutes- as I mentioned, even with close family members, it's very hard to communicate and have discussions. It's not an easy thing for them to do, granted, and there is also very little incentive for someone to introspect on why they feel the way they do about something, even less for them to acknowledge there are alternate ways of approaching topics- even hypothetically.
  • jimkleiber 4y ago
    I think I hear you, in that often sometimes these conversations bring up very deep foundational conflicts? What I've seen is that sometimes the simplest of arguments, when both sides continue opening up, can reveal some existential conflicts within us. I think one of the main conflicts we fight is actually opening up too much and showing too much of our humanity (or our perceived inhumanity). So yeah, some of these conflicts might go deeper than we want and nudge/force us to confront things we've been trying to avoid. It's something I fear in resolving conflict with people, I like to keep going and sometimes people will say to me "that's enough!" and cut it off, and I think it may relate to them pushing up against those biases/conflicts as you've mentioned.
• jimkleiber 4y ago
  > If you’re still unconvinced—if you’re reflexively rejecting this notion outright, you have to ask yourself: Why? Why wouldn’t you want to acknowledge your interlocutor’s humanity, your mutual quest for safety, security, and satisfaction? How would compassion for your opponent affect your pursuits? I worry about the answers to those questions, and so should you. I think because I want to recognize my humanity first, before I recognize the other person's humanity. I think this is the fundamental missing piece in the argument: to recognize our own humanity. I think we take it for a given and yet how many of us are afraid to show our humanity to others? How we feel? What we're thinking? Especially in conflict. We don't say how we're shouting at them because we love them and are afraid they will leave us. We don't say we are against abortions because we tried all our lives to have a child biologically and were unable to and thus feel jealous of those who can but choose to abort—or conversely, for allowing women to choose because we grew up in a family where our parents resented us for being born and ruining their lives. I really like the idea of humanizing the other person, I think what is more helpful to me feeling well and to resolving conflict in my life is to make sure that I first humanize myself and show that humanity to others.
  • giraffe_lady 4y ago
    I think this is especially worth considering and practicing in this particular forum. It often feels like one of the signals of an authoritative, respectable comment on HN is how effectively the commenter distances themselves from their own humanity. We easily and consistently dismiss any argument that shows emotion, are in fact proud of doing so. It creates a dynamic where we're trying to outdo each other's inhumanity, flex how cold and logical we can be in pursuit of a goal or argument. But without the humanity beneath, without the emotion to motivate us, there is no point to anything, no reason to prefer any outcome to any other.
    • jimkleiber 4y ago
      I'm sitting here in awe and deep gratitude (oh emotion). Thank you for saying this. I remember reading a book about transformational leadership by Bob Quinn, a professor at the University of Michigan, and talking about how many people in academia pressured him to not use the first person perspective in his book and how he proceeded to use it anyway. I love the community here and worry so often that if I type something, it will be perceived as too emotional, too flowery, too subjective, etc, so even I, a person who has dedicated the last 10 years of his professional life to communicating emotion, balks to express how I'm feeling here. edit: oh, and I studied electrical engineering at a very good school for a few years and did well at it, and maybe I feel the need to say that because I think sometimes people think emotions are soft and fluffy and think people who believe in emotions may not come from the "hard sciences" (understanding the near infinite combinations of emotional interactions seems to be a pretty hard science to me).
• fleddr 4y ago
  I would go along with the general idea that human beings in general are good, it's a conclusion one easily picks up when having traveled. Most of us want peace, health and reasonable wealth. Anyway, social media is an entirely different story. It simply isn't designed to have reasonable conversations at length. It's fast, superficial, cult-like, where division is richly rewarded and reason is not. There's no debate tactic you can come up with that changes this as this presumes good faith. Social media in itself is bad at this but combined with the backdrop of a polarized political landscape, you have a perfect storm making almost any discussion impossible, star-man or not.
• Nevermark 4y ago
  I find you gain tremendous credibility by helping the other person improve their argument, even if you disagree with their final conclusions. If you can change their mind in a way they appreciate, and neutral but informative ways, they are much more open to changing their mind in other ways.
• muyuu 4y ago
  at some point there's a conflict on what compassion is or the trade-offs involved with placing emphasis in some sort of compassion for some given target demographic