Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Epistemic Viciousness
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Comments (37)
This equates rationality with victory in argument on an arbitrary side of an issue regardless of the truth; which is not at all the skill we want to inculcate.
Maybe instead of a fight, form it as a riddle:
The master gives an argument for creationism. The "homework" is for the student to understand why this argument is invalid.
Every now and then, just to mix things up, the master would give an argument for a statement which actually turns out to be true, to make sure that the student is actually searching for truth, and not just arbitrary counter-arguments to whatever it is the master said.
It depends upon an empirical question - do more rational arguments win? I think most of the folks around here assume they don't. But if they do, then it sounds like a good enough test.