I always felt kind of uneasy about Eric Scwhitzgebel’s competition to find the most convincing argument for making people donate. It felt kind of symmetric in a way I don’t like, like you could do that for any action you want to convince people to take. I also pattern matched it to starting with a conclusion and then trying to find all the best arguments for that conclusion, which is a grave sin in my culture.
I thought of something I could do to make it better, which I am probably not going to do because I feel like I would get yelled at.
edit: I’m not sure it did actually work like this, but it was something similar.
The way his competition worked was that he had subjects read the arguments submitted by competitors, then gave them 10 usd, and had them decide how much of that 10 usd if any they wanted to give to charity. People can now publicize the argument that turns out to most reliably cause readers to donate most. My idea to correct for this is to hold the opposite competition. What argument is best for convincing people not to donate, measured the same way? Then we could publicize both arguments together. Probably not going to do this, but I wish somebody would, and I would support them.
I took “It felt kind of symmetric” to be referring to Guided By The Beauty Of Our Weapons, and “starting with a conclusion and then trying to find all the best arguments for that conclusion” to be referring to The Bottom Line.
I replied (edited):
This is a cool idea!
Another potential problem is that persuasiveness isn’t the same thing as accuracy, informational value, honesty, epistemic empowerment, etc.
And a third problem is that since each submission is trying to be maximally convincing, there’s no incentive for any submission to note the weaknesses, limitations, or caveats affecting its own arguments. A ‘debate’ format, allowing for the two sides to respond to each other, seems better than a ‘we each make our own arguments in separate rooms from each other’ format, since it’s a lot easier to come away uninformed or lacking important context if you don’t hear anyone pick apart the original arguments.
Maybe the best version of this contest would be some version of https://rationalconspiracy.com/2017/01/03/four-layers-of-intellectual-conversation/, where people submit arguments for or against a proposition, and the most compelling argument wins; then people submit rebuttals to the most compelling argument, and the most compelling rebuttal wins; then the original winner gets a chance to respond, and the second winner gets a chance to counter-respond. Then all four entries get posted together, so the argument gets a fairer hearing.
I’d help to fund that study (at least, the anti-donation study) if someone put it together. Have you or the anonymous commenter proposed it to Schwitzgebel? For all I know, he might react very enthusiastically.
(If no one’s asked him yet, would you mind if I passed this comment along?)
An anonymous comment someone asked me to post for them (similar to Mati Roy’s recent comment):
I took “It felt kind of symmetric” to be referring to Guided By The Beauty Of Our Weapons, and “starting with a conclusion and then trying to find all the best arguments for that conclusion” to be referring to The Bottom Line.
I replied (edited):
I’d help to fund that study (at least, the anti-donation study) if someone put it together. Have you or the anonymous commenter proposed it to Schwitzgebel? For all I know, he might react very enthusiastically.
(If no one’s asked him yet, would you mind if I passed this comment along?)
I haven’t talked to Schwitzgebel, and you’re of course welcome to pass this all on. :)