This is nice and practical—it’s good that it focusses on specific behaviours that people can practice rather than saying anything that could come across as “you’re alienating people and you should feel bad”.
One thing I’d add to this is to try to debate less and be curious more. Often discussions can turn into person A defending one position and person B rebutting this position and defending their own. I’ve found that it is often more helpful for both people to collaborate on analysing different models of the world in a curious way. Person A proposes a model of how the world works and person B the starts trying to understand person A’s model—what its assumptions are, where it applies, and where it doesn’t. They can then contrast this with other models of the world and try to work together to find out which is best. If you want to get really into it, drawing diagrams can help both because it helps you think and because it increases the sense that you are working together on a problem, rather than arguing against one another. But it doesn’t have to be this formal—it could just be a friendly discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of different ideas.
On a related note, I think it’s important to realise that people don’t always believe the positions they’re arguing for. I’ll often tell my friends an idea because I’m interested in working out it’s strengths, weaknesses, and implications. If they’re dismissive and try to argue against it I feel that they’re missing the point—it would be more helpful to explore the idea’s strengths and weaknesses together rather than turning it into a debate. This would help us to be more accepting of new ideas that don’t come from the usual EA sources.
I really like that framing of trying to be more curious and less debating. As you say, it’s really useful to investigate new ideas, even if you don’t agree with them!
This is nice and practical—it’s good that it focusses on specific behaviours that people can practice rather than saying anything that could come across as “you’re alienating people and you should feel bad”.
One thing I’d add to this is to try to debate less and be curious more. Often discussions can turn into person A defending one position and person B rebutting this position and defending their own. I’ve found that it is often more helpful for both people to collaborate on analysing different models of the world in a curious way. Person A proposes a model of how the world works and person B the starts trying to understand person A’s model—what its assumptions are, where it applies, and where it doesn’t. They can then contrast this with other models of the world and try to work together to find out which is best. If you want to get really into it, drawing diagrams can help both because it helps you think and because it increases the sense that you are working together on a problem, rather than arguing against one another. But it doesn’t have to be this formal—it could just be a friendly discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of different ideas.
On a related note, I think it’s important to realise that people don’t always believe the positions they’re arguing for. I’ll often tell my friends an idea because I’m interested in working out it’s strengths, weaknesses, and implications. If they’re dismissive and try to argue against it I feel that they’re missing the point—it would be more helpful to explore the idea’s strengths and weaknesses together rather than turning it into a debate. This would help us to be more accepting of new ideas that don’t come from the usual EA sources.
Great comment! :)
I really like that framing of trying to be more curious and less debating. As you say, it’s really useful to investigate new ideas, even if you don’t agree with them!