There are two opposing effects of "devil's advocacy":

• a negative effect that you point: it makes you good at becoming a "clever arguer", good at rationalizing any position, and does not substitute for genuine open-minded curiosity, as Eliezer argues.

• a positive effect: for high-profile, genuinely controversial in society issues that raise emotional reactions, like the ones Sanchez discusses, the practice of devil advocacy can make you less prone to mind-killing, better at seeing that (two quote two LW memes) your enemies are not intrinsically evil and policy debates are not one-sided.

I think the benefit from the second effect outweighs the harm of the first one. But anyway, I think the main feature of the course Sanchez imagines is to force students to engage with "offensive" viewpoints in a cool, intellectual way, to reduce their propensity for mind-killing reactions. The specific mechanism of making them actively argue for the offensive viewpoints is not essential and could be easily modified.

I'd feel more uneasy about being genuinely unable to argue for a position I disagree with. If I don't understand the reasons for why my "opponents" would come to believe in what they do, then I have a hopelessly one-sided view of the topic and my opinion on it means nothing.

If you cannot construct a model of a smart person who genuinely believes a certain non-fringe point of view that is radically different from your own, your rationality has a gaping hole in it. And by "smart" I mean your own level of intelligence, since we cannot go smarter than that, and if you aim lower, you are not trying hard enough.

I don't see why Devil's Advocacy is necessarily any more encouraging of rationalization than arguing for what you already believe. In both cases you're writing the conclusion first. With Devil's Advocacy, though, you can write two bottom lines, create two different arguments, and at the end you may find that what you initially believed isn't as strongly supported by evidence as you though.

Of course, it's still not ideal rationality.

The scary thing is when you can win the debate whichever side you choose, even though YOU can tell what the correct side is.

Also, since the other side being pure evil is a rare phenomenon, perhaps a better cultural understanding of psychopathy would help some people to understand that 98% of the people they debate will be just as sane as they are and thus to stay open.

You should be able to argue for anything, i.e., you should be able to find the best argument against your position.

I think the point is trying to argue from a perspective other than your own, and then find the least objectionable model for the people arguing against you.

Of course, showing anything but hatred to the OutGroup is often seen as betrayal, and therefore unacceptable. Similarly, any step outside the InGroup ideology may seem unacceptable too, even as an exercise.

But you can argue for anything. You might refuse to do so but the possibility is always there.

The problem with being able to argue for anything is that people use that ability to rationalize their preferred conclusions. But if someone finds a conclusion offensive, then they have the opposite problem that they're unable to acknowledge valid arguments. I don't think practicing that would make people more prone to rationalization.

Well, maybe except that part:

Points deducted if an observer can tell the student doesn’t really agree with the position they’re defending.

Understanding someone doesn't have to involve pretending that you're them.

Well, startng from vastly different priors and interpreting the evidence according to the intermediate posterior probabilities at the moment of evaluation could reasonably lead to different conclusions. Especially in the areas where controlled experiments are hard to do, and so the evidence may be relatively weak.

If you can argue for anything, you can choose to argue for what matters to you. If you can't create arguments and understand the structure of arguments and the valid points inherent in any perspective, including those which you don't believe, then all you can do is parrot the arguments you've heard before.