A Skeptic’s Guide to Discourse
It’s easier to give advice than to follow it! The below should be considered the bar I’d like to hold myself to, even if often I fall short of it…!
The skeptic faces a sociocultural minefield; the very definition of someone who is nice to be around us that they are *agreeable*. People appreciate an agreeable nature and being agreed with.
But the skeptic finds no increase in understanding following agreement — that’s not how we improve our collective understanding. And yet, nobody wants to be a around a crank that just shoots everything down either. The skeptic has a fine line to walk to be a warm and positive aspect while still embracing questioning and encouraging others to do so by showing that inquiry can be polite and enjoyable.
I’ve found two important forms of dialogue: in the first, Hegelian style, the lead proposes a thesis “it would be awesome to build a space elevator out of cheese!” and the counterparty attempts by all means to refute it. The parts that cannot be refuted are *synthesis* and agreed upon. This style requires both strong trust and agreed mechanics of discourse for both parties since it involves such direct disagreement that could seem like personal attacks. “You can’t make a space elevator out of cheese: it pulls right apart with the slightest tug!” In this case, agreement is late-binding. It is only after the discourse that the two realize there may be part they agree upon.
In the second, Socratic, style, the counterparty finds parts of the thesis immediately finds areas of agreement with early binding synthesis, and opens inquiries on the parts not yet agreed with. This “same side of the table” approach is disarming and has the feeling of being more cooperative than combative. “It’s interesting that you would propose a space elevator made out of cheese. I do love cheese and it would be profoundly transformative to have a space elevator…what kind of material transformation would you propose that would give cheese the required tensile strength?”
Most people prefer to persuade themselves than be persuaded or admit their point was foolish. Recent research indicates many people double down on their opinions when challenged, even with clearly countermanding data. So just shoveling more data at an ignorant opponent may not act persuasively. Instead of brushing them off, taking their ideas and input seriously can allow them to not feel attacked but to themselves have autonomy to explore a line of reasoning that may lead them to a different conclusion. The key is to plant the seeds and create the kind of supportive environment that allows them to get out of a defensive mode.
The purpose of discourse is to inform and persuade, understanding that you are a valid party to be persuaded. You oughtn’t just stand on a soapbox or be a popcorn gallery. Put your own worldview on the line and have it ready to be blown up if evidence suggests a superior alternative. This allows you to put skin in the game as a peer in a discussion. If all participants take this stance you all stand to learn something and be moved by discussion. Conversely if you have only come to lecture and be reinforced you will get nothing from discussion except for cementing your own limited worldview and wasting the time of others. “Strong opinions, weakly held” is a favorite of the skeptic. Try out arguments for size. Try arguing against your own core beliefs with intensity and you may be surprised to see what holds and what shifts. Note that you can practice this on your own!
There ought not be sacred cows or axioms — and avoid ratholing on definitions or “moving the goalposts” and changing the field of inquiry if the results go somewhere you don’t like. Pick an area of inquiry and stay disciplined on honoring the spirit of inquiry even (especially!) if the results are uncomfortable.
Never assume ill intent or ill character on the part of the other. An ad hominem attack or implication of the poor moral character of your interlocutor is a sure sign you have lost the argument. When people disengage from you after you impugn them do not assume that you have won or they are slinking away in shame. You have shamed yourself.q
Minimize characterizing others, especially your interlocutors. “You think X because you’re in Y group” or “All people of M demographic are like N”. Similarly never claim a superior understanding of your counterparty: “You’re just saying that because you feel X”. If someone has a reaction you don’t understand, it can help to enquire and seek to understand that reaction instead of simply surmising the reason. Often times one may find that “it’s not about you”: someone who seemed mad at you wasn’t mad “because they were embarrassed their argument was dumb” but perhaps they were mad because their child was sick and felt attacked by your comment. Getting more context always helps and it shows that you respect your counterparty.
Conversely, do not fall into the trap of being unwilling to discuss distributions that have different center-points but overlapping exemplars. If you find one demographic X differing from a different demographic Y, give data and acknowledge the overlap in distribution. Many arguments of this type fail badly and highly emotionally when it is implied that the distributions are non-overlapping. Most distributions of humans are highly overlapping due to the very wide variance of outcomes distant from initial conditions. Be particularly careful in language when as an author you belong to a demographic that you are painting as superior to another.
Never appeal to “common sense”. If your counterparty doesn’t buy your argument “but it’s common sense” is a fool’s retort. Many false things have been common sense, like the obviousness of the fixed nature of the stars, bloodletting to release disease from a body, human sacrifices to appease the gods, or the sun revolving around the Earth. A real argument deserves falsifiable statements and data, not a simpleton’s “but other people think this so it must be true” argument.
Embrace that significant claims require significant evidence. The more radical your proposition, the more vigorously sourced your data must be to persuade.
Never mock ignorance combined with curiosity. This is the beginning of all learning. Be open to it, welcome it, in yourself and in others. Zen mind is beginner mind. Keep that eager inquisitiveness and openness to error.
The primary currency of a discussion with skeptics are facts. The highest denomination is peer reviewed sources with proper research methods (reproducible, large N, control groups, double-blinds, representative populations, etc). Share the data and your references and double check the credibility of your references with a skeptical eye, especially if the source is saying something that you agree with and that you are using to buttress your point. Understand that some may need a combination of spreadsheet data, graphs, and subjective user stories to fully grasp an issue. We all have different ways of digesting data. When you go looking for data on a topic do not simply seek sources that buttress your point but spend as much time looking find credible data that invalidates your hypothesis.
Frame your own beliefs in falsifiable ways and seek out ways to shoot them down.
It is perfectly acceptable to share your life experience and emotions (nobody is more authoritative than you on how something made you feel) but recognize that this does not constitute the totality of an issue; your observations may be a statistically small representation and non-representative of the general population. In particular, “I’m an X and I’ve never seen a Y discriminated against” arguments have little weight. Respect members of a group speaking to their lived realities.
A little levity can be welcome in discourse even (especially?) about the most serious of things, and humor can shed new insights on a subject, but strictly resorting to memes or tropes indicates a lack of intellectual sincerity in participating in an argument and may not be as persuasive as you think.
When sharing data, be critical about your own sources: did you verify that the information was credible? If your data is found to be false or poorly sourced, do you apologize and find better data? (If people didn’t trust you to provide objective data, how would you know?)
After an unproductive interaction, start by asking yourself what you might have done differently to respectfully engage or persuade. If dialog becomes heated or emotional, “escalate the medium”: switch from public comments to private chat, from online to phone, from phone to in person. from group to 1:1. From 1:1 to confidential session with trusted intermediary. People will literally try and kill each other when driving but are exceptionally polite to each other when walking: more intimate media beget better behavior.
The point of discourse is not to be a game where “your side” cheers you and you get points for “winning” or being clever — you especially don’t get points for being snarky. The goal is not to be someone who wins arguments but rather one who helps further collective understanding, including your own. If *everybody* who participated in a discussion comes out wiser (notably not just the “loser” getting “schooled”), that is the best kind of interaction.
If an issue is complex to others and simple to you, it is possible you have distinctive and clarifying insight onto the issue but it is more likely that you have incomplete data and are ignorant of the nuance of the situation. Be eager to know more and collect more data. Be slow to dismiss those with more insights just because they don’t agree with you.
When stuck between two nigh-religious points, it can be helpful to reframe an issue around common objectives and let data guide the conversation to alternate explorations to improve the issue. For example, on abortion one can agree that one wants women to be safe and the number of abortions to be low and then find interventions that offer both. I call this technique constraint satisfaction — everyone outlines the things that really matter to them and then everyone gets creative about solutions that satisfy all given constraints. Even if a solution is to not achieved the act of earnestly striving to find a solution on the “same side of the table” as a putative opponent can be important for both sides.
It’s okay to pick your battles and make a judgement call as to whether your counterparty is likely to engage productively (e.g. adhering to these rules). It’s okay to bow out, particularly if a counterparty starts assuming bad faith or casting aspersions.
Focus your efforts on interactions where both you can bring yourself to trust others to change your mind and be open to changing their own minds. This suggests minimizing “trolling” (engaging with others with different beliefs and no intent to change minds or have one’s mind changed) and “bubbling” (making arguments in overly supportive fora where critical feedback is unlikely to be given). It feels good to mock people on another side of an issue and it feels good to be supported by others on “our side” of an issue. Refuse these banal hedonisms and instead situate yourselves in murky and unpleasant radical centrism, eschewing “platforms” or broad labels (perhaps even that of “skeptic”!) to instead own your own set of ever-evolving decisions without any other individual who shares just the same set of beliefs as you. While often rejected by both sides, a willingness to build your own platform will make more difficult broad characterizations about “people like you” and will help force discussion of the actual issues instead of mindless retreat to party planks.
If someone disagrees with you and offers data or experience, thank them first for their contribution. Disagreement is a sign of respect, that they believe you are a peer and are willing to listen. If they thought you a fool or an idiot you wouldn’t be worth the time. If someone disagrees with you, address their disagreements. Don’t be that person who holds forth with platitudes about how other people who were disagreed with in the past ended up being right about certain things. You are not Einstein and even Einstein was wrong about things.
Praise open mindedness when you see it, even if it is someone who believes what you do seriously weighing the elements of the other side of an issue. Enquire earnestly as to what changed their mind. When a counterparty takes your inputs seriously, express gratitude at having found a peer, even if you do not end up agreeing on the topic.
