"If you doubt this, ask around. I wager you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want a safer, fairer, more just world for everyone if they could get it."
I'll take that wager. I've met a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends. Then there is the deep tribal impulse that is satisfied only at the exclusion of others, almost as a principle. Suggesting they employ the starman in their discussion won't make a difference because it's not a rhetorical problem, it's just how their priorities reflect on how they act in their daily lives.
The issue is in assuming the most charitable version of an opponent when we have their actions to guide us instead. For example, right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, not for safety, fairness or justice for everyone. They just want better for their tribe. And we should respond as such based on their actions.
And if you assume they want safety, fairness and justice for everyone, their responses will vary from 'sure, why not' to 'of course, that's exactly why we're liberating, cleansing and reappropriating'.
Many of us are just selfish bastards, and that's a character flaw.
I may be unlucky, but I have met a number of people who are not just selfish or tribal but actively sadistic. They would do something that does not benefit them if it meant discomfort and disadvantage for their outgroup. This is a little beyond just disinterest or lack of consideration, they actively prefer it. These are people who are constrained only by the rule of law, such as it is.
One of the companies I worked for seemingly attracted this type of personality. Of the people like this I've met (and been actually very cautious around), maybe 90% worked at that specific company.
I've found this tends to come from life experience suggesting this is the only way to survive. It can be incredibly difficult to come at this from a place of compassion, but I've found that when I do - when I create real value in their lives through acts of community and cooperation - I can slowly open a door for them to see other ways. It takes time and a lot of compassion. But it's totally doable, and it can feel real good to see people build compassion from nothing.
>I've met a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends.
This is why Hierocles the Stoic had the right idea when he pushed people to move one circle over. This is a far more practical goal than striving for a "just world".
Each one of us is as it were entirely encompassed by many circles, some smaller, others larger, the latter enclosing the former on the basis of their different and unequal dispositions relative to each other. The first and closest circle is the one which a person has drawn as though around a centre, his own mind. This circle encloses the body and anything taken for the sake of the body. For it is virtually the smallest circle, and almost touches the centre itself. Next, the second one further removed from the centre but enclosing the first circle; this contains parents, siblings, wife, and children. The third one has in it uncles and aunts, grandparents, nephews, nieces, and cousins. The next circle includes the other relatives, and this is followed by the circle of local residents, then the circle of fellow-tribes-men, next that of fellow-citizens, and then in the same way the circle of people from neighbouring towns, and the circle of fellow-countrymen. The outermost and largest circle, which encompasses all the rest, is that of the whole human race.
Once these have all been surveyed, it is the task of a well tempered man, in his proper treatment of each group, to draw the circles together somehow towards the centre, and to keep zealously transferring those from the enclosing circles into the enclosed ones ... It is incumbent on us to respect people from the third circle as if they were those from the second, and again to respect our other relatives as if they were those from the third circle. For although the greater distance in blood will remove some affection, we must still try hard to assimilate them. The right point will be reached if, through our own initiative, we reduce the distance of the relationship with each person.
> The outermost and largest circle, which encompasses all the rest, is that of the whole human race.
Interesting, I think there are at least a couple more outer rings which encompass non-human animals too. In western culture we’ve decided a smaller ring goes around pets (dogs, cats), and then maybe farm animals then sea creatures. Hopefully we can “draw these circles together” too.
I think we can try to improve kinship and simultaneously strive for a more just world. They probably enhance each other.
The problem with nationalism is the effort stops once the circle encompasses 'your' people (or in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, forces those outside to accept they are on the inside).
“ For example, right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, not for safety, fairness or justice for everyone. They just want better for their tribe.”
I think is a way oversimplification of geopolitical situation in Ukraine and Russian motives.
Not by as much as you might think when your standards have been informed by more conventional models of state-led evil. Vranyo is a cultural disease whose impact cannot be overstated. I'll leave it to a Russian to explain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1pOahq4TCk
Sure, but I'm not trying to capture the geopolitical situation there. It's only an example. Some people do think this way (for example displaying the Z as a tribal symbol) and that's enough reason to not just assume charitability or altruism on another's part.
Indeed, not all but some of the attackers instead want to kill the men and rape the women in Ukraine -- rather than caring that much about their own tribe.
Some double digit percentage of the male population whether you are, starts doing that, if they have the chance.
It's reproduction, evolution, been going on for hundreds of thousands of years
I believe they were specifically referring to the behavior of Russian soldiers who were reportedly sending valuable objects from Ukraine back to their relatives as well as executing civilians.
Yes, that probably explains the majority of violence that occurs in the world.
There also exist a set of people that are born with wiring that if not specifically counteracted can have them act in violent and antisocial ways, without trauma needing to have occurred.
"you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want a safer,
fairer, more just world for everyone if they could get it"
As an optimist and humanist, a shocking revelation for me was hearing
of the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" in South Africa. (I
think via a talk by Chomsky or Zizek)
Many atrocities were committed by both sides during the Apartheid era.
Enough said.
Years later the Government of National Unity wanted to heal the
country, to bury festering resentments and feuds. Perpetrators and
victims were brought together under supervision to talk openly and
work toward forgiveness. It's a great idea in principle. Although the
commission is widely considered successful, a strange thing occurred,
something that we also buried at the Nuremberg trials.
A quite small but significant group were not merely unrepentant, they
used the commission as a platform to attack and abuse their victims
again. "I'm really glad I tortured your children, let me tell you
about how they screamed", and so on.
Sure, always aim to "star man" in debate, but one must be hard enough
underneath to expect occasionally to be shot out of the sky, not by an
uncharitable or entrenched interlocutor but by an plain old evil
asshole. They exist. They're not "psychopaths" or even "trolls", but
get a thrill out of acting so as to add chaos and pain to the world.
You are 100% correct. That quote is garbage. What it's really saying is - "ask around, I'll wager you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who won't pretend to want a safer, fairer, more just world for everyone. In reality, when you explain what fair and just actually means, they will secretly reverse course at the first opportunity".
Just look at the foreign policy of every country in power. Look at the willingness of any power group to give up that power without intense military or financial pressure. Let's see - slavery, wars of conquest, ecological destruction, finding black men automatically guilty, rape, child abuse, monopolies, wealth concentration, regressive California property tax policy, etc.
I think you are being overly negative. Being more concerned with problems we are most familiar with is natural and not at all a "character flaw". Caring more about people we personally know than strangers isn't any kind of moral failure. The world is full of suffering and problems, and it is simply impossible to give the same level of concern to all. So we focus on our inner circles. It isn't a "deep tribal impulse..satisfied only at the exclusion of others". It is simply that the world is very big with very big problems and no one, not even the kindest, most caring individual among us, can give equal weight to all problems and all suffering.
I think you're straw-manning. Decreasing degrees of concern for those farther removed isn't a problem until you reach zero concern or empathy for people you don't know/don't look like or don't share a language or god with. That is how you justify taking their freedom, raping or killing their defenders and stealing their land.
Letting it get to that point, so as to put your tribe first is selfishness and IMO a deep character flaw. A flaw in so many of us that the idea of star-manning is, in so many cases, naive.
Reading this article, it seems entirely about taking initiative changing your own approach, without an explicit expectation. Asking someone else to star-man is expecting them to change for you, without showing any compassion or respect for their humanity or opinion. It presents a clear assumption that their approach to life is wrong, and so they should adopt yours. You're creating a setting where they cannot agree with you without also accepting inferiority and invalidating their entire life perspective. You leave no room for incremental growth or self reflection.
> "If you doubt this, ask around. I wager you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want a safer, fairer, more just world for everyone if they could get it."
I wonder if more people actually want others to see our humanity than us to see the humanity of others. I would strongly bet on that actually.
I think a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends believe that others don't have concern for them. It can become a preemptive indifference: they don't care about me, why should I care about them.
What I want to work on and help people realize is that I care about you, even if I don't know you. And the work I do to get there is often me realizing how much people care about me. Maybe this is what he's getting at with the starman concept, to flip ourselves from thinking others are trying to hurt us and reacting to them with hatred or indifference, to believing they actually care about us.
And I agree that many people may not want to do this, so I'm mostly just trying to do it for myself. I wonder if his argument would have come off differently if instead of telling people what they should do, he said these are the tools he employs and how they work in his life.
That's true, but at the same time, calling a Russian soldier a selfish bastard isn't going to stop him from invading Ukraine. Presumably, your goal is to motivate somewhat neutral people to support Ukraine or condemn Russia. In that case, the only thing you can do is to refute rationalizations used to justify the invasion.
My point isn't to build support for either side (it was just an example), nor is it to accuse Russian soldiers of selfishness. It's to say that we can't just assume his (or anyone's) motivation is not selfish, or that there must be a middle ground we will surely find through improvement to our rhetorical approach.
As my friends from college (sample set of 10) got older I noticed where people split conservative or liberal (US centric sorry). My liberal friends are generally concerned for everyone in society and how they'll get screwed over or not.
My conservative friends are very concerned about anyone they know, and very worried about how they can't backstop them because of supporting the whole of society. 2 of them would fly / drive across the country at a moments notice to help me out for weeks. But they aren't concerned with people outside that circle. Of the 2 I had deep conversations with, they both were more focused on setting up social circles to support everyone else such as churches, local community, family, which to them is the fallback, not the government.
> a kind of platinum rule to improve upon the golden one
When I read this, I scoffed a little bit. A better idea than one proposed two thousand years ago? Say it isn't so! Why haven't we thought of this before?
I think you hooked rightly on the Ukraine and Russia conflict. Sometimes, there is not a "best version" of someone.
The author seems to reject that outright, saying we need to recognize our opponents humanity in order to effectively argue, with the premise that there's something good in there to tease out.
On what basis can the author say that there's something good inside? Their "humanity"? That reasoning is rather circular...
This kind of discussion is when I think the "real person inside" intuitive model of human psychology really breaks down. Philosophers have been arguing (circularly?) for thousands of years over the "true nature" of humans without any definitive answers.
Another model of human mminds that I find much more useful is as a complicated feedback system. A priori, these dynamical systems can have many different equilibria regions in their phase space, but none of the equilibria or attractors are anything like a "true characterization" of these systems. They are simply regions of related behavior that these systems can get temporarily or permanently stuck in.
For human psychology, this model simply says that humans can get into all kinds of "attractor" mindsets, e.g. self-sacrificing, defensive, fearful, etc. These mindsets have extrinsics such as sadistic behavior, altruism, consistent procrastination, etc. They also have intrinsics, such as feeling constant angst, holistic safety, or over-arching pessimism.
Under this model, at least, it makes sense that people may 100% in a vengeful mindset while at the same time recognizing that to also be a mind-region that feels pretty crappy. We can also then cognate about ways of moving ourselves our others toward other attractors that are "better" in some way.
In Control Theory, the question then becomes about what set of inputs we have available to tweak these mind-environment systems?
I did as well, and then paused because I've said to myself that I've come up with something like this before (facepalm emoji).
> On what basis can the author say that there's something good inside? Their "humanity"?
I can't speak for him, however when I do this, it's not about knowing for sure there's something good inside someone, it's choosing to believe that there is. I don't know if I will ever know someone's deepest intentions, and I have seen that when I believe they have bad intentions towards me, I can feel sad, angry, afraid, lonely, and more. However, when I believe they have good intentions towards me, I can feel grateful, safe, free, hopeful, etc. Given that I may never know how they're feeling, I therefore think I can choose what to believe, and by choosing to believe they have good intentions, I feel better.
Secondly, if I believe they have bad intentions, I often treat them poorly—ignore them, distrust them, attack them, etc. If I believe they have good intentions, I often treat them kindly—appreciate them, help them, show them how much I care, etc. So if I choose to believe they have good intentions, they may also be more likely to believe that I have good intentions for them based on my actions.
This logic may fall apart if one believes that we can know for certain another's deepest intentions, I just currently believe we cannot.
Even when individuals act with charity and compassion, they act according to their beliefs, interests, and needs. As Reinhold Niebuhr described in Moral Man and Immoral Society, a group of individuals acting according to shared interests, even when doing so compassionately, will inevitably come into conflict with other groups, socially or militaristically, when those interests conflict.
> right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, ...
It's not even that the Russians who think this are especially evil people, or irrational people, or people who are unlike us in any fundamental way.
The reason they think this way, and that you do not, is because they believe different myths than you do.
Let's say your worldview is defined by Ivan Ilyin [0]. You don't consider other people or ethics at all. The only thing that matters in the world is God. And God is displeased that the perfect Russia that He created has been spoiled.
The only way to heal the world and make God happy is to restore a certain kind of utopian Russia. That pure and perfect Russia is united in territory and belief, so it can't tolerate any division or fragmentation within itself.
Agents of the devil in the West are deviously dismantling and disintegrating that pure and perfect Russia, piece by piece. Westerners are carving off pieces of territory like Ukraine, and dividing Russian people with seditious Western ideas like democracy and gender fluidity and a free press.
So it's a supernatural struggle between good and evil. An existential battle like that means there's no room for this messy business of parliaments and voting, or compromising with different perspectives.
We need one strong leader, a true and pure leader, to inherit the mantle of past great leaders like Stalin and Peter the Great. He will be God's instrument to make the hard decisions and lead the nation in glorious struggle. This divinely inspired leader will create unity in the world by restoring and reuniting Russia itself.
----
Where do you even begin to have a conversation when you don't share the most basic of beliefs or values? There is no common ground in wanting a safer, fairer, more just world. We have our own foundational myths that we rarely acknowledge or interrogate, and our myths don't intersect with Russia's myths at all.
"Where do you even begin to have a conversation when you don't share the most basic of beliefs or values?"
We can share it with the tens of thousands of educated Russian opposing the 'special operation', with the thousands of Russians in jail for protesting. Even with the silent millions who doubt all the bullshit they hear but perhaps aren't going to die on a hill over it. They all grew up with the same foundational myths as the irredentists, they just chose to look further.
It's a mistake to essentialise a country as diverse as Russia but we can agree that it's also a mistake to assume almost everyone wants the best for everyone else.
I watched a security video recently of 3 random people in a convenience store. The store clerk has some kind of medical issue, passes out and falls down.
The 3 random people decide that now they can rob the store with impunity, take a bunch of stuff, and then leave the clerk on the floor. Eventually someone else came in and helped the clerk, but it wasn't like those 3 people were part of some psychopath convention. They just independently decided that getting about $20 worth of free stuff was a better option than calling 911 or checking on the man.
This is a really good idea for people who are thoughtful and genuinely want to learn the truth. There problems with it in practice.
Some people have made their political ideology the foundation that they build their ego on. Any disagreement is intolerable. Others are not thoughtful enough to understand that there can be genuine disagreement in the world of both thought and action which needs to be tolerated.
These people will ruin any concept of starmanning that catches hold by using it as a passive-aggressive cudgel ("I'm sure you are a good person and therefore you will immediately cease your opposition and accept my arguments!", "I'm sure you want to be a good person and therefore can't really believe these things you are saying, which are only for bad people!", "Why are you resisting when I'm starmanning you, you must be Hitler 2.0").
But without labelling it, I do endorse the technique. Almost everyone wants the world to get better.
I have inadvertently been "starman"-ing people my entire life. I usually refer to it as "benefit of the doubt". I have not encountered any problems with it in practice other than that sometimes I end up talking in circles when the other person doesnt really have a strong central point to their argument (or it is just not clicking for me no matter how hard I try to understand)
I think if such practices became mainstream, then people would begin to realize the difficulties involved in having a coherent conversation about a point of disagreement. The passive-aggressive cudgels you mention would fall flat because it is instantly noticeable as not fitting the necessary patterns for coherent conversation.
No one needs to accept or reject the other. the point of an argument is to educate each other, answer questions, and allow each other to fit both opinions into their own world view (ex. what are the limits / specifics to your belief?). Maybe someone changes their mind during that conversation, maybe they dont. maybe someone needs to let the new information ferment in their minds and life for a bit before it clicks. that is part of giving someone benefit of the doubt
maybe you are talking to someone who is venting, or in the middle of a mental episode (i mean that literally, not derogatorily), or was unfortunately born a narcissistic manipulator and cant help themselves. It doesnt matter, they cannot "win" the conversation - no one can - and the more people that realize this truth about conversations in general, the better the world will become
> I have not encountered any problems with it in practice other than that sometimes I end up talking in circles
This is why I stopped giving people benefit of the doubt. With every uncharitable action of theirs, I tried to understand their perspective, explain mine, and discover a ground truth. Yet, they are not interested in finding the truth. They are interested in doing what they believe is to be true, regardless of whether it is true or not. They are not interested in getting educated. They have already decided that they are educated and I am wrong, just because we have different ideas. My strategy of giving benefit of the doubt in such a case turns out to be nothing but a waste of time.
Therefore, I've changed my strategy. If they don't respond well to my giving benefit of the doubt, I'll confront them directly. If they insist, then they'll become an out-group to me. Starmanning no more.
> But without labelling it, I do endorse the technique. Almost everyone wants the world to get better.
It is interesting to see how labeling a technique like this and assigning it a sense of moral superiority seems to invite the exact abuse you describe.
I’ve noticed this with the recent popularity of “steelmanning”; Many of the explicitly-labeled steelman arguments I’ve read lately are actually just strawman arguments, but the author tries to preempt criticism by labeling it a steelman and pretending it is the most robust counter argument that could exist. Often these false steelman arguments arise when the author doesn’t understand the topic as well as they think they do but they believe that “steelmanning” automatically makes them an expert on the counter arguments.
If it isn't labelled explicitly, by and large the cudgel people can't tell when it is happening, can't mimic it & don't know how to attack. The reason they cudgel is because they can't use empathy - if they could they would, it is a more powerful tool. Plus the cudgel hurts both parties.
It sounds stupid, but I believe it. The flow of a lot of arguments make sense if you assume neither side understands practical empathy (not a comment on objectives, just they can't hold 2x perspectives in mind at once so a lot of the conversation is invisible to them).
>Many of the explicitly-labeled steelman arguments I’ve read lately are actually just strawman arguments, but the author tries to preempt criticism by labeling it a steelman and pretending it is the most robust counter argument that could exist.
Just means that they have limited imagination, no?
I'd hesitate to label anything as steelmanning even if I believed that was what I was doing.
Somebody else coming up with a slightly better argument than my labeled steelman would undermine my entire point.
That said, successfully presenting an opponents steelman argument as well or better than they would and then countering it is very effective.
Unfortunately this is true, even with non-political topics. Some people will treat sincere questions trying to understand their point of view as attacks and keep escalating/trying to make it personal.
In the end there isn’t a lot you can do about it, except learn when to cut bait and move on. I agree with you that it’s still worth trying.
The other thing I've found is that in those cases, the toxicity of their reaction will (at least slightly) move the opinions of at least some people watching the conversation.
So I tend to cut bait and move on at the point where it starts to upset me rather than the point at which the conversation itself is obviously futile.
However my tolerance before I start to actually be upset is relatively high - most people would be significantly better served by bailing out earlier and I've seen too many people burning out of having such conversations entirely because of not doing that and I miss their perspective so would prefer they set boundaries that work for them.
(in case you can't tell, I like being covering fire and it very definitely earns me more friends I am glad to have than enemies I would have preferred not to have)
This is why companies need a HR hiring process that filters out candidates who haven't yet developed the level of maturity needed to listen to contrary perspectives without taking such conversations emotionally.
Such unfiltered workplaces inevitably become toxic.
>Some people have made their political ideology the foundation that they build their ego on[...]
This remind me about the idea of "holy wars" in "The denial of death" of Ernest Becker.
“Since the main task of human life is to become heroic and transcend death, every culture must provide its members with an intricate symbolic system that is covertly religious. This means that ideological conflicts between cultures are essentially battles between immortality projects, holy wars.”
Also something along the lines of preferring to annihilate the other before they risk to be symbolically annihilated, like if we prefer the physical death before than the death of the symbolic. For both the other (when is an ideological opponent) and ourselves. We may be physically death, but symbolically immortal.
A post I made elsewhere, which seems pertinent here:
Politics and Hermit Crabs
Hermit Crabs wear a shell for protection. If they get separated from their shell, they get frantic and often die if they can't find a replacement. They don't like it when people mess with their shell.
Imagine coming up with a brilliant, powerful political argument. You can smash the shell right off your opponent. Will they thank you for it? There is a real human psychological need behind people's beliefs. There is lived experience behind these beliefs.
It can feel like a real attack when that lived experience is invalidated. People retract into their shell, or attack right back. If their shell is actually busted, they probably won't stick around and find out what else you plan on doing to them; they'll run off and they may find an even worse shell.
So what then? Just accept that they will wear a terrible shell forever?
I think that you have to accept their current situation. You don't have to accept it forever, but you have to see them where they are now. You can't change their shell, and you shouldn't expect them to change to a shell that matches yours any time soon, but if you don't drive them away, then maybe they can accept that your shell is valid, and find value in your point of view.
And to be clear, you don't have to do this for everyone, and you sure don't have to do it on social media. You may not be able to accept anyone's terrible shell right now. That's fine. But remember that we all picked up our shells from our environment; we carry our history around with us.
I'm really impressed by this idea. I've never heard of the idea of "star-manning" an argument before, I presume the author invented it, it's good food for thought.
There's another interesting term in here - "ideological capture" - seems like this refers to the state where a person or organization is supporting policy based on ideology or group identity rather than what policy would yield the best outcomes for all of the people involved.
I don't think star-manning is a replacement for steel-manning. More like there are situations where no matter how well you steel-man someone's argument, they're not going to listen, because you don't like each other (or each other's views). Maybe the place where this idea is most applicable is when someone else is in an adversarial mode, it's really the person themselves that you need to "star-man" to establish that common ground is possible and get them into a cooperative mode.
I still think steelmanning is the right path to addressing conflict.
Even in very tense settings, it’s hard for people to be disagreeable about you accurately relaying their view — maybe even better than they did themselves. That makes people feel listened to and understood, which are powerful motivators in human psychology.
I won’t pretend I always do this, but I’ve certainly had the best success inquiring about their position until I can steelman it and only then addressing why I disagree.
As Chris Voss would say, you don’t want them to say “you’re right”, you want them to say “that’s right”.
I see a few folks in these comments essentially saying "If only everyone else would do this!" This rather misses the point. You don't empathize with your opposition for their sake; you do it for your own sake. You do it because you might learn something. You do it because it helps to build relationships, like (say) the famous friendship between the late justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. You even do it because your argument will be more effective. But the bottom line is that you do it because it's better for your own mental health if you try to think of the people around you as good.
You're right that this has unilateral benefits, but it's even better if something like this becomes encoded in social norms. For example, there are online communities where it's simply expected that you'll assume good faith and basic decency from the people you're arguing with. To do otherwise would be a serious faux pas. There are also online communities where everything immediately devolves into flamewars in which everyone is shouting and no-one is listening, and that is considered normal and inevitable. And then of course there's a whole spectrum in-between. I can tell you from experience: the places with nicer discourse norms are more pleasant and the discussions tend to be much more interesting and productive. (Compare HN with, say, most of Twitter.)
Unfortunatly, like NVC, arguing from compassion is really hard to fake.
You may force yourself to practice it, and you will improve. But as soon as you get heat up in the moment, it will all go away.
What really helps you to progress is to work on yourself (whatever is your favorite tool, therapy, meditation, etc).
Because it will improve the compassion you feel (for others, but more importantly, for yourself: a lot of the debate is going on inside), and giving a compassionate shape to your words will then be more natural, fluid, and therefore, will be less likely to melt away in a real life debate.
But trying to sound compassionate when you are angry doesn't work very well. And it requires a huge amount of energy to maintain (ask any politician :)).
This is one of those areas where "fake it until you make it" shows its limits.
However, it does improve the quality of your exchanges a lot on the long run, and for me, it's really worth it.
I'm not saying don't try to fake it, but rather, understand where the ceiling is.
> But trying to sound compassionate when you are angry doesn't work very well. And it requires a huge amount of energy to maintain (ask any politician :)).
But that's a good and self-reinforcing thing! If you are spending all your energy on compassion, then you are not spending your energy on talking angrily, and so are inadvertently lulled into listening, or at least not over-talking. If one can't be genuinely compassionate yet, then at least falling into a neutral non-attacking position is a good thing.
Nowever it's not uncommon to build frustration that way. Let's disregard the fact it's a highway to unhappiness. One day, one may not have enough energy to keep this frustration at bay, then anger will flow.
Anger is a funny thing, it can lend you temporarilly a lot of energy (that you pay back with interest later). So even if you didn't have any for compassion, suddenly, you might find you have a lot for destruction.
Now don't get me wrong, I think trying and failing at compassion is a worthy action, even when resulting with destruction.
In fact, some meditation technics are mostly that: you try to be compassionate, or in the moment, or just observing. You fail. You try again. For years.
> Unfortunatly, like NVC, arguing from compassion is really hard to fake.
Agreed.
> What really helps you to progress is to work on yourself (whatever is your favorite tool, therapy, meditation, etc).
This, however, is very consistent with NVC. Not just with NVC but with most communications books - especially those involving difficult issues. These books focus more on figuring out what's inside of you than in the actual verbal communication. If you're upset/angry, the goal is to understand what is causing you to be angry and how you got there - why would you get angry and someone else wouldn't?
Indeed it's a better way to put it than my comment: it's not as important to note than faking it is hard, rather that really understanding it is something that goes deeper than an exchange of words.
However, I would say that it's ok to start with just the words. There is a first step to everything.
I'd argue that often what's inside of us (at least in side of me) is a lot of verbal communication. Maybe you mean the verbal communication we do with others, yet I just wanted to say I think the language we use with ourselves is often the language we use with others. I've found that yes, working on how I talk to myself has helped how I talk to others. For example, I'm not an idiot when I make a mistake, I'm angry at a specific behavior I did.
So I try to pay attention to how I speak to myself and how I speak to others, trying to learn from both. E.g., I just said "gosh, how stupid are you" to someone (or thought it), wait, how often do I say that to myself?
I think this is something you get almost for free when talking to someone you know in a real-world face-to-face conversation. You get full-bandwidth communication with a real human, and it's impossible to ignore their humanity. When you step back from having a conversation with a person you know, to having an argument with a person you don't know, the humanity diminishes - they become just a character on the other side of the room. When you step back from reality altogether, and argue with people online, the humanity is absent entirely (and indeed, the thing you are interacting with might not be human).
I conclude that a healthy debate can only take place in the real world and a prerequisite is getting to know the person first.
>Sealioning (also sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity
The audience are the other readers, not the other commenter. It's enough to convince them. If valid arguments are not enough for them then that's their problem.
Readit News
I'll take that wager. I've met a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends. Then there is the deep tribal impulse that is satisfied only at the exclusion of others, almost as a principle. Suggesting they employ the starman in their discussion won't make a difference because it's not a rhetorical problem, it's just how their priorities reflect on how they act in their daily lives.
The issue is in assuming the most charitable version of an opponent when we have their actions to guide us instead. For example, right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, not for safety, fairness or justice for everyone. They just want better for their tribe. And we should respond as such based on their actions.
And if you assume they want safety, fairness and justice for everyone, their responses will vary from 'sure, why not' to 'of course, that's exactly why we're liberating, cleansing and reappropriating'.
Many of us are just selfish bastards, and that's a character flaw.
One of the companies I worked for seemingly attracted this type of personality. Of the people like this I've met (and been actually very cautious around), maybe 90% worked at that specific company.
This is why Hierocles the Stoic had the right idea when he pushed people to move one circle over. This is a far more practical goal than striving for a "just world".
Each one of us is as it were entirely encompassed by many circles, some smaller, others larger, the latter enclosing the former on the basis of their different and unequal dispositions relative to each other. The first and closest circle is the one which a person has drawn as though around a centre, his own mind. This circle encloses the body and anything taken for the sake of the body. For it is virtually the smallest circle, and almost touches the centre itself. Next, the second one further removed from the centre but enclosing the first circle; this contains parents, siblings, wife, and children. The third one has in it uncles and aunts, grandparents, nephews, nieces, and cousins. The next circle includes the other relatives, and this is followed by the circle of local residents, then the circle of fellow-tribes-men, next that of fellow-citizens, and then in the same way the circle of people from neighbouring towns, and the circle of fellow-countrymen. The outermost and largest circle, which encompasses all the rest, is that of the whole human race.
Once these have all been surveyed, it is the task of a well tempered man, in his proper treatment of each group, to draw the circles together somehow towards the centre, and to keep zealously transferring those from the enclosing circles into the enclosed ones ... It is incumbent on us to respect people from the third circle as if they were those from the second, and again to respect our other relatives as if they were those from the third circle. For although the greater distance in blood will remove some affection, we must still try hard to assimilate them. The right point will be reached if, through our own initiative, we reduce the distance of the relationship with each person.
Interesting, I think there are at least a couple more outer rings which encompass non-human animals too. In western culture we’ve decided a smaller ring goes around pets (dogs, cats), and then maybe farm animals then sea creatures. Hopefully we can “draw these circles together” too.
The problem with nationalism is the effort stops once the circle encompasses 'your' people (or in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, forces those outside to accept they are on the inside).
I think is a way oversimplification of geopolitical situation in Ukraine and Russian motives.
Just my two cents
IMO it's an oversimplification to do otherwise.
Indeed, not all but some of the attackers instead want to kill the men and rape the women in Ukraine -- rather than caring that much about their own tribe.
Some double digit percentage of the male population whether you are, starts doing that, if they have the chance.
It's reproduction, evolution, been going on for hundreds of thousands of years
"Star man"
Many people have a spirit of benevolence, but many other people have endured trauma and deeply believe that the next generation must be hazed too.
There also exist a set of people that are born with wiring that if not specifically counteracted can have them act in violent and antisocial ways, without trauma needing to have occurred.
As an optimist and humanist, a shocking revelation for me was hearing of the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" in South Africa. (I think via a talk by Chomsky or Zizek)
Many atrocities were committed by both sides during the Apartheid era. Enough said.
Years later the Government of National Unity wanted to heal the country, to bury festering resentments and feuds. Perpetrators and victims were brought together under supervision to talk openly and work toward forgiveness. It's a great idea in principle. Although the commission is widely considered successful, a strange thing occurred, something that we also buried at the Nuremberg trials.
A quite small but significant group were not merely unrepentant, they used the commission as a platform to attack and abuse their victims again. "I'm really glad I tortured your children, let me tell you about how they screamed", and so on.
Sure, always aim to "star man" in debate, but one must be hard enough underneath to expect occasionally to be shot out of the sky, not by an uncharitable or entrenched interlocutor but by an plain old evil asshole. They exist. They're not "psychopaths" or even "trolls", but get a thrill out of acting so as to add chaos and pain to the world.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commi...
It's interesting. Do you have a source for further reading?
Just look at the foreign policy of every country in power. Look at the willingness of any power group to give up that power without intense military or financial pressure. Let's see - slavery, wars of conquest, ecological destruction, finding black men automatically guilty, rape, child abuse, monopolies, wealth concentration, regressive California property tax policy, etc.
Letting it get to that point, so as to put your tribe first is selfishness and IMO a deep character flaw. A flaw in so many of us that the idea of star-manning is, in so many cases, naive.
Just like steel manning, star manning is supposed to be an approach you can take to show respect, not something people force you to submit to.
I wonder if more people actually want others to see our humanity than us to see the humanity of others. I would strongly bet on that actually.
I think a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends believe that others don't have concern for them. It can become a preemptive indifference: they don't care about me, why should I care about them.
What I want to work on and help people realize is that I care about you, even if I don't know you. And the work I do to get there is often me realizing how much people care about me. Maybe this is what he's getting at with the starman concept, to flip ourselves from thinking others are trying to hurt us and reacting to them with hatred or indifference, to believing they actually care about us.
And I agree that many people may not want to do this, so I'm mostly just trying to do it for myself. I wonder if his argument would have come off differently if instead of telling people what they should do, he said these are the tools he employs and how they work in his life.
My conservative friends are very concerned about anyone they know, and very worried about how they can't backstop them because of supporting the whole of society. 2 of them would fly / drive across the country at a moments notice to help me out for weeks. But they aren't concerned with people outside that circle. Of the 2 I had deep conversations with, they both were more focused on setting up social circles to support everyone else such as churches, local community, family, which to them is the fallback, not the government.
That's about as far as I got.
When I read this, I scoffed a little bit. A better idea than one proposed two thousand years ago? Say it isn't so! Why haven't we thought of this before?
I think you hooked rightly on the Ukraine and Russia conflict. Sometimes, there is not a "best version" of someone.
The author seems to reject that outright, saying we need to recognize our opponents humanity in order to effectively argue, with the premise that there's something good in there to tease out.
On what basis can the author say that there's something good inside? Their "humanity"? That reasoning is rather circular...
Another model of human mminds that I find much more useful is as a complicated feedback system. A priori, these dynamical systems can have many different equilibria regions in their phase space, but none of the equilibria or attractors are anything like a "true characterization" of these systems. They are simply regions of related behavior that these systems can get temporarily or permanently stuck in.
For human psychology, this model simply says that humans can get into all kinds of "attractor" mindsets, e.g. self-sacrificing, defensive, fearful, etc. These mindsets have extrinsics such as sadistic behavior, altruism, consistent procrastination, etc. They also have intrinsics, such as feeling constant angst, holistic safety, or over-arching pessimism.
Under this model, at least, it makes sense that people may 100% in a vengeful mindset while at the same time recognizing that to also be a mind-region that feels pretty crappy. We can also then cognate about ways of moving ourselves our others toward other attractors that are "better" in some way.
In Control Theory, the question then becomes about what set of inputs we have available to tweak these mind-environment systems?
I did as well, and then paused because I've said to myself that I've come up with something like this before (facepalm emoji).
> On what basis can the author say that there's something good inside? Their "humanity"?
I can't speak for him, however when I do this, it's not about knowing for sure there's something good inside someone, it's choosing to believe that there is. I don't know if I will ever know someone's deepest intentions, and I have seen that when I believe they have bad intentions towards me, I can feel sad, angry, afraid, lonely, and more. However, when I believe they have good intentions towards me, I can feel grateful, safe, free, hopeful, etc. Given that I may never know how they're feeling, I therefore think I can choose what to believe, and by choosing to believe they have good intentions, I feel better.
Secondly, if I believe they have bad intentions, I often treat them poorly—ignore them, distrust them, attack them, etc. If I believe they have good intentions, I often treat them kindly—appreciate them, help them, show them how much I care, etc. So if I choose to believe they have good intentions, they may also be more likely to believe that I have good intentions for them based on my actions.
This logic may fall apart if one believes that we can know for certain another's deepest intentions, I just currently believe we cannot.
The former is (1) less etymologically confusing (ekhem...) and (2) applicable to other species.
It's not even that the Russians who think this are especially evil people, or irrational people, or people who are unlike us in any fundamental way.
The reason they think this way, and that you do not, is because they believe different myths than you do.
Let's say your worldview is defined by Ivan Ilyin [0]. You don't consider other people or ethics at all. The only thing that matters in the world is God. And God is displeased that the perfect Russia that He created has been spoiled.
The only way to heal the world and make God happy is to restore a certain kind of utopian Russia. That pure and perfect Russia is united in territory and belief, so it can't tolerate any division or fragmentation within itself.
Agents of the devil in the West are deviously dismantling and disintegrating that pure and perfect Russia, piece by piece. Westerners are carving off pieces of territory like Ukraine, and dividing Russian people with seditious Western ideas like democracy and gender fluidity and a free press.
So it's a supernatural struggle between good and evil. An existential battle like that means there's no room for this messy business of parliaments and voting, or compromising with different perspectives.
We need one strong leader, a true and pure leader, to inherit the mantle of past great leaders like Stalin and Peter the Great. He will be God's instrument to make the hard decisions and lead the nation in glorious struggle. This divinely inspired leader will create unity in the world by restoring and reuniting Russia itself.
----
Where do you even begin to have a conversation when you don't share the most basic of beliefs or values? There is no common ground in wanting a safer, fairer, more just world. We have our own foundational myths that we rarely acknowledge or interrogate, and our myths don't intersect with Russia's myths at all.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Ilyin
We can share it with the tens of thousands of educated Russian opposing the 'special operation', with the thousands of Russians in jail for protesting. Even with the silent millions who doubt all the bullshit they hear but perhaps aren't going to die on a hill over it. They all grew up with the same foundational myths as the irredentists, they just chose to look further.
It's a mistake to essentialise a country as diverse as Russia but we can agree that it's also a mistake to assume almost everyone wants the best for everyone else.
The 3 random people decide that now they can rob the store with impunity, take a bunch of stuff, and then leave the clerk on the floor. Eventually someone else came in and helped the clerk, but it wasn't like those 3 people were part of some psychopath convention. They just independently decided that getting about $20 worth of free stuff was a better option than calling 911 or checking on the man.
Some people have made their political ideology the foundation that they build their ego on. Any disagreement is intolerable. Others are not thoughtful enough to understand that there can be genuine disagreement in the world of both thought and action which needs to be tolerated.
These people will ruin any concept of starmanning that catches hold by using it as a passive-aggressive cudgel ("I'm sure you are a good person and therefore you will immediately cease your opposition and accept my arguments!", "I'm sure you want to be a good person and therefore can't really believe these things you are saying, which are only for bad people!", "Why are you resisting when I'm starmanning you, you must be Hitler 2.0").
But without labelling it, I do endorse the technique. Almost everyone wants the world to get better.
I think if such practices became mainstream, then people would begin to realize the difficulties involved in having a coherent conversation about a point of disagreement. The passive-aggressive cudgels you mention would fall flat because it is instantly noticeable as not fitting the necessary patterns for coherent conversation.
No one needs to accept or reject the other. the point of an argument is to educate each other, answer questions, and allow each other to fit both opinions into their own world view (ex. what are the limits / specifics to your belief?). Maybe someone changes their mind during that conversation, maybe they dont. maybe someone needs to let the new information ferment in their minds and life for a bit before it clicks. that is part of giving someone benefit of the doubt
maybe you are talking to someone who is venting, or in the middle of a mental episode (i mean that literally, not derogatorily), or was unfortunately born a narcissistic manipulator and cant help themselves. It doesnt matter, they cannot "win" the conversation - no one can - and the more people that realize this truth about conversations in general, the better the world will become
This is why I stopped giving people benefit of the doubt. With every uncharitable action of theirs, I tried to understand their perspective, explain mine, and discover a ground truth. Yet, they are not interested in finding the truth. They are interested in doing what they believe is to be true, regardless of whether it is true or not. They are not interested in getting educated. They have already decided that they are educated and I am wrong, just because we have different ideas. My strategy of giving benefit of the doubt in such a case turns out to be nothing but a waste of time.
Therefore, I've changed my strategy. If they don't respond well to my giving benefit of the doubt, I'll confront them directly. If they insist, then they'll become an out-group to me. Starmanning no more.
It is interesting to see how labeling a technique like this and assigning it a sense of moral superiority seems to invite the exact abuse you describe.
I’ve noticed this with the recent popularity of “steelmanning”; Many of the explicitly-labeled steelman arguments I’ve read lately are actually just strawman arguments, but the author tries to preempt criticism by labeling it a steelman and pretending it is the most robust counter argument that could exist. Often these false steelman arguments arise when the author doesn’t understand the topic as well as they think they do but they believe that “steelmanning” automatically makes them an expert on the counter arguments.
It sounds stupid, but I believe it. The flow of a lot of arguments make sense if you assume neither side understands practical empathy (not a comment on objectives, just they can't hold 2x perspectives in mind at once so a lot of the conversation is invisible to them).
Just means that they have limited imagination, no?
I'd hesitate to label anything as steelmanning even if I believed that was what I was doing.
Somebody else coming up with a slightly better argument than my labeled steelman would undermine my entire point.
That said, successfully presenting an opponents steelman argument as well or better than they would and then countering it is very effective.
Dead Comment
In the end there isn’t a lot you can do about it, except learn when to cut bait and move on. I agree with you that it’s still worth trying.
So I tend to cut bait and move on at the point where it starts to upset me rather than the point at which the conversation itself is obviously futile.
However my tolerance before I start to actually be upset is relatively high - most people would be significantly better served by bailing out earlier and I've seen too many people burning out of having such conversations entirely because of not doing that and I miss their perspective so would prefer they set boundaries that work for them.
(in case you can't tell, I like being covering fire and it very definitely earns me more friends I am glad to have than enemies I would have preferred not to have)
Such unfiltered workplaces inevitably become toxic.
This remind me about the idea of "holy wars" in "The denial of death" of Ernest Becker.
“Since the main task of human life is to become heroic and transcend death, every culture must provide its members with an intricate symbolic system that is covertly religious. This means that ideological conflicts between cultures are essentially battles between immortality projects, holy wars.”
Also something along the lines of preferring to annihilate the other before they risk to be symbolically annihilated, like if we prefer the physical death before than the death of the symbolic. For both the other (when is an ideological opponent) and ourselves. We may be physically death, but symbolically immortal.
Politics and Hermit Crabs
Hermit Crabs wear a shell for protection. If they get separated from their shell, they get frantic and often die if they can't find a replacement. They don't like it when people mess with their shell.
Imagine coming up with a brilliant, powerful political argument. You can smash the shell right off your opponent. Will they thank you for it? There is a real human psychological need behind people's beliefs. There is lived experience behind these beliefs.
It can feel like a real attack when that lived experience is invalidated. People retract into their shell, or attack right back. If their shell is actually busted, they probably won't stick around and find out what else you plan on doing to them; they'll run off and they may find an even worse shell.
So what then? Just accept that they will wear a terrible shell forever? I think that you have to accept their current situation. You don't have to accept it forever, but you have to see them where they are now. You can't change their shell, and you shouldn't expect them to change to a shell that matches yours any time soon, but if you don't drive them away, then maybe they can accept that your shell is valid, and find value in your point of view.
And to be clear, you don't have to do this for everyone, and you sure don't have to do it on social media. You may not be able to accept anyone's terrible shell right now. That's fine. But remember that we all picked up our shells from our environment; we carry our history around with us.
There's another interesting term in here - "ideological capture" - seems like this refers to the state where a person or organization is supporting policy based on ideology or group identity rather than what policy would yield the best outcomes for all of the people involved.
I don't think star-manning is a replacement for steel-manning. More like there are situations where no matter how well you steel-man someone's argument, they're not going to listen, because you don't like each other (or each other's views). Maybe the place where this idea is most applicable is when someone else is in an adversarial mode, it's really the person themselves that you need to "star-man" to establish that common ground is possible and get them into a cooperative mode.
Even in very tense settings, it’s hard for people to be disagreeable about you accurately relaying their view — maybe even better than they did themselves. That makes people feel listened to and understood, which are powerful motivators in human psychology.
I won’t pretend I always do this, but I’ve certainly had the best success inquiring about their position until I can steelman it and only then addressing why I disagree.
As Chris Voss would say, you don’t want them to say “you’re right”, you want them to say “that’s right”.
You may force yourself to practice it, and you will improve. But as soon as you get heat up in the moment, it will all go away.
What really helps you to progress is to work on yourself (whatever is your favorite tool, therapy, meditation, etc).
Because it will improve the compassion you feel (for others, but more importantly, for yourself: a lot of the debate is going on inside), and giving a compassionate shape to your words will then be more natural, fluid, and therefore, will be less likely to melt away in a real life debate.
But trying to sound compassionate when you are angry doesn't work very well. And it requires a huge amount of energy to maintain (ask any politician :)).
This is one of those areas where "fake it until you make it" shows its limits.
However, it does improve the quality of your exchanges a lot on the long run, and for me, it's really worth it.
I'm not saying don't try to fake it, but rather, understand where the ceiling is.
But that's a good and self-reinforcing thing! If you are spending all your energy on compassion, then you are not spending your energy on talking angrily, and so are inadvertently lulled into listening, or at least not over-talking. If one can't be genuinely compassionate yet, then at least falling into a neutral non-attacking position is a good thing.
Nowever it's not uncommon to build frustration that way. Let's disregard the fact it's a highway to unhappiness. One day, one may not have enough energy to keep this frustration at bay, then anger will flow.
Anger is a funny thing, it can lend you temporarilly a lot of energy (that you pay back with interest later). So even if you didn't have any for compassion, suddenly, you might find you have a lot for destruction.
Now don't get me wrong, I think trying and failing at compassion is a worthy action, even when resulting with destruction.
In fact, some meditation technics are mostly that: you try to be compassionate, or in the moment, or just observing. You fail. You try again. For years.
Agreed.
> What really helps you to progress is to work on yourself (whatever is your favorite tool, therapy, meditation, etc).
This, however, is very consistent with NVC. Not just with NVC but with most communications books - especially those involving difficult issues. These books focus more on figuring out what's inside of you than in the actual verbal communication. If you're upset/angry, the goal is to understand what is causing you to be angry and how you got there - why would you get angry and someone else wouldn't?
However, I would say that it's ok to start with just the words. There is a first step to everything.
So I try to pay attention to how I speak to myself and how I speak to others, trying to learn from both. E.g., I just said "gosh, how stupid are you" to someone (or thought it), wait, how often do I say that to myself?
I conclude that a healthy debate can only take place in the real world and a prerequisite is getting to know the person first.
Assuming good faith is not always effective: it's completely vulnerable to various forms of trolling including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."
Trolls love making people waste their time refuting bullshit.
Choose wisely who to argue with.
The audience are the other readers, not the other commenter. It's enough to convince them. If valid arguments are not enough for them then that's their problem.