Communicating effectively: form and content

I used to argue with a more strident, arrogant tone than I try to adopt now. One influence in changing my tone was Ben Franklin's autobiography:

"I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat everyone of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention."

He describes how he cultivated "the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken.

...

When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear'd or seem'd to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag'd in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right."

Another influence was Yvain's How To Not Lose An Argument. The common part of Franklin and Yvain's advice is to phrase your message in such a way that minimal status will be lost by your opponent agreeing with you. Your opponent must not see (consciously or subconsciously) your rhetoric as an attempt to gain status at zir expense.

Unfortunately, the arguments that are most convincing to human minds are often not the most logical or the best supported by evidence. To be as convincing as possible, one must appeal to the emotional, as well as the rational aspects of the brain. Arguments are unlikely to succeed when your audience is put on the defensive or made to feel as though their world view is under attack, since this will trigger emotional states. Anger, annoyance and resentment affect the proper functioning of our logical abilities (think of what happens when you try reasoning with a person who is upset, or of the stupid decisions made in "crimes of passion"), and hence will damage the effectiveness of your argument. When discussing controversial topics, it is important (though quite difficult) to make your points without emotionally arousing the reader. Hence, one reason that it is important to display niceness in your writing is that it makes it less likely that you will annoy your reader.

What techniques do you, as rationalists, find useful for effective communication ?

When I am tempted to be mean, I ask myself, what lie am I telling myself that makes this seem like a good idea?

It doesn't always work -- my response to adefinitemaybe may have failed the test in places -- but it's always worth doing.

I think Robin Hanson would say something about signaling here. Grammatical errors that don't even effect content will still have some impact on readers if they think these types of errors signal ignorance. They will be less likely to pay attention to you.

This is related to another point I've been thinking about recently. That is, how to convince non-rationalists that rationalism is important.

I think this is a signaling problem as well. If, say, I were to write a post on LW geared towards non-rationalists, since I am unknown on this site, experienced rationalists might not respect me as much.

For example, take this sentence of yours:

It's in your interest to consider the limitations of your interlocutors, their expectations, their attention span, their sensitivity, their bounded rationality, so that the largest possible fraction of your effort goes into delivering the payload, versus dissipating as waste heat.

A non-rationalist might not understand what you're trying to say (at least not without studying the sentence a bit, which they might not want to do). You could get the same content out there by explaining what "bounded rationality" is, instead of assuming the reader knows what you're talking about, but that will send quite a different signal to people who are already rationalists. They might think you're being redundant.

I propose a third category. Content and form matter, but so does forum, for establishing effective communication.

Less Wrong is a useful and informative blog, but, by and large, not if you aren't already a rationalist.