Listen For What You Don’t Hear: The Case for Contrarianism
post by Yashvardhan Sharma (yashvardhan-sharma) · 2023-08-14T02:53:27.970Z · LW · GW · 1 commentsContents
How to practice this? Plant-based Diets Increase Climate Change Benefits None 1 comment
What beliefs do you hold that you know spark disagreement? Is there something you hope to accomplish that requires persuading opposed minds?
Do you ever catch yourself dismissing reasonable arguments from those you disagree with? When was the last time an opponent changed your mind or expanded your thinking?
This could be like debate competition, doing community building for AIS/EA, or even convincing potential investors/funders in your company/organization.
In these examples of negotiation, one thing is key: understanding the incentives and cruxes of the people you’re up against. This is a lesson that might seem trivial but I see it less frequently in everyday life.
In this age of the internet and social media especially, it is extremely easy for people to be trapped within a vicious cycle of echo chambers where their ideas are reinforced.
It is easy for people to demonize and dehumanize their enemies. When we view those we disagree with as enemies, it becomes difficult to accept or understand any logic or rational points that are said by them.
I call upon you to take the road less taken. Like a catapult, take a few steps in a direction that you resist—which is going to be hard—only to bounce back stronger than ever to the side that you actually want to be.
In this post, I would like to encourage you to do the hard thing: engage with people you disagree with. Take a belief that you have, for example.
Seriously, take a pause and think of something you believe in.
This could be something like being vegan because you care about animals, why climate change is the biggest issue right now, any political issue in your country, etc.
Now, most likely, you’re well aware of all things about ideas that you do believe in: why you believe what you believe in, what your reasoning for doing so, its merits (and possibly even the biggest demerits), etc. Heck, if you’re a smart one, you can also probably cite a paper or research study that supports your belief.
But, how much do you know about those who disagree with you? Relative to the time you’ve spent learning and studying the idea that you believe in, how much time have you invested in learning about that? 5-10%?
If you truly care about what you believe in, spend a bit longer.
Be intentional about understanding what you do not believe in.
Once you have a decent understanding of what the opposition believes and why they believe so, their experiences, background, and reasonings, you can better empathize (remember, empathy is different than sympathy) with people you’re arguing against. Thus, in order to “win” or persuade someone to what you care about and believe in, it’s crucial to understand what you’re even arguing against.
Disclaimer: Do not confuse this as an attempt to change your mind. Rather, this is an appeal to be curious, have the possibility to change your mind and make Bayesian updates to your thinking given the new evidence, if necessary. Even if you do not end up changing your mind, this will be a great exercise to steel-man your own opinions.
Exploring new ideas doesn't necessarily mean that you have to adopt them or agree with them. But having the capacity to listen to something you don’t agree with (with the possibility of that being correct), reinforces epistemic humility.
How to practice this?
- Talk to someone you disagree with. Have an open dialogue with a friend or family member who disagrees with you politically. Ask questions, listen, and focus on understanding their perspective.
- Watch a video or podcast of someone sharing something you think you disagree with. Don't just seek out comfortable confirmations of your beliefs. Not a fan of Peterson, Roegan? Try listening to at least one episode of their content and keep mental notes of what you disliked/liked. Now when you have a conversation about someone that you thought you disagreed with, you have constructive reasons based on what you’ve heard first-hand to argue with.
- Practice rationality skills to build your reasoning. Personally, I consider myself an emotional, sensitive person. This is precisely why I like to invest a fair amount of time into being more rational to balance. This helps me embrace and channel my feelings rather than be controlled by them, something which CFAR's handbook has been quite helpful.
- Try the Ideological Turing Test. This is a thought exercise, which I just found online while I was researching for this post, where a person tries to argue from the perspective of someone with opposing beliefs. The goal is to argue this viewpoint so well that an observer can't tell that you don't actually hold those beliefs. This exercise can be really eye-opening and help deepen understanding of opposing views. Try if you can actually do this.
- Or, go back to the original claim that you thought of above. As a mental exercise, try to come up with arguments against them. Take a piece of paper, open a new doc, or whatever you find most convenient to write on, and put on your thinking cap.
To illustrate this process with an example, I will try this exercise below.
Plant-based Diets Increase Climate Change
I am somebody who’s almost vegan (vegan but consumes cheese sometimes). And, part of the reason is the claim that I’ve read and heard that plant-based diets help reduce climate change.
Now, by default, based on what I’ve read in the past I believe in the following argument: plant-based diets reduce human-caused climate change.
Why?
- If the consumption of plant-based diets increases, the demand and consumption of livestock will reduce.
- Livestock farming contributes significantly to climate change. Cows and other ruminants produce large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Animal agriculture also leads to deforestation for grazing land, which reduces carbon dioxide absorption.
- If more people choose plant-based diets, the demand for meat and dairy will decline. With fewer livestock to feed, less land will be needed for grazing and growing animal feed. Deforestation rates could slow down or even reverse.
- So, eating plant-based diets by people will lead to a reduction in human-caused climate change.
That makes sense, right?
It is likely that the claim that you chose earlier is something that you’re also fairly confident is true. So, there’s no need for too much evidence or supporting research for this claim.
However, if I were to switch sides and have to argue against my original belief, i.e. plant-based diets increase human-caused climate change.
Uff, that’s tough. Nothing much comes to mind. So, I’m going to look up arguments and research which could support this new claim.
After spending about an hour or two reading through a lot of possible arguments from climate change deniers and contrarian thinkers, here are some key arguments below:
- According to the United Nations Environment Program, half of plant-based foods are wasted. Well, food waste put into landfills creates methane—which increases climate change. Also, it puts all the other emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane put into storage, transportation, production, harvest, and packaging of all that food into waste.
- While adopting a plant-based diet could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it's important to remember that the majority of livestock emissions come from industrial sectors. Therefore, choosing to eat meat does not necessarily negate efforts to combat climate change, especially if we focus on making significant changes in industrial practice.
- BBC Future points out that while plant-based diets can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, they can also lead to increased demand for certain crops that have their own substantial environmental impacts. For example, the production of soy, a common protein source in plant-based diets, has been linked to deforestation and habitat destruction.
Turns out, there are some valid concerns and adverse impacts of plant-based diets.
So, has my position changed?
Do I now believe from these reasonable claims that I should instead eat meat?
Negative.
I still believe that there is larger evidence for eating a plant-based diet which makes my original claim more sound than the ones I read and referenced above.
That said, it did enlighten me that even plant-based diets are not ideal. This has given me a more holistic and nuanced perspective on this matter.
I still hold my original claim (but with the knowledge and humility that there are cons to this diet), not because I haven’t spent time learning otherwise but despite it.
Benefits
Engaging with contrarian viewpoints can lead to significant benefits on both an individual and societal level.
On an individual level, exposing oneself to different perspectives requires critical thinking and can aid rationality. When we're challenged to re-examine our beliefs and assumptions, it builds intellectual humility, curiosity, and overall personal growth. Even if a contrarian argument doesn't change our mind, steel-manning it - representing it in its strongest possible form before critiquing it - ultimately strengthens and deepens our own convictions.
There are also societal benefits to discourse between opposing views. When we make an effort to understand perspectives we disagree with, we gain more nuanced knowledge on complex issues. Conversations become more constructive, intellectual, and illuminating when all sides feel heard. As a result, harmful polarization decreases. We no longer feel the need to dehumanize or demonize those with different opinions. Instead, we can have open and thoughtful discussions, recognizing our shared humanity while airing disagreements.
1 comments
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comment by Jiro · 2023-08-14T19:42:29.174Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Now walk through the recommendations in this whole post, but (assuming you don't agree with them), use homeopathy, or intelligent design, or Holocaust denial. I claim that following your recommendations for one of these views won't do you any good, and may do you harm.
Remember Scott's post about reversing any advice you hear, and how some people need to do more of something and some people need to do less, and advice can't be aimed at the proper group very well? That applies here too. Some people need to be more open to opposing ideas and some people need to be less open. In fact, there are specific ideas where people need to be more open or less open (or where they're already about as open as appropriate). Advice which just says "be more open" can be useless or worse than useless.
You're also assuming mistake theory which is often not the case.