[Link] Offense 101

I'm supportive of this idea, but I wonder if people (including me) who make proposals such as "let's scrap the primary school curriculum and fill it with learning that's actually useful" underestimate the amount of useful things that they've learned in primary school, because they no longer remember the origins of that knowledge and have filed it under "those obvious things that everyone knows".

(Napoleon didn't invade Russia because of cognitive bias. He'd already defeated Russia several times and "invaded" in 1912 with the object of forcing Russia to keep out of Poland and remain in the Continental System. Logistics killed Le Grand Armee.... Napoleon was actually above average height for his time period... the rumor that Napoleon was short is due to a perhaps-intentional failure to convert French measurement height units into British units of the same name, and so there's no basis for a "Napoleon Complex".)

A more interesting question would be "What cognitive biases through history have led us to think of Napoleon as a short person?"

I second the idea of scrapping primary school for rationality training. I catch myself idly contemplating parenthood for the express purpose of trying this. I feel positively betrayed by the system for not being this way already, because now I need to take remedial classes to catch up on what-I-should-have-learned.

Now you've got me imagining combining this sort of curriculum with the rigor one reads about in the histories of martial arts masters of yore--being required to do Tai Chi forms in the snow before breakfast until steam rose from their bodies, that sort of thing.

I wonder what sort of homeschool curriculum and training rigor would maximize the chances of raising your own Jeffreyssai vs. getting the kid taken away by social workers or having it grow up into a maladjusted psychopath or something.

I'm pretty sure the words "a modest proposal" indicate that he is aware this is not a realistic suggestion. But if an adventurous (and well-regarded) professor seriously proposed teaching such a course as an experiment, I am not sure it would be rejected out of hand at all universities. (IMO it would work better with more advanced students than freshmen--they need to be preacquainted with the academic style of reading and arguing.)

A preference for unbiased discussion of controversial issues is not itself uncontroversial

Exactly.

Once my students started a discussion about religion, so for the sake of discussion I told them that this discussion is allowed to continue only if both of them agree to switch their roles and defend the other position best they can.

The religious student said that this manner of discussion would be interesting generally, with a different topic; but specifically when speaking about religion, defending the other position, even jokingly, would be a sin or at least something dangerously close to a sin.

I had no good answer to that; mostly because I realized that even if I could come with some clever explanation that would convince the student, there is a good chance their parents would see it otherwise, and I did not wish this kind of a conflict.

This statement is somewhat unclear. Do you mean there's too much material or too little for the 4 year time alotted?

One safeguard against this would be doing it with more advanced students instead of freshmen, as I suggested elsewhere on the thread, so that they are already somewhat used to evaluating arguments and claims in a detached, academic way. Another one would be pairing opposite views: white nationalism and black liberation theology, extreme radical feminism and conservative Catholic theology, etc. Then people with weak preexisting convictions are unlikely to be swayed to one side.

It seems to me that some folks highly value a self-image of not offending others — to the extent that when they are informed that they have offended someone, they respond as if a scandalous accusation has been made against their honor, for which they are entitled to demand satisfaction.

Being labelled offensive is to experience a reputation attack. Being offended at said attack is not different in nature to being offended at anything else. Whether the attacks in question are legitimate depends on the details and depends on the preferences of the people in the social group and allegiances among them.

Further, conveying that something is offensive (for example, by signalling that they feel comfortable declaring "I feel offended") also amounts to either claiming status or rights for a group or asserting control over the local social rules. It can be expected that this will sometimes be countered. And it should be (sometimes). Otherwise people are encouraged to be offended at all the time as a means of control. See also: children throwing tantrums. Adults too, for that matter.

Excellent points. However, many people when saying "That is offensive" don't just mean they are offended; they are implying that all decent people would be similarly offended, that what the other party said was beyond the pale. So it is used, in these cases, as a sort of one-place function and an attack (sometimes personal) against the speaker.

It is still true that escalating with complaints of censorship, PC thought police, etc, is not a good strategy for making the situation better and more conducive to a reasoned discussion (though it might be a good one for the purpose of rallying one's side against the Enemy).

So what you're saying is that people should give, anyone who claims to be offended veto power over what they say. With these kinds of incentives the winning strategy is to be offended at everything.

when they are informed that they have offended someone, they respond as if a scandalous accusation has been made against their honor, for which they are entitled to demand satisfaction.

So, they are offended at people being offended at them? That's going to end well.

when all the offended party wanted was to explain that they feel unsafe and unhappy

The question is whether there is a rational basis for this feeling.

they respond as if a scandalous accusation has been made against their honor,

That's because in today's world having a reputation as being "offensive"/"insensitive" can have a very negative effect on one's life and livelihood.

Teach debate in 5th grade and make sure the student's grade is an average of their debate performance on BOTH sides of a contentious issue. This actually strikes me as a really good idea at the moment...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I would not consider it a downside. When society labels an idea "offensive," it almost certainly biases people against that idea, so making people believe such ideas more would, on average, probably push them closer to the truth.