Tetronian comments on The Truth about Scotsmen, or: Dissolving Fallacies - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Tesseract 05 December 2010 09:57PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 06 December 2010 05:53:27PM 0 points [-]

If you need to change someone else's mind, you need to actually sell the idea. And this always has to be done with a pull, not a push - attract them to your idea. This is not quick, but push just doesn't convince.

The problem, of course, is that this generally requires use of the "Dark Arts," or the power of irrational persuasion. Though it is theoretically possible to convince someone by changing the way their entire epistemology works, it's much easier to use a technically incorrect but emotionally compelling argument. This, of course, is why clarity and conciseness are so important when explaining rationality. But you obviously know that already :)

Comment author: David_Gerard 06 December 2010 05:56:48PM *  0 points [-]

Oh, absolutely. But there are lots of white-hat ways to sell ideas.

It is easy to become drunk with the wizardly power of shaping perceptions - the Steve Jobs reality distortion field superpower - and get really heavily into argument by sounding good. (Music journalism is a particular hazard for this, and where I picked it up.) So keep an eye on your moral compass at every step ;-)