How I debate | Hacker News Reader

How I debate

lemire.me

71 pointssigna1176 comments

What I realized after many long discussions with my friends is that the largest discrepancies in opinions often originate from a simple different assumption. The difficult part is discussing long enough to figure out what that assumption is, since it's usually so fundamental (for both parties) to the whole belief that you have to spend a long time arguing about the "obviously" wrong statements of the other person.

When you figure what the assumption is, it's basically guaranteed to make you agree with each other: "Ah, but so you believe A! Of course you'd argue for A' then, makes total sense now!" It's then much easier to find compromises since you can work on the small thing below rather than the whole scaffold built on top.

Unfortunately I haven't yet found a way to easily discover what the differing assumption is aside from lengthy debates. This makes finding compromises with people harder as you can only discuss in depth with people where you can trust that they are truly arguing in good faith.

I noticed the same thing.

I don't think I "debate" much anymore. At least, not with the intention that I assume most people have when debating: changing the other's opinion.

Instead, I try to focus on understanding the other person's point of view as thoroughly as possible. I found that backtracking until the last point on which you both agree and then moving from there seems to be the most efficient. Whenever you disagree on something, make sure you're all making the same assumptions.

One tip to do this well is to rephrase what the person just said and ask if that's what they meant. If not, they'll elaborate. You won't even have to ask. If it was right, try to formulate your misunderstanding as a question instead of an affirmation.

For example:

"I understand that you feel y. Considering x (the point you both agreed on), what do you think of z (what you believe follows from x)?"

This sounds more like dialectics than debate.

If anything "debate" is something private school kids and self-proclaimed "intellectuals" do to grandstand.

Dialectics, or trying to reach a better and more insightful conclusion through collaboration and understanding, is far more productive.

Do you know if any good resources on improving at this? It takes me a while to arrive at a shared understanding and isolate any differences in opinion.

I would start with Plato. While the works are literary and not verbatim transcriptions of conversations, I think it gives a good view into the process of asking questions to dig into a point, then backtracking.

What you rapidly realize when applying this (as GP alludes to) is that most people simply aren't interested in the protracted examination of an idea. The challenge is to find people who are have interesting thoughts and the patience to work through it in depth.

Psychiatrist's Guide to Conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIATzLf-y04

Look into Street Epistemology[1]. Anthony Magnabosco on YouTube[2] is a good start.

Essentially, be interested and pose non-confrontational questions regarding the other person’s belief. Don’t argue for your point, have them explain theirs. If you ever reach a moment where the other person says “good question, I hadn’t thought of that”, stop the conversation. Let them mull it over in their own time, your job is done. You may or may not pick up the conversation another day, and either is OK.

Teach someone else this skill and you’ll have conversations where both parties are striving to understand each other instead of pushing their own agenda.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian#Street_episte...

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCocP40a_UvRkUAPLD5ezLIQ

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=28697803

I never saw it this way, but it sure looks like it!

Debate has not been some private school grandstand it's at the centre of much of the hard science discourse and rather than the plaything of philosophy such as dialectics.

I ask you this - are you in seek of greater truth and mutual understanding, or to be personally correct, to feed your own ego?

Amd what about compromising your believes and position means you will attain greater truth. You are naturally assuming that ever side of a debate has merit and i don't see how you could make that assumption.

If I go to argue against someone that the earth is indeed not flat i don't think I'd be inclined to compromise that position.

The problem with that view is that the number of positions with a clear answer like "is the earth flat" is basically zero in comparison to the nunber of positions where your views are either significantly or predominantly incorrect but you just don't know it.

Therefore when you operationalize this type of thinking, you end up holding many more foolish beliefs that you are very certain of than whatever time/purity you save by "not compromising". Thus it's an unhealthy attitude to maintain.

And a good example of why this is true is the cartoonish style examples that have to be resurrected -- like the earth being flat -- in order to provide a single meaningful example. The moment you get into any issue of real import, things become real murky real fast, and it's not hard at all for anyone to find someone much wiser and smarter than them on the other side of the issue.

The cartoon examples are exactly what are being brought by the counter argument the fact that i may take a position and defend it does not automatically mean that we can't get along and even work together. We can continue to hold positions without becoming inextricably partisan in a wider sense.

Also because I defend a position does not mean that I would do so ad infinitum, I can relinquish my position if your counter argument is stronger.

Obviously if we can't actually act like adults then none of these approaches will work, we'll either become violent or in the counter approach so compromised that are collective position may reflect absolute nonsense.

> One tip to do this well is to rephrase what the person just said and ask if that's what they meant.

So you're saying we should start sentences with "So you're saying..."?

Haha, yes, you're right!

With the addition that it must be done in good faith. If you only create straw men arguments for your opponent, you haven't tried to get to the bottom of their reasoning.

This is key. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

It gives the other person the feeling that you actually listen to what they are saying IMHO.

> I don't think I "debate" much anymore. At least, not with the intention that I assume most people have when debating: changing the other's opinion.

I don't think people go into debate to changing their "opponent"'s opinion. Debates are usually public, I think the point is to change (or form) the audience's opinion

I've found the opposite. Most people have disagreements on fundamental viewpoints which means there's no point even discussing. For example I take the position that freedom of speech is almost sacred, which rules out the chance of any productive conversation with most people who prioritize things like preventing somebody from getting offended. Instead I choose to avoid topics where I know I disagree with the mainstream, unless it's with a close enough friend where I know our relationship won't be damaged by touching on a topic of disagreement.

freedom of speech != freedom to hate speech

There's a difference, words, speech do cause pain and terrible issues in society and has to be moderated like a forum. It's quite simple.

I wasn't talking about hate speech, but the fact that you jump to thinking disagreement = hate speech is exactly why I don't talk about things with people unless they're close friends.

I didn't jump anything, your freedom has limits, you're not free to kill people for example, same thing with speech and that's why it's moderated, grow up.

> words cause pain

more often than not it's the pain of hearing a different opinion. The "hate speech" label turned into "speech I hate" long time ago.

This is a great way to capture my view on the topic. How do we draw the line between hate speech that should be controlled, vs somebody's personal problem? If we call a rich white guy a cracker and he has a breakdown, I don't expect many anti-hate-speech people would mobilize a twitter army to defend him. That to me looks like an issue with "speech I hate" vs "hate speech", as you said.

How would you attempt objectively measure something like this? The experiences we, as individuals have, is such a small slice of reality. In order to make broad statements, it's crucial to have a lot of perspective - do you feel your experience is sufficiently representative to make such statements?

Honest question: why do I need more perspective than mine to make statements about my experience of the universe? Regardless of how broad or limited a statement I wish to make, the experience I have as an individual is the sum total of my reality. Unless I already value mitigating the pitfalls of undue generalization, why shouldn't I measure the universe by the yard stick of myself?

I'm not defending the original statement. I happen to agree with you, but for different reasons. If it isn't already crucial to me that I have a lot of perspective, then why is it crucial?

The old story where 8 blind people, who have never heard of an elephant, are asked to touch it and describe what they feel. One describes the trunk, and thinks it's like a snake. Another touches the side, and thinks it's a hippo. And so forth.

Our own experiences are so limited, and our brains really like to generalize from very limited data. We are also blind to what we don't see.

Perspective is one way to deal with these limitations.

I disagree that this is a representative parable. Putting eight blind men in a room to touch an elephant is a very controlled, very well-defined, problem; the insinuation is that if the blind people could merely collect the correct data, they'd arrive at the correct solution. Very few things in life exhibit these niceties, and the parable absolutely fails to generalize.

What about for the actual day-to-day of our lives? If I do not already value perspective, then why should I?

If you study decision making, it is prettt clear in the researchers that diverse viewpoints are connected with better decisions. There also an issue of fairness or representativeness: if you don’t have perspective in your inputs, you are going to leave a lot of people out.

The fact is that we are all wrong about almost everything. Perspective helps you be less wrong, in a way that is not possible to do on your own because we are blind to our biases.

Beyond that explanation, you’re probably going to have to form your own researched opinion - I’m not all that interested in trying to convince you. In fact, I actually don’t mind people being unconvinced of this issue! It’s to my advantage if other people don’t have as good of a decision making process.

I'm not asking you to convince me. I do study decision making. Your contention that it's to your advantage for others to not have as good of a decision making process seems like a pretty strikingly perspectiveless position; if you study game theory, it's pretty clear that being in a coalition with sub-optimal players reduces your ability to perform.

If you don't already value other people making good decisions, I can only say: perhaps you should.

In my view, it's often even simpler than difference in assumptions in the more general sense: typically it simply comes down to people using the same words but having different definitions in mind for those words.

i think it comes down to difference in sources of the information, rather than difference of interpretation. These days people rarely form an opinion of their own, it's mostly a sort of digest of media they consume.

The assumptions can almost always be traced to some "fact" they believe to be true. And facts are easy to fake.

A good example is this recent Reddit thread based entirely on false "facts" promoted by the media, but believed to be true by significant chunk of the US population https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/px9vr2/bles...

So the debate can often be reduced to something as basic as difference in sources you trust, rather than semantics.

> When you figure what the assumption is, it's basically guaranteed to make you agree with each other: "Ah, but so you believe A! Of course you'd argue for A' then, makes total sense now!" It's then much easier to find compromises since you can work on the small thing below rather than the whole scaffold built on top.

That sounds like this technique: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/exa5kmvopeRyfJgCy/double-cru...

I think a big problem is how debate is taught in school. Certainly when I was in school debate was taught essentially as a sport, like chess or tennis. The point was to win at any cost, no matter what side you where on. If you through obfuscation could make a weak argument sound much stronger than it was or intentionally misrepresent what you opponent said and make him look stupid or ill informed, then you where Good At Debate. If you conceded that you where wrong or admit that your opponent has convinced you of something, then you are Bad At Debate. The winner of any debate was the person who was best at the abstract skill of debate, not the person who was 'right' in any meaningful way.

As long as that is how debate is taught, we cannot be surprised that people debate that way

They should be called rhetoric clubs.

SPREADING: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreading_(debate))

Spreading is the act of speaking extremely fast during a competitive debating event, with the intent that one's opponent will be penalized for failing to respond to all arguments raised. It is a portmanteau of "speed" and "reading".[1] The tactic relies on the fact that "failing to answer all opposing arguments" is an easy criterion for judges to award a win on, and that speaking fast and fielding an overwhelming number of distinct arguments can be a viable strategy.[2]

Spreading dominated the US school debate circuit in the 1990s.[3] The public forum debate format was introduced in the early 2000s, with the intent of slowing speakers down by rewarding deeper arguments.[3] As of 2018, spreading was described as still being "de rigueur" at Lincoln–Douglas debate format events.[3]

Senator Ted Cruz, who was a national debating champion in his student days, described spreading as "a pernicious disease that has undermined the very essence of high school and college debate".[3]

Radiolab’s “Debatable” episode (March 11, 2016) goes into the subject: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/debat...

The problem with Spreading in LD & Policy debate is it's actually trivial to counter; but since it's still primarily focused as the approach, people's usual response is to do it themselves. LD & Policy both 'require' a virtue and criterion being evaluated, and spreading has the unintentional effect of spreading an argument too thin and ignoring that base virtue/criterion, leaving it weak and unsupported.

The easiest way to not get burried in shit isn't to dig yourself out or fling it back, but to side step it...

But tactics like this are actually at the core as to why I don't believe the author of the article is actually talking about debate (instead about discussions, dialectics, etc); since debate - at least how we establish it in both school and what we'll generously describe as 'debates' at the legislative level - is solely about 'winning' the argument, even if there's no win to be had.

It’s unfortunate if that’s what passes for debate at the college level. I’ve had people do that with me just in casual conversation. Once it happens I just politely terminate my participation. I view it as a form of abuse if it’s taken to an extreme and not constructive in the minimum.

> Shy away from authority-based arguments. Saying that such and such is true because such and such individual says so, is counterproductive because the other side can do the same and the debate will be sterile. You can and should provide references and sources, but for the facts and arguments that they carry, not for their authority.

Isn't that contradictory ? At some point, if I provide references and sources, it's ultimately because I trust the authors to be authoritative (because of their expertise, not because of their positions.)

Otherwise, any source I provide will be met with "yeah, sure, scientist Y wrote so in journal X, but journal X has been wrong before, so your source is wrong."

The way I see it it can be taken as a probability (everything else being equal, it probably is true) but never as logical proof.

If one side has probability based on authority, and the other has logical proof, logical proof wins, but otherwise it is an heuristic to not argue about every single detail.

> Otherwise, any source I provide will be met with "yeah, sure, scientist Y wrote so in journal X, but journal X has been wrong before, so your source is wrong."

I think it's easy to gloss over the fact that science exists within a context, and if you aren't a participating part of a scientific field, you probably won't have full access to that context. This is a leading factor behind how in many debates, both sides are waving around scientific articles.

This has been especially visible in the last few years with the pandemic and the debate around stuff like restrictions and masks and what have you. It takes years to produce quality science, and here we were months into a pandemic and people kept batting each other over the head with preliminary scientific findings as though Moses himself walked down with them from mount Sinai. The truth was we didn't have all the facts, the scientists for the most part were pretty clear about this, but none of that seemed to matter to the armchair epidemiologists engaged in fierce internet-debate.

If p=0.05 is sufficient confidence to publish, one in twenty published findings will be wrong. In one study, that isn't bad, but in tens of thousands, that's a lot of dodgy results. In practice, it's probably far worse than that because of publication bias: Scientists tend to want to break new ground and publish extraordinary findings and maybe won't publish boring stuff that just reconfirms that energy is still conserved or whatever.

Many just google up some abstracts off arxiv that seem to support their claims and toss them out like pokemon. That's honestly only marginally better than basing your arguments on proverbs, events from the Iliad, and or bible verses.

Science just doesn't work like that. Individual articles are not infallible doctrine. Taken as a whole and in context they do form a pretty compelling argument, but individual articles on their own, even published in major journals, are absolutely fallible.

>If p=0.05 is sufficient confidence to publish, one in twenty published findings will be wrong

This is a wrong understanding of p values. Imagine an urn with only fair 50/50 coins and taking out coins to test them. If you reject the coin being fair at 0.05<p then you will on average have 1/20 statistically significant results. All of your statistically significant results will be wrong.

Now imagine an urn that only has biased coins. Every time you reject the null hypothesis you are correct.

How many statistically significant results are actually true depend on the metaphorical urn that people draw hypothesis out of. If someone is very good at picking likely hypothesis to pan out their statistically significant results are more likely to be true.

Also if a field of study has many bad paths you could go down on then you would expect more statistically significant results to be actually wrong.

Let's not pretend that the practice of throwing a bunch of models at a dataset in search of statistical significance isn't a thing. P-hacking is a pretty big problem in some fields. That's one of those context-things I mentioned. It's easy to go from a field where you can control variables very well, like physics, and look at a field where the variables are all over the map, e.g. psychology or nutrition; and expect the contexts to be similar because science is science. But it's not. The latter fields have really big problems actually replicating published results, many times the findings just never materialize outside of the initial study. It's not all from overt bad science like p-hacking, effects like publication bias also appears to play a big role.

Oh I _wish_ more debates had people waving around arxiv pre-prints like that, it would be a huge step up. Most people debating on the internet aren’t using scientific sources at all.

Sure, there’s been a lot of back-and-forth in the scientific community about the best way to prevent spread and so on. But most real world covid debates aren’t “we agree cloth/surgical masks are cheap and _might_ prevent spread, so it’s worth giving them a shot, but should we really be pushing people towards N-95s? These two preprints on the topic disagree!” They more often center on easily disprovable things like “will wearing a surgical mask (which surgeons wear for hours a day while performing _surgery_) cause me to suffocate from loss of oxygen? Everything has pros and cons you know!”

I like the article, but in practice he is not talking about 'debates'. On the contrary, all the stuff he says is bad for debating, is actually all the stuff that would help you 'win' in a debate.

The key difference being, he seems to be talking not about debates, but about discussions. Or about dialogue. I.e. where the point is not 'to win', but to improve the state of knowledge in both groups, for the sake of making 'better' decisions more generally. In fact, the only way one can 'lose' at a discussion, is by treating it as a debate and 'winning', thereby ensuring no net benefit to either speaker.

The whole point of a debate, on the other hand, is to be won. In the best case scenario, winning a debate is a means for effecting a decision. Whether they are honest or not is largely orthogonal to the process.

I have come to loathe debates. I have honestly yet to see one that was actually useful.

His first point, that you don’t change people’s minds, is why I’ve largely given up on debate and social media. Sometimes I feel bad about it. Sometimes I feel it’s completely reasonable reaction to the political environment. If every single issue is framed as some huge battlefront, it can be revolutionary to just leave the battle. Or cowardly. I dunno.

HN is one of the few places I venture out, because the user base seems a little more open.

I grew up in a family that debated politics over the dinner table in a neighbourhood full of professors and lawyers, which is different from talking about say, astronomy, animals, food, etc. It was an adversarial, socratic intellectual power struggle from as soon as we could all talk, and it changes how you relate.

My own intent with debate is to discover the basis of a difference in principle, and then decide whether that's something we can appreciate, without reconciling it. It's discovery. I'm genuinely interested in people whose perspective is different and why they believe what they do, because the personal experience that led them to that belief is interesting enough to connect over.

However, recieved talking points and recycled slogans are boring, and I'd be more likely to sever ties with someone not for what they believed or said, but over the quality of reasoning and reflection they had applied to it to conclude it.

The more interesting question is, are there views and opinions that necessarily can only exist without experience or reflection? Arguably that's the definition of ideology, as it is the logic of an idea, iterated - independent of experience or reflection on anything external.

Probing to find out whether an opinion is the consequence of experience and conviction, or the artifact of the logic of another recieved idea is the best application of debate, imo. Discovering truth and litigating positions with tacitcs and talking points are orthogonal approaches that are at cross purposes. Public discourse has been mobbed by people trained to litigate positions and ideologies, and not to discover truth, and so until you can determine what sort of person you are dealing with, it's best not to engage in debate in public.

My favorite technique is to let the other person talk and just ask why repeatedly. It’s incredible how often people will repeat a stance without being able to explain why they believe in that stance. The embarrassment of not being able to justify it usually ends the debate quickly.

This also often works in tech when people tell you high level advice and you ask them for specifics.

First, I don't think the other conversation partner will particularly like you for doing that. Second, it's not constructive. Why do you think people have to underpin a specific stance more and more?

This way, you don't have to defend or argue for you stance at all - or even define it.

So, another reason why they end debate quickly is that you created highly asymmetrical situation, in which you don't do the work of "being able to explain why". And of course with enough of why you will reach their limit at some point without exposing yours.

People who are not experienced negotiators will realize what is going on, but wont be able to turn the situation around.

I understand this must reveal areas where the other person is less knowledgeable. However, don't you think it's alienating for them?

I think asking "how" is a better idea. "How do you think it work", "Don't you think X have more impact than Y?", "How do that work in your mind?".

Because if you're wrong, asking why doesn't really help you, You will highlight blindspot and that's all.

Why is a trap.

I think asking why is a great way to quickly find out if the person I'm talking to doesn't know what they're talking about (I'm thinking specifically of developer discussions here). You don't have to be rude about it, there are plenty of ways to gently probe (feigning ignorance for example) but if it only takes a single "why" to get to some software "rule" or an immediate reference to a higher authority and nothing else, then you can move on with your day.

If the conversation leads to specific examples, lessons learned or a deeper explanation then it can be a great learning experience.

It’s amazing what a good conversation can be had if you assume both the good will and good faith of someone you disagree with.

You also have to not expect to change their view. You can hope to do so, but to expect to do so will just lead to frustration, and you may end up being the one turning the conversation south.

> The alternative to debate is force

The alternative to debate is usually emotional manipulation such as rhetoric, advertisements, emotional art, memes, etc.

That has done most of the work in shaping people's opinions historically and even now. Force is also used, of course, but it costs more to employ.

The alternative to debate is usually emotional manipulation

90% of all debate is emotional manipulation. You don't have to prove that you're right or what you say is true to win, just make the audience feel and believe that what you're saying is true.

Perhaps the most important thing about debate is audience. Many people look at debate from a one-on-one perspective -- 'can I convince so-and-so to change', but much debate isn't about convincing your opponent, it's about convincing people listening or reading along. You're talking to them. Frankly, fundamental disagreement isn't likely to be resolved via debate. People change fundamental beliefs mostly by convincing themselves (and listening to others debate).

Political debates have nothing to do with truth and to pretend they do is intelectually dishonest. A good debate is an exploration of topics, not posturing with arguments everyone already knows.

100%. Political debates are just a handful of people saying out loud the very well known stances they take on things. They serve no purpose, other than to allow people to feel like their team is winning.

The book People Skills by Robert Bolton [0] is great resource for getting better at this IMHO. Big mental note to finish it and really learn those concepts.

First eye opening concept were the 12 roadblocks to communication, divided in three categories:

JUDGING:

1. Criticizing

2. Name-calling

3. Diagnosing

4. Praising Evaluatively

SENDING SOLUTIONS:

5. Ordering

6. Threatening

7. Moralizing

8. Excessive/Inappropriate Questioning

9. Advising

AVOIDING THE OTHER'S CONCERNS:

10. Diverting

11. Logical Argument

12. Reassuring

[0] https://smile.amazon.com/People-Skills-Robert-Bolton/dp/0671...

(edit) formatting

Non-violent/compassionate communication is also worth reading about if you are interested in a practicing a more emphatic, more productive style of communication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

Trump didn’t “invent” the short, frequently repeated, shocking sound bite. He just used it particularly effectively in 2016.

As much as I enjoy a good meme, I think they’ve been a pre-cursor to this in an entire self-reinforcing ecosystem of self-propagation driven by evoking amusement, agreement, or disagreement in the vector, combined with platforms who profit from “engagement”, “daily active use”, and “minutes on site”.

Trump may have weaponized or capitalized on it, but the shrinking of median attention span in reference to complexity of argument wasn’t “because” of him IMO.

> Debates are essential in a free society. The alternative to debate is force. Either you convince your neighbour to do as you think they should do, or else you send men with guns to his place.

Yep there is no alternative option it’s either kill everybody who disagrees with you or change their mind…

I don't think it has much to do with Trump. The first place I noticed this in the left wing of politics was when they started to move on climate change. It is difficult to frame "we believe you are going to doom us all!" in a respectful and non-judgemental way. Also that belief shut down a lot of curiosity.

Any hints on the first precursors on the right?

I think McCarthyism?

When do you consider the left to have moved on climate? Climate change was a fairly bi-partisan issue initially. George Bush is famous for pushing cap and trade ideas in the late 80s early 90s for instance

ClimateTown has a fairly entertaining video about it https://youtu.be/MondapIjAAM

I thought there was a sea change some time after Al Gore & An Inconvenient Truth, and someone decided to make it an identity issue.

> Climate change was a fairly bi-partisan issue initially.

Yeah, that is part of what makes me think it is relevant. Going form somewhat bipartisan to "our opponents are going to negligently incinerate us all" seems like a symptom of the breakdown of debate.

> Debates are essential in a free society. The alternative to debate is force. Either you convince your neighbour to do as you think they should do, or else you send men with guns to his place.

This feels like the authoritarian's world view where the only options are ones where you have to involve yourself with your neighbor at all. That's not a free society, it's just kicking the "force" can down the road. Unless your neighbor is doing something particularly egregious (the definition of what is egregious is also subjective and arbitrary), the attitude you should have for a "free society" is to leave him alone.

Force is not an alternative to debate. Force is omnipresent and the threat of its use is what forces those into compliance with policies set forth by governing bodies. Debate is useful in that it can potentially help influence the people with power into creating policies that coincide with your beliefs, but any sort of governance is still forceful.

> If you want to live in a free society...

I've found that people do not actually want to live in a free society; they just align themselves with that phrase because it has a positive connotation. If you examine most people's world views, I'd suspect it'd be largely authoritarian takes. The issue of course, is that authoritarian has a negative connotation but gosh do the authoritarians love masquerading as libertarians.

>He just made it impossible to debate calmly. But now that Trump is gone, the climate is just as bad and, if nothing else, much worse.

Understanding why this is happening is exciting.

It's the emergence of a new religion. You can't debate with a religious tenant. Why OP is seeing it much worse in less than a year is because of this.

This is history in the making right now. The interesting thing is trying to think about the future but the present is even crazier. Is the religion unformed with no leaders? If not, why are they hiding? Oh that's why...

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