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John_Maxwell_IV comments on Philosophical Landmines - Less Wrong
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"Well, that's a pretty controversial topic and I'd rather our conversation not get derailed."
Sometimes you can tell people the truth if you're respectful and understated.
I find it annoying when people say that sort of thing. I want to respond (though don't, because it's usually useless) along the lines of:
"Yes, it is a controversial topic. It's also directly relevant to the thing we are discussing. If we don't discuss this controversial thing, or at least figure out where we each stand on it, then our conversation can go no further; discussing the controversial thing is not a derailment, it's a necessary precondition for continuing to have the conversation that we've been having.
... and you probably knew that. What you probably want isn't to avoid discussing the controversial thing, but rather you want for us both to just take your position on the controversial thing as given, and proceed with our conversation from there. Well, that's not very respectful to someone who might disagree with you."
Fair enough.
One way to deal with this issue might be to make it clear that the discussion proceeds conditional on the correctness of their position on the controversial thing. Either side could do this.
I think that only works if you say "even if that were true, which we don't need to discuss now, I would argue that..." It's much harder to get someone to accept "for the sake of argument" something they strongly disagree with.
For example, I would only accept "morality comes from the Bible" if I had a convincing Bible quote to make my point.