Logical Rudeness

Basically it comes down to a measure of the degree to which the other person cares about what you are saying. What Eliezer puts as "sticking his neck out", I would describe more specifically as "listening carefully to the other person". In this way I would connect 'logical rudeness' with plain old manners.

To put it another way, while the person is talking, are you thinking about what they are saying, or preparing your response? I try to be generous in this way, and most of the people in my life respond well to it. But then I'm choosy about who I spend time with.

It works best with my wife. We've been communicating this way for years and years now, and it's just a wonderful experience to have a conversation in which both people are giving the other exclusive attention.

The other thing my wife and I do really well is give each other space to think. When we're done talking we stop talking and wait for the other person to have their say. Since she was paying careful attention while I was talking, she might not have something to say right away. So we have to give each other that time. Not many people are comfortable with silence.

In the old days we used to use ice cream as an inverse semaphore; the listener held the pint and the spoon, and ate and listened while the talker talked. Then the talker took the ice cream and had to shut up until the other person asked for it.

Another form of argumentus interruptus is when the other suddenly weakens their claim, without acknowledging the weakening as a concession.

I fear this is something we'll have to live with. I've won many, many arguments by whittling down the opponent's position until there is nothing substantive left of it. At this point, the only thing I can do that will mess everything up is... to press them on this, and force them to acknowledge their 'defeat'. Because defeat is how they will perceive it, and will fight back ferociously. You might 'break' some of them into a completely new way of thinking, but most likely you will simply undo all your hard work up till then.

Much better to just let them leave with their dignity intact, and with hopefully a better understanding that will precolate through their worldviews and come out a few weeks later in their own words. Think of it as... leaving them a line of retreat.

This seems to be a variation on my pet peeve of people simply ignoring their opponents' arguments and walking away (virtually) from a debate. I guess you're seeing this version more often because of your higher status, and/or because you debate people more in real life, so your opponents can't afford to just act as if they didn't hear what you said, or as if your arguments aren't worth responding to.

Given the machinery we use for them is geared more for winning fights than for generating correct beliefs, it's frankly amazing that arguments manage to change any minds at all.

I wonder how effective strategies for careful discourse without any obvious conflict - where essentially the other party doesn't recognize that an argument is taking place - might be.

A good way to begin an argument is by asking questions about the other person's position, to get it nailed down.

Many years ago, before the web, when email lists and bulletin boards were the cutting edge of the Internet and dinosaurs ruled the earth...

I was on a certain mailing list, and there was one member who, on being pressed to admit having been wrong about something or other, asserted that it was a deliberate policy of his to never do any such thing. That did not mean that he never changed his mind as a result of argument. But (he said) if he did, he would simply cease to assert the view he now thought was mistaken, and after some suitable lapse of time, advocate the view he now thought was correct, as if it had been his view all along.

I am undecided about whether this counts as logical rudeness.

Apologies if this is injecting too much mind-killing, but I really started taking notice of this type argument-gymnastics last year about the "Cash for Clunkers" program.

"This program is great! It will get money to the struggling auto-makers."

"Wouldn't it be more efficient to just give them money like we did before? And what if it just goes to the strong auto-makers?"

"Well, maybe. But think about the environmental benefit of all those old cars off the road!"

"Wouldn't it be more efficient to just spend the money on the environment directly? And isn't manufacturing a bunch of new cars bad for the environment?"

"Well yeah, but it will get money to the struggling auto-makers!"

IIRC, John Searle uses a subtle form of this in his rebuttal to rebuttals to his Chinese Room argument. He separates the attacks into different cases; then he uses one set of assumptions and definitions to rebut one case; then switches (without pointing it out) to a different set of assumptions and definitions to rebut another case. Neither set of assumptions and definitions is sufficient to rebut both cases.

I was in a discussion with a man at a yoga studio after he overheard me telling someone that Bikram's Yoga was "kind of cultish".

He proceeded to make one illogical argument after another, and then smiling and laughing confidently as though in triumph after each one. When I shot down what he said or explained how he misunderstood a comparison, he would not acknowledge or think about what I said, but simply move on to the next "winning comment" that he wanted to say. He thought he was superior for having made his points even though my replies reduced them to nothing.

I think this qualifies as logical rudeness, though I didn't have a word for it at the time. I really don't understand people like this. I think it's kind of a contest for him, to just try and look confident while making the barest amount of sense to make a passable argument. I think it's the jock equivalent of scoring a goal or beating someone up, as opposed to a discussion that actually is supposed to improve the total knowledge of both parties.

Unfortunately it is usually rude not to allow people their logical rudeness and from what I can see it is expected that talent with this footwork, as you describe it, will be deferred to with respect.

For my part I tend to cut off engagement with those who persist with such logical rudeness but that option would be less appealing if the subject was something that really mattered to me. For example my life's mission and the very future of the universe. Sometimes bullshit just needs to be called, even if it breaks the flow and the illusion of good faith.

The Logical Rudeness (and a little bit of Plain Rudeness — generally a somewhat angry and mocking tone) were strong in someone I was recently debating about the desirability of indefinitely long lifespans.

They make an argument. I offer a counterargument. This may go back and forth a few times, but in the end, they would usually then switch to another argument without acknowledging my last counterargument at all. And then, later, they'd often switch back to the same point they made before and refused to acknowledge my counterargument to it, as though I had never said it. Very frustrating.

(This is why I'm not interested in going into politics anymore. This is the structure of pretty much every political debate, and I have a very low tolerance for it.)

I think I'm going to start asking people to accept this precondition if they want to argue with me: When one of us makes a point, the other must offer a counterargument or explicitly concede the point. We're not allowed to move to another point without doing that first. Concede or refute, don't ignore. And if one of us later reuses an argument we previously conceded, the other person gets to dismiss it without repeating their refutation.

I agree with you about the norm for this community, but I'm surprised you didn't include Suber's class of examples: 'refutations' by analyzing criticism as behavior instead of argument. (PaulWright pointed this out.) It seems like a clear and familiar set of examples.

On another subject, I'm thinking that there's another occasional source of logical rudeness: arguments 'to make people think'. This generally takes the form of dancing back, simply because a proponent suggesting arguments they do not believe for a position that they do not hold feels no compunction when violating their burdens of going forward.

The underlying issue is what we take the purpose of debate or discussion to be. Here we consider discourse to be prior to justified belief; the intent is to reveal the reasonable views to hold, and then update our beliefs.

If there is a desire to justify some specific belief as an end in itself, then the rules of logical politeness are null; they have no meaning to you as you're not looking to find truth, per se, but to defend an existing position. You have to admit that you could in principle be wrong, and that is a step that, by observation, most people do not make on most issues.

This is clearly exacerbated on issues where beliefs have been pre-formed by the point at which people learn the trappings of logical argument; heuristic internal beliefs are most likely to be defended in this fashion. The only community standard that seems to be required is that people are willing, or preferably eager, to update f the evidence or balance of argument (given limited cognition) changes.

I see this sort of thing often. Often rather than simply swapping back and forth, someone will go through a long chain of switches, going from arguing for A, to arguing for B, then for C, then for D, and then finally going back to A, and forgetting that we ever discussed it in the first place. In fact if you analyze the torture / dust speck discussion you will see that many people did this very thing.

Checking my notes reminds me to include offering a non-true rejection as a form of logical rudeness.

Could you please describe in general terms what notes for a post like this look like?

Another form of argumentus interruptus is when the other suddenly weakens their claim, without acknowledging the weakening as a concession

I used to do this quite often. Usually in personal conversations rather than online, because I would get caught up in trying to win. I didn't really notice I was doing it until I heard someone grumbling about such behavior and realized I was among the guilty. Now I try to catch myself before retreating, and make sure to acknowledge the point.

So not much to add, other than the encouraging observation that people can occasionally improve their behavior by reading this sort of stuff.

Added to post: Offering a non-true rejection is also logically rude.

which I'm pretty sure I first found here, HT

Glad you liked it.

Suber seems to concentrate on tactics where one person avoids responding to the argument by making some statement about the arguer ("you're saying that because of your hopeless confirmation bias!") That sort of rudeness is a potential problem if someone has a belief which includes explanations of why other people don't believe it. I'm not sure what to do to about that, since I certainly have such beliefs. As far as I can make out, if I want to avoid being rude, I end up having to respond to arguments against my belief even though I think those arguments aren't reason the arguer doesn't share my belief.

Your example of people who concede Y but then switch to Z reminds me of When Theism is Like an M.C. Escher Drawing.

[edit: remove spurious "aren't']

The Parable of the Pawnbroker discusses a form of logical rudeness. I'm afraid I no longer remember which Less Wrong person directed me to that article!

When people sense the weaknes of their position, they often dance the argument to a different question so they can "win".

I often want to say "hey, can you give me the win on this one?"

This post about sums up my history debating intellectual property on the Mises blog.

NSK: [New post] Hahaha! Look at this recent event! This CLEARLY shows how horribly destructive intellectual property is, by its very nature!

me: But, look at all this evidence and theory about how it still makes us all better off, on net.

NSK: pfft! Only utilitarians care about that kind of thing!

The argumentative technique you cite -- arguing X on the basis of Y, Y is defeated, switch to arguing X based on Z, Z is defeated, switch back to Y -- looks like an example of what I call position dancing.

Would you agree that there seems to be a large overlap between "logical rudeness" and rhetorical deception?

Isn't this just simply equivocating?

(Edit) Upon further reading of the link you provided... This is pretty typical behavior from the masses. And, it is a form of irrational dancing where they just tend to be so opaque in their responses that they make no sense.

In the post you (Eliezer) made about the "click" (or people just "Getting" it), the conversation he recalled where a woman was discussing "magic" was one which usually involves this sort of logical rudeness (except in the case Eliezer recounted, the woman was rational enough to see his point).

Usually, the conversation would decay into a dance involving "what is real, anyway", or "That doesn't matter, because I still have these experiences," which is followed by an explanation of why those experiences don't show at all what the person asserting their truth thinks, only to have them say "Well, then, that doesn't matter because I just know" (Or have faith, etc.)

The weakening of claims is just another part of this dance, where they will just carry on as if nothing has happened (if anyone has ever read any of the threads in the Faith & Religion section of Richard Dawkins' or Sam Harris' web site forums, these sorts of behavior are very well known).

In my attempts, on those forums to try to promote more rational thought, I have found in maddeningly difficult to get the basic concepts of logic and critical thought across. They always assume that they know logic, even when the phrase Modus Tollens/Ponens means nothing to them. These people don't even understand the terms Proposition or Axiom as logical terms, nor how to recognize or create one of these logical structures.

So, rather than try to counter their claims, I usually will try to just teach them how to make a logical argument. It is at least the first step, even if they are really still nursing on the baby-bottle of logic and rationality.

That's a kind of problem that I witness regularly when I argue with someone, and it is indeed very frustrating (and I've to admit that in the "heat" of debate, it happens to me to commit it too, not the Y->Z->Y but the Y->Z without conceding a local defeat, and I usually only realize I did it afterwards, and then I feel bad... but I'm working on it).

Like other very valid points you posted on other articles (taboo, semantic stopsigns, ...) it's very interesting to know them, they help a lot to understand "what went wrong" in a debate that didn't reach an agreement (or at least, which didn't manage to make any of the two change their minds the slightest). But it's very hard to use them to improve the quality of the debate.

I tried playing the "taboo" but without the full explanation of the rationalist taboo, well, it's very easy to inconsciously switch back to a synonym - to cheat instead of forcing to reduce. I fear the same with the other points... and saying to someone during a debate "well, go read the Sequences on LW and come back when you are done" is also a form of logical rudeness.

Anyone knows methods or ways to use the knowledge acquired on LW to actually improve the quality of a debate (and by that I don't mean "to win the argument" but "to increase the chance that at least one of the two changes a bit his mind") ? But I fear it's a problem of inferential distances and there is no real solution to it...

While discussing hypothetical situations or speculating towards the reasoning behind some rule or behavior, my fiancée will sometimes put forward an idea with an obvious flaw in it. I will point out this flaw with the expectation of her correcting it to improve the idea, but instead she will respond with "Well, what do you think, then?" Often I don't have a hypothesis of my own, and will admit it, but she seems to think that it's unacceptable of me to criticize an argument if I don't have a better one to replace it. In general, am I being logically rude by pointing out that an idea is illogical if I don't have a replacement to offer, or is it acceptable to say, "I don't know, but I know THAT's wrong"?

Wow. This generated a lot of comments really quickly. Well, it's an intriguing post and I like the kind of self-description of your attitude towards arguments. Anyone who has spent a lot of time arguing understands that the mechanisms of discursive exchange are crucial for achieving a valuable discussion. Sadly, it's very hard to deal with people who don't understand this. I've had friends who just hated to disagree about anything.

Interestingly, the sort of thing that irritates you, such as making concessions, are very useful for getting somebody to argue or discuss something with you when they are reluctant to engage. So I think there is a place for a bit of honorable evasiveness in the argumentative domain, if only because it can make your opponent more pliable and open to disagreement.

On the other hand, I strongly agree with you that opinions and platforms should be held out forcefully and concretely. Your post is really poignant on that subject and excellent. At times, it may feel like you are being a little overconfident, but beliefs should always be stated forcefully and directly because first things first, you're trying to convey an assessment. You never get anywhere without a theory, even if that theory must eventually be broken.

An awful lot of how people fail at changing their mind seems to have something to do with changing the subject.

I cannot parse this sentence.

This is a common tactic and it has more to do with people defending their beliefs than with any attempt to get to the truth of a matter. But are you doing any different if you keep engaging these people and complaining about their tactics? If getting to the truth is important to you, then arguing with people who do this isn't going to help; maybe you're actually just defending your beliefs too, rather than arguing with someone who will help you toward the truth.

As I understand it, logical rudeness is entirely a defensive system. This may be because it is being used to preserve status. As such, a satire-style argument should be immune to it. If you can advocate support for a more extreme position, or unpalatable consequences of their own position, then they can cheerfully gain status while being the aggressor, and they might not mind so much if it turns out they're fighting their own position. Of course, it can't be too obvious what you're doing.

It helps if you can point to a specific person that actually holds that position. You can also get them to distance themselves from the position they're attacking, eg by hinting they might agree with the low status "those crazies". Also, you can more easily point out that you don't actually agree with that guy either.

Of course, it's a little dark artsy to pretend you're holding a position you're not.

Sorry I am not sure you were really asking for or need my input but here it is.

If you intend to stick out your neck then maybe you have given me permission to suggest that negotiation of a meaningful reality/connection acceptable to ones self and the other could be just as daring and perhaps of similar ultimate utility as argument and debate. I don't really know if this works but it seems to me that the people I like I "serve" understand that "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,"

Negotiation in this context is from the book "Getting to Yes"

I also liked Dr. Xavier Amador's work in the field of anosognosia where he uses a LEAP method of working with people: Listen, Empathize, Agree and form a Partnership the hard part is waiting until the other person requests your guidance.

I was in a discussion with a man at a yoga studio after he overheard me telling someone that Bikram's Yoga was "kind of cultish".
He proceeded to make one illogical argument after another, and then smiling and laughing confidently as though in triumph after each one. When I shot down what he said or explained how he misunderstood a comparison, he would not acknowledge or think about what I said, but simply move on to the next "winning comment" that he wanted to say. He thought he was superior for having made his points even though I kept calmly shooting them down.
I think this qualifies as logical rudeness, though I didn't have a word for it at the time. I really don't understand people like this. I think it's kind of a contest for him, to just try and look confident while making the barest amount of sense to make a passable argument. I think it's the jock equivalent of scoring a goal or beating someone up, as opposed to a discussion that actually is supposed to improve the total knowledge of both parties. 

Watch this video of Richard Dawkins debating a creationist and take a drink every time she says "So what I would go back to..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US8f1w1cYvs

Sorry I am not sure you were really asking for or need my input but here it is.

If you intend to stick out your neck then maybe you have given me permission to suggest that negotiation of a meaningful reality/connection acceptable to ones self and the other could be just as daring and perhaps of similar ultimate utility as argument and debate. I don't really know if this works but it seems to me that the people I like to "serve" understand that "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,"

Negotiation in this context is from the book "Getting to Yes"

I also liked Dr. Xavier Amador's work in the field of anosognosia where he uses a LEAP method of working with people: Listen, Empathize, Agree and form a Partnership the hard part is waiting until the other person requests your guidance.

Logical rudeness happens all the time. It was here on LW, when Eliezer Yudkowsky said:

it's always possible improve beyond what randomness would yield

And I commented it

How can you improve guessing which uranium atom will blow up next?

He never retracted his claim, nor answered it.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/vp/worse_than_random/