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shminux comments on SotW: Avoid Motivated Cognition - Less Wrong
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I am somewhat surprised that I cannot find the honest Devil's advocacy anywhere on the list of techniques of spotting rationalizations. I understand that EY dislikes it, because it's easy to "invent arguments for anything", but how easy is it to invent a good argument against something you deeply believe in? And by "good" I mean an argument that does not appear silly at the first or even second glance (so, no "chocolate cake in the asteroid belt" nonsense). Or maybe this is covered by the "The world is not like X and I believe X" quadrant, though not explicitly.
To me, one of the best examples of the technique is popularized in the ST:TNG episode The Measure of a Man.
Is this intended to be rhetorical? The literal answer seems to be "very easy, particularly with practice". Some people really are skilled at bullshit. Typically here I refer to MENSA mailing lists for examples.
The ability to create arguments for either side is fundamental to "debate club" and what passes for national news media in the United States. Indeed, both groups are quite skilled at insisting that all issues have exactly two sides, which are completely equal in merit.
I can't see much reason to value the exercise in light of such an astonishingly BAD track record...
I do believe it's important to see how easy it is to rationalize something, it's just not useful to practice (unless you're looking to do writing or some other endeavor where "what if" scenarios are actually an important skill)
Speaking from my own personal experience, I can explain away ~90% of plot holes in kids cartoons as being completely reasonable. (Percentage calculated based on my friends having genuine "okay, wow, that makes sense - you're so smart!" reactions.)
if it is easy to invent arguments for anything, then your definition of what constitutes an argument is too broad and includes nonsense.
It's easy to invent bad arguments for anything, including arguments that, when you are motivated to produce them, you may not notice are bad arguments. Limiting "argument" to mean good arguments is too narrow a definition. As always, the definition of "argument" is not the point here.