Oligopsony comments on Dangers of steelmanning / principle of charity - Less Wrong

88 Post author: gothgirl420666 16 January 2014 06:35AM

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Comment author: Oligopsony 13 January 2014 04:42:51AM 4 points [-]

Taking arguments more seriously than you possibly should. I feel like I see all the time on rationalist communities people say stuff like "this argument by A sort of makes sense, you just need to frame it in objective, consequentialist terms like blah blah blah blah blah" and then follow with what looks to me like a completely original thought that I've never seen before.

Rather than - or at least in addition to - being a bug, this strikes me as one of charity's features. Most arguments are, indeed, neither original nor very good. Inasmuch as you can substitute them for more original and/or coherent claims, then so much the better, I say.

Comment author: asr 13 January 2014 06:16:59AM *  1 point [-]

Rather than - or at least in addition to - being a bug, this strikes me as one of charity's features. Most arguments are, indeed, neither original nor very good. Inasmuch as you can substitute them for more original and/or coherent claims, then so much the better, I say.

Yes. But it's not doing any favors to anybody if you pretend that a new coherent argument is the same as an old incoherent argument. In my experience, the authors of the previous argument are often hesitant to agree with the new rephrasing -- it's not written in the terms they use to understand the world.

Comment author: Calvin 13 January 2014 07:25:39AM *  4 points [-]

It is also likely not written in the way they understand the world. I mean If charity is assuming that the other person is saying something interesting and worth consideration, such approach strikes me as an exact opposite:

Here, this is your bad, unoriginal argument, but I changed it into something better.

I mean, if you are better at arguing for the other side than your opposition, why do you even speak with them?

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