I think that Scott Alexander or whatever his name is, does a much better job than say, Paul Graham, at presenting the best counterargument whenever he presents something that he believes, but it's intrinsically a game of trust.
I think what the New York Times intrinsically understands is that the art persuasion is not actually the art of being rational and critical. It is the art of convincing someone else that you have been rational and critical. I am not generally defending the New York Times, I just think that they do understand how good faith persuasive essays can be gateways to bad faith persuasive essays.
The existence and effectiveness of bad faith persuasion is nowhere clearer than in court, where you are essentially obligated by the system to act in bad faith (lawyers would not describe it this way, but presenting an argument that you know to be flawed is bad faith), and lawyers are very convincing. However without an adversarial court system, lawyers are about as good a way of getting to the truth of the matter as crystal balls.
A reasonable, but not infallible heuristic for evaluating an essay for good faith, is to just imagine how much different the essay would look if counterarguments could be inserted after reaching some threshold of support by the general population.
The aggregate problem remains, however. Persuasive essays maintain a shared credit score which is extremely problematic for the process of truth-seeking. Even essays from the same author, can operate on wildly different points on the good/bad faith spectrum.
I guess my point is that the solution is not "more rational essayists", but rather provably adversarial comment systems, in which authors are not advantaged.
"I think what the New York Times intrinsically understands is that the art persuasion is not actually the art of being rational and critical."
Catarina Dutilh Novaes once pointed out something that has stuck with me: logic is a branch of rhetoric. The original purpose of logic is the building of convincing, persuasive arguments. In short, it's the other way around from what most believe.
> A reasonable, but not infallible heuristic for evaluating an essay for good faith, is to just imagine how much different the essay would look if counterarguments could be inserted after reaching some threshold of support by the general population.
I'm not sure I follow what you mean here, and how this looks in either a good faith or bad faith presentation of some argument. Would 'good faith' be closer to an essay that presents its arguments in a somewhat neutral but supportive perspective (e.g. without lying or misleading), such that adding its counterarguments wouldn't almost convincingly disprove everything that was just written? Whereas a 'bad faith' argument with its counterarguments presented would look quite flimsy?
A good faith argument looks less different from the imagined argument. It's a heuristic, peoples imaginations are different, but if you can tell that there are objections that people would have that haven't been addressed, it is likely the author could tell as well.
The provably adversarial part is just about moderation. How much power does the author, or anny party for that matter, have over what shows up in the comment section.
I think the unprivileged part is harder, and probably requires some system for putting comments inline.
This presents a fairly narrow view of persuasion, a romanticized version. Broadly defined persuasion is alive and well.
Consider the massive political demonstrations that have occurred in the last year, who persuaded these people to leave their homes and congregate during the middle of a pandemic?
Consider the rapid decriminalization of marijuana and even other drugs. Who persuaded these voters to change the law?
Consider all the new start-ups and other business that rely on a sales force to persuade customers of their value and to sign up?
We seem to be in an open fight against negative reinforcement. To say "policing is the consequence of bad behavior," or "You should go to jail for dealing weed" or even "We shouldn't cancel services or people too hastily" is to pick a fight.
1) This argument is about negative reinforcement argument. Specifically how increasing levels of it haven't fixed the problems that lead to high crime in those neighbourhoods in the first place and in some cases has made those neighbourhoods more dangerous. We already know tough on crime policies don't work. It's why we don't chop off the hands of thieves. It's why states with the death penalty still have plenty of murders.
2) The argument isn't against negative reinforcement it's that marijuana shouldn't be illegal in the first place.
3) Implies the people you're arguing against are in favour of at least some negative reinforcement.
The article asserts a strawman, that we had, in the past, cool, rational, reasoned debates that we all stroked our beards and decided what the right choice of action would be.
I've noted an increasing trend in US papers that the headline or the first few paragraphs sort of level where the author expects your beliefs will be, and much of the article is precicated on such beliefs. For me personally, it makes trying to read the rest of the article, whether I agree with the headline/first few paragraphs or not, much more difficult.
It was a little uncomfortable that the author found it necessary to keep referring to Rationalists as "nerds and weirdos". Presumably he left these irons in the fire in case someone tries to associate him with the Rationalists. Not sure I want to read his book if the conclusion is "I only feel like I can talk about them safely if I call them derisive names".
I agree with the comments positing that persuasion is clearly alive and well, given the enthusiasm of today's e.g. demonstrations. I believe the author's point, however, is that persuasion can (should?) engage the conscious, rational mind, rather than just fear-based, tribal instincts leveraged today.
I'll take the counterpoint. Tribal instincts exist because it is impossible to have rational/conscious debate about most things. It's basically over engineering the problem.
How would you convince an entire lakeside community to site a water treatment plant somewhere else? How many man-years of training would be required for them to have enough fundamental understanding to even enter a rational/informed debate? And what other topics are competing for that time? vs. "Chris is the expert and I trust Chris, so we'll do what Chris says"
Maybe it can or should but when the ends justify the means and the goal is to scale your persuasion as far and wide as possible it seems to be tough to beat "us vs them" fear-based persuasion.
Persuasion is a symptom of a broken system in which everyone votes independently.
Systems like "liquid democracy" make it so not everyone needs to be an expert on every issue, they just have to choose someone slightly smarter than themselves.
In academic spaces, persuasion is still alive and well.
Lol. The art is not dead. It has simply moved on from ancient forms. Nobody's mind is being changed by editorials in some paper-and-ink newspaper. Minds are changed through social media. The skill now isn't about formulated argument. It is about subtle pushes delivered through a variety of means. Want grandma to change her mind about politics? Don't send her a well-reasoned letter. Manipulate her social media feeds. Hit her with targeted adds/messages from apparently like-minded people. Manufacture something that she fears that will draw her to where you want her to move. The art of persuasion isn't dead. It is just now operating on a wider playing field and softer rulebook.
It seems what you are describing is manipulation, not persuasion. The outcome is the same but at least in my mind persuasion means to have a good faith argument.
To say that propaganda is part of the art of persuasion would be stretching the meaning of persuasion beyond its general usage. Persuasion implies a respect for its recipient and their rational faculty and trying to convince them by reasonable evidence and arguments. That is missing from propaganda. In fact, propaganda and advertising is most often the opposite, in that it aims to overpower the rational faculty with irrational appeals to emotion.
Propaganda is a tool of persuasion. So too is fear, money, guilt, logic and everything else under the sun that may move someone's mind from one opinion to another. The outer bounds are only what is acceptable under the various rulebooks (eg laws) which today are wide open compared to yesteryear.
Not true - for the most part social media and the other types of ads, etc you mention are about reinforcing already-held beliefs, or otherwise giving them direction. Persuasion is about actually changing someone's mind.
This is why a given political ad can reinforce the beliefs of two people who believe opposing ideas: One says "See, I KNEW it was true." and the other says "See! I knew the media/platform/community was biased this way!"
As I see it the art of persuasion has been weaponized over the last century through media and advertising. Ever more effective ways of manipulating people were devised and deployed at scale. The current most effective approach being social media. So why would someone bother with an older less efficient weapon when they can use the latest and greatest weapon for the same price?
As someone who worked in the reputation management industry, I find that there is an element of truth to your statement.
The essence if persuasion lies in enforcing your values onto another party. Media saturation has been a time-tested, and effective technique to ensure the right narrative is conveyed.
However, the mediums have changed in the modern era, therefore the technique, although still valid, must be adapted for the age of social media and instant gratification.
You can get around it. A couple weeks ago I had friends over while their place had to be vacated for a few hours, they bought lunch, we played with cats
You can go after "all altruism is selfish" argument but you'll end up having to settle with "some altruism is more selfish than others"
This is a legit startup idea I’d pay for. “De-radicalize your parents”. It gets their ad profiled and crafts a campaign highly targeted with an ever non-radical content stream.
For reals - y’all reading this now - right or wrong, this is a thing that’s needed. I have no idea what I’d pay... 50/mo? 1000 for a full campaign? But it’d be substantial.
How is this different from paying to remove ads altogether? It will start out true to the idea, but then over time the companies will slowly start to double dip, re-radicalizing the content because that gets more engagement.
Much like John Oliver's show paid to have "informative" commercials run on Fox news in the DC area specifically targeting the US president. It is perfectly legal but expensive.
Respectfully disagree. I think minds are being changed by news sources and real-life experiences, and social media is reinforcing the views of each tribe.
Minds are changed by all inputs but some are more effective than others.
I don't think it is a stretch to assume "community consensus" is the most effective way to change minds.
That (in both cases, perceived) consensus can be accessed through either "traditional" or "social" media but either way people decide based mostly on "What does everyone else think about this?"
Readit News
I think what the New York Times intrinsically understands is that the art persuasion is not actually the art of being rational and critical. It is the art of convincing someone else that you have been rational and critical. I am not generally defending the New York Times, I just think that they do understand how good faith persuasive essays can be gateways to bad faith persuasive essays.
The existence and effectiveness of bad faith persuasion is nowhere clearer than in court, where you are essentially obligated by the system to act in bad faith (lawyers would not describe it this way, but presenting an argument that you know to be flawed is bad faith), and lawyers are very convincing. However without an adversarial court system, lawyers are about as good a way of getting to the truth of the matter as crystal balls.
A reasonable, but not infallible heuristic for evaluating an essay for good faith, is to just imagine how much different the essay would look if counterarguments could be inserted after reaching some threshold of support by the general population.
The aggregate problem remains, however. Persuasive essays maintain a shared credit score which is extremely problematic for the process of truth-seeking. Even essays from the same author, can operate on wildly different points on the good/bad faith spectrum.
I guess my point is that the solution is not "more rational essayists", but rather provably adversarial comment systems, in which authors are not advantaged.
Catarina Dutilh Novaes once pointed out something that has stuck with me: logic is a branch of rhetoric. The original purpose of logic is the building of convincing, persuasive arguments. In short, it's the other way around from what most believe.
I'm not sure I follow what you mean here, and how this looks in either a good faith or bad faith presentation of some argument. Would 'good faith' be closer to an essay that presents its arguments in a somewhat neutral but supportive perspective (e.g. without lying or misleading), such that adding its counterarguments wouldn't almost convincingly disprove everything that was just written? Whereas a 'bad faith' argument with its counterarguments presented would look quite flimsy?
I think the unprivileged part is harder, and probably requires some system for putting comments inline.
Consider the massive political demonstrations that have occurred in the last year, who persuaded these people to leave their homes and congregate during the middle of a pandemic?
Consider the rapid decriminalization of marijuana and even other drugs. Who persuaded these voters to change the law?
Consider all the new start-ups and other business that rely on a sales force to persuade customers of their value and to sign up?
Persuasion is very much still alive
We seem to be in an open fight against negative reinforcement. To say "policing is the consequence of bad behavior," or "You should go to jail for dealing weed" or even "We shouldn't cancel services or people too hastily" is to pick a fight.
1) This argument is about negative reinforcement argument. Specifically how increasing levels of it haven't fixed the problems that lead to high crime in those neighbourhoods in the first place and in some cases has made those neighbourhoods more dangerous. We already know tough on crime policies don't work. It's why we don't chop off the hands of thieves. It's why states with the death penalty still have plenty of murders.
2) The argument isn't against negative reinforcement it's that marijuana shouldn't be illegal in the first place.
3) Implies the people you're arguing against are in favour of at least some negative reinforcement.
It was all explained during the superbowl man.
I would suggest several counter examples:
* Hearst Newspapers and "Yellow Journalism"
* McCarthyism
* Revolutionary War era op-eds (e.g., https://thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/T... )
How would you convince an entire lakeside community to site a water treatment plant somewhere else? How many man-years of training would be required for them to have enough fundamental understanding to even enter a rational/informed debate? And what other topics are competing for that time? vs. "Chris is the expert and I trust Chris, so we'll do what Chris says"
Systems like "liquid democracy" make it so not everyone needs to be an expert on every issue, they just have to choose someone slightly smarter than themselves.
In academic spaces, persuasion is still alive and well.
This is why a given political ad can reinforce the beliefs of two people who believe opposing ideas: One says "See, I KNEW it was true." and the other says "See! I knew the media/platform/community was biased this way!"
The essence if persuasion lies in enforcing your values onto another party. Media saturation has been a time-tested, and effective technique to ensure the right narrative is conveyed.
However, the mediums have changed in the modern era, therefore the technique, although still valid, must be adapted for the age of social media and instant gratification.
You can go after "all altruism is selfish" argument but you'll end up having to settle with "some altruism is more selfish than others"
See Aristotle's Rhetoric. Ethos, pathos.
For reals - y’all reading this now - right or wrong, this is a thing that’s needed. I have no idea what I’d pay... 50/mo? 1000 for a full campaign? But it’d be substantial.
The one thing both ad drips agreed on was that this company was the absolute best.
Respectfully disagree. I think minds are being changed by news sources and real-life experiences, and social media is reinforcing the views of each tribe.
I don't think it is a stretch to assume "community consensus" is the most effective way to change minds.
That (in both cases, perceived) consensus can be accessed through either "traditional" or "social" media but either way people decide based mostly on "What does everyone else think about this?"
Optimistic of you. For everyone else, social media supplants traditional news.
> and real-life experiences
For many, social media is reality. Enough to end lives, livelihoods, and each other's patience at least.
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