Comment by Citrus on The Power to Demolish Bad Arguments · 2019-09-02T18:34:40.466Z · LW · GW

I guess the point of humanity is to achieve as much prosperity as possible. Adversarial techniques help when competition improves our chances -- helpful in physical activities, when groups compete, in markets generally. But in a conversation with someone your best bet to help humanity is to help them come around to your superior understanding, and adversarial conversation won't achieve that.

The ideal strategy looks something like the best path along which you can lead them, where you can demonstrate to them they are wrong and they will believe you, which usually involves you demonstrating a very clear and comprehensive understanding, citing information, but doing it all in a way that seems collaborative.