Debate - Critical Fallibilism

Critical Fallibilism

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Debate

Debate methodology.

Low Quality Literature Is Hard To Discuss

I recently read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. I liked it. I had been told it’s horrible. The book and its author have been demonized by right-wingers including the Ayn Rand Institute. It’s a really famous and controversial book. It had a significant influence on political policies. A

Meta Criticism and Unstated Premises

It’s often hard to engage with the literature on a topic because the literature is bad in meta ways. You can criticize the methodology and the glaring omissions, but it’s hard to write about the actual object-level topic. For example, suppose some economics literature didn’t have a

AI Alignment and Openness to Debate: A Twitter Example

I’ll analyze a real example to illustrate some Critical Fallibilist thinking about openness to debate. I replied to Eliezer Yudkowsky (an AI alignment thought leader) on Twitter: I'm an expert on Critical Rationalism. You ignored my criticism over 10 years ago. I don't think you&

Example Debate with AI Researcher about Popper

This is a fictional dialog which stands on its own but also follows my article Error Correction and AI Alignment. The main goal isn’t realism; it’s to illustrate some of Critical Fallibilism’s thinking about rationality and debate. The Debate Begins Elliot Temple: Do you agree that your

Example Debate with AI Researcher

This is a fictional example of what a debate could look like if an AI researcher were willing to debate and were unusually honest. It’s meant to be more illustrative than realistic. It can be read on its own, but it’s also a follow up to my article

Error Correction and AI Alignment

There are calls to pause or shut down AI development. I want to stay out of the widespread, tribalist, parochial political bickering because I think those activities are unproductive. But I can use these issues for examples to apply Critical Fallibilism (CF) philosophy to. How could people approach the issues

Taking Personal Responsibility for Debating Your Ideas

Anyone can take responsibility for defending some ideas. People can defend different but overlapping sets of ideas and still help each other. To the extent other people do useful stuff, it’s less work for you. To the extent no one else helps defend the ideas you care about, then

Debate, Rejection, Priorities and Endless Meta Levels

Open debate policies involve more honesty than people are used to. If you don’t ignore people with no explanation, then you have to explain when you don’t debate people. That makes your reason for not debating be transparent and open to criticism. But people often take rejection poorly.

My Experience with My Debate Policy

How guaranteeing debates saves time.

Fallibilism, Bias, and the Rule of Law

Effective Altruism can learn from the rule of law.

Intuition and Rational Debate

Previously I wrote Don’t Suppress Your Intuition and Intuition and Rationality. I’m now expanding on ideas in those articles. I recommend reading them first. A key to not being bullied in debates is knowing how to say “I intuitively disagree with that.” If you won’t express intuitive

Being Open to Debate (and Judging Intellectuals)

Ways to be open to debate, ways I'm open, and ways I might not be.

Debate, Criticism, Argument Strengths and Intuitions

Critical Fallibilism (CF) loosely separates debate into two parts. First, you explain your idea. You present it and say what it is and how it works. This is not arguing how great or strong it is, nor arguing that your idea is correct. Sharing ideas is different than arguing. You