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lessdazed comments on First, they must be convinced to play the game - Less Wrong Discussion

16 Post author: lavalamp 09 October 2011 04:52PM

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Comment author: lessdazed 10 October 2011 01:47:18AM 1 point [-]

Here are examples of my go-to technique.

It's a sub-type of the rhetorical method of getting a debater to agree to seemingly innocuous statements, and then piecing them together to show how consistency demands those who agree with the small assertions must agree with your conclusion as well.

Instead of leading someone off a rhetorical cliff one step at a time, one constructs an analogous argument with an entirely different, non-emotionally charged subject. The other person will often make the connection without one raising the subject one is concerned with.

Comment author: lavalamp 10 October 2011 02:20:23AM 2 points [-]

I've found that difficult to do IRL for a few different reasons:

  • If the target figures out what you're up to, in my experience they react negatively.
  • If you introduce the analogy before the thing it's an analogy of, it comes across as a non-sequitur and people spend more of their time trying to figure out what you're up to than reasoning about the analogy.
  • On any topic remotely related to religion, people are extremely reluctant to make testable statements. If they notice the analogy, they figure out what I'm up to and shut down.

I'm totally willing to believe this is a problem with my application and not a problem with the technique, but I've not found it very effective.

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