Hacker News Reader

Comment by OliverJones | Hacker News Reader

Observation: rigorous debate, the kind of debate that generates advances in understanding and better software, involves LISTENING to the one I'm debating. It involves thinking "This person I'm talking to could be at least partially right".

The article linked here is actually about the art of rhetoric: about convincing someone I'm right. And, as it happens, it's mostly about marshaling my arguments about why I'm right and biding my time. Those are good. But in a good debate, both I and the person I'm debating marshal our arguments.

The old slogan is true: we have two ears and only one mouth. Listen more, talk less.

View on HN

I've always believed that you should adopt the attitude that winning an argument is a waste of time. If you win an argument, you don't know any more than you knew before the argument. You should always go into an argument with the goal to lose because losing means you're marginally smarter now than you were before.

Yeah, that's wrong. I've often won an argument where I knew afterwards better what I was talking about than before. Same often holds of course when I lost the argument.

That's what I'm trying to say at the end of the article. Maybe I should have precised that at the beginning, though.

I would revise the goal slightly.

My aim is always to try and understand a different perspective, because this forces me to account for that in my own perspective.

My mind can be unchanged or I can 'win' the argument and still have learned something new with this approach.

My goal in an argument is not to win or lose.

My goal is to come out with a plan that works best. That almost always involves taking criticism and advice into consideration, and sometimes involves not doing things my way. Sometimes I'm even completely wrong. But sometimes I'm completely right. There's no way to know before having the "argument".

Even more pithily: my goal in an argument/debate is not to be right at the beginning, but to be right at the end.

That's not an argument though, that's a discussion.

A good argument is nothing but a discussion.

I just mean that having a technical discussion is not an argument. There will be disagreements, but that doesn't make it an argument unless someone involved is taking things too far.

There is another sense of the word argument where it simply means a well reasoned defence of something. This is the sense in which it is used within Philosophy and Mathematics.

fair enough.

That depends on why you argue. If I win an argument with an anti vaccine person they (or an onlooker) start vaccinating and that action protects my children that are still to young for vaccines.

Of course the above is a big if. I don't think I've ever done it. But that is my goal.

Most of the time though you are right, I want to find the truth which might or might not be what I think it is.

That is a wrong attitude since you chose to marshal your arguments forward without listening to the other party. Should always think whether theres a possibility that you’re wrong and that’s the best strategy for learning something new. If you think you’re abdolutely wasting your time with an antivaxer then don’t debate. If neither party is listening then it’s a pure waste of time and not a debate

> I don't think I've ever done it.

I have, once. Or at least I came close. The lady had two arguments: vaccines, like most medicine, make our immune system weaker; and "they" put poisonous stuff in vaccines. I pointed out that (i) vaccines aren't a crutch that may relieve or replace our immune system, but a kind of kick in the butt designed to strengthen our immune system, and (ii) that yes, they put poison in it, because that's how we can ensure our body reacts to it and prepares itself for the real thing.

That was enough to cause her to reconsider her conspiracy thinking. I think one key here was to acknowledge one of her arguments (the poison thing). I also did not discuss regular drugs, so I could focus on vaccines. I did not deny drugs makes our immune system weaker, even though I don't think they do in most cases.

Turned out listening can be a rhetoric weapon as well as a learning tool.

I go into arguments with the goal of generating a diff of the logic trees in the participant's brains. In the best case, you find your assumptions are the same but that your reasoning differs -- these are often tractable. In the worst case, you find that you have irreconcilable fundamental assumptions. But even in such cases, the act of unveiling your assumptions allows you to gracefully "agree to disagree."

Exactly. Logic is universal and self-evident, so the point of any argument is to dig into which fundamental assumptions you disagree about. And once you've reached this point, the argument is over.

Though, it's possible to keep arguing after by challenging the internal consistency of the other person's assumptions. You can often win arguments by demonstrating that their set of assumptions leads to a illogical and contradictory result, or you can show how their assumptions prove something that they don't agree with.

I agree by using the socratic method you can prove anybody wrong, but I believe there is no value in it.

"Diffing" on logic trees??

You are thinking of a very specific scenario of debate where knowledge is merely a set of observable/observed facts and everything in the discussion is fully described, strictly bounded and available for scrutiny.

In such a "sandbox" of logical positivism, sure, one can see a debate as an unfolding of consequences from logical primitives.

That's very far from what most actual real-world debates are like. There's typically a profound lack of facts, knowledge and experience. Deciding something like "how to proceed" with a business decision involves dabbling in a lot of uncertainty, subjectivity and emotional baggage from both sides. Subjectivity is often a dirty word amongst software developers but, outside of stackoverflow.com, it's fundamental to human experience and argument.

Most people are desperate to be listened to and understood, and when they feel like they're not being understood, they talk louder. Break out of the doom loop by developing active listening skills, and learning how to validate other people's opinions.

Often times once a person feels listened to, they stop worrying about "being right" and are willing to make compromises, or even drop their demands entirely.

A great way to help someone see why you think their solution is wrong is to ask questions. "What happens if the user clicks X?" "How will the database handle the increased scale?" "What will be the costs of implementing that?" etc. etc. Just pure, calm curiosity.

But yes, even if you're in a debate where the sole purpose is to win, listening is important. Look at politicians during political debates -- they listen like hawks when it's not their turn. The reason is simple: you can't effectively negate an argument you haven't even heard. We're all smart people and capable of coming up with a million counterarguments to everything, but hearing EVERYTHING someone says is the really hard part, and is worth practicing.

I think you're right :) You can't really convince someone without listening to what they say.

I personally wish I could learn to do the reflexive listening thing more. Maybe I should practice with everyday conversations so that it happens habitually during heated conversations when your attention is on something that truly matters.

I also remember reading a book about camping. It had an interesting introduction, that talked about family camping. Although it talked about equipment and other important details, one bit talked about communicating with them. It basically said you should be saying "what do you think?" throughout all the planning and preparation. I saw it as the difference between hauling your family to the woods, and having a lot of participants out camping together.

I think too that practicing as much as we can is the key. It's good to develop a habit and to do it without even thinking about it. That said, it's hard when I'm going into a passionate conversation.

Meditation helps me a lot to have this millisecond of "Wait. Don't say that and listen first.".

I'm the author of the article. This is a very good comment; listening is to me the most important in any conversion, and can be the most difficult to do. I'll write about that. Thanks a lot!

Even more important that LISTENING to someone is actually COMPREHENDING what the other person is saying. Directly from the article:

"In short, try to keep your mind open. You might learn way more by really taking every idea into consideration. Notably if the colleague you argue with is an interested developer you trust."

"Don’t forget: recognizing that you’re wrong make you more humble and show the weak spots in your knowledge. As a result, it’s a good opportunity to learn."

> It involves thinking "This person I'm talking to could be at least partially right".

Or that they are wholly correct and I am wrong.

> about convincing someone I'm right.

Worth keeping in mind what one is trying to accomplish:

- do I want to convince (influence) the other person

- do I want to help find the best solution

- do I want to learn something

Regardless of mode, I think a critical skill / behavior is genuine curiosity.

Debating, the term, usually has that context. Sometimes I pivot to using dialectic since it better captures the intended meaning of finding and discovering a shared truth together.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com