Henry_V comments on Radical Honesty - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 September 2007 06:09AM

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Comment author: Henry_V 11 September 2007 11:29:42AM 3 points [-]

Tom Breton---very good discussion.

It reminds me of a panel in which I participated. The panel was celebrating diversity of one sort or another at my institution, and one speaker was a contemporary of MLK. He discussed the need to engage "the other side" in one's debates.

A student from the audience asked, "But what if the other side won't listen?"

"Keep talking!" was the response.

Well, here I really felt like I should jump in, but it would have been rude. In any case, everything I've learned about communication I learned from being married. When we think someone "won't listen" (which is probably not accurate---this seems to occur whenever we think that we're right and the other person is wrong; it has nothing to do with their listening), then we ourselves probably need to do *less* talking and *more* listening.

To do this successfully, it requires humility, and, of course, the desire to overcome one's own bias.