I’ve never actually rejected a debate request because a person had fewer than 20 articles. However, that is what I’m comfortable offering as a guarantee to the general public, which is binding on me even if I don’t like someone, think their argument is dumb, think their debate request is in bad faith, and would prefer to ignore them. 20 articles is a bar anyone can meet if they care enough. I don’t want to promise in writing to debate with any person who asks, who doesn’t meet that bar, no matter what.
Would you (or anyone else reading this) be interested in debating something about EA with me? (I don’t think finding a topic we disagree about will be difficult if we try.)
This article is interesting—and I agree that the base case you make that bias is hard to counter without a due process is convincing.
The policy you put forward (for you or Jordan Peterson) sounds good for public intellectual who are really busy.
I have more trouble seeing how that would play out in the EA forum, however.
As for me personally, I’m not sure that I will use it now—as I feel like I agree with the points you make, I’m less busy than you so I answer to everything even if I don’t agree with it, and I already try to do all you said in my mind.
(which might sound like from the outside exactly like bias- but I feel like I have a track record of changing my viewpoint on complicated topics as I got better information, even for some core questions like “Is industrial civilization good?” or “Is capitalism good?”).
I might use such a policy in the future in the future if I feel this would be useful as I debate more people, however.
For debating an EA related thing, I’m not sure I have a lot to debate on besides the basics. Maybe the following claims that I have in mind ?
Not being vegetarian causes a lot of suffering (unless you somehow manage to get food from scarce places with non-factory farming)
Conversely, donating to effective animals charities is one of the very top ways to reduuce suffering in the world
Meditation, if done right, is one of the best ways to improve one’s mind
Limits on energy depletion will have very serious effects on the world in the next 10-20 years, including but not limited to a probable long-term economic degrowth (this is one of the topic of my post)
Would you (or anyone else reading this) be interested in debating something about EA with me?
This is a yes or no question, but you didn’t give a direct or yes/no answer to it. I choose to communicate more directly and literally than you do. The value of literalness in communication is actually one of the topics I’d have an interest in debating. You don’t have to answer, but I wanted to repeat the question because not answering looked most likely accidental.
OK cool. I’m most interested in debating topics related to methodology and epistemology. They have larger potential impact than more specific topics, and they’re basically prerequisites anyway. I don’t think we’d be able to discuss e.g. animal welfare, and agree on a conclusion, without some methodology disagreements coming up mid-discussion and having to be resolved first.
The specific issue I’d propose to debate first is:
As for me personally, I’m not sure that I will use it now—as I feel like I agree with the points you make, I’m less busy than you so I answer to everything even if I don’t agree with it, and I already try to do all you said in my mind.
(which might sound like from the outside exactly like bias- but I feel like I have a track record of changing my viewpoint on complicated topics as I got better information, even for some core questions like “Is industrial civilization good?” or “Is capitalism good?”).
It does sound like bias to me, as you predicted. And I don’t think trying to do rationality things in your mind is adequate without things like written policies and transparency. So we have a disagreement here.
I must admit that I’m usually not that interested by things like methodology and epistemology, as I associate that with bureaucracy in my head. But I agree that they are important—I just want to avoid the pitfall where this gets too abstract.
Maybe I’ll start with the methodology I use to gather information (I use it implicitely in my head, but I don’t know if writing it down somewhere would change anything).
Let’s say I get a new information (say, that a serious drop in energy means a serious drop in economic growth). This is an idea that:
It’s new—I haven’t heard it anywhere else
It is supported by data, like say this graph :
I have a rough idea of how the conclusion was obtained (I can trace back to a study or a book) - the source is OK
It makes logical sense (the economy produces goods and services, and you need energy for that) - I see no internal flaw in this reasoning
I don’t have a serious counter point for that
It’s better than the previous explanation I had (economic growth is caused only by labor, capital and human ingenuity—which misses out on the fact that you need resources to produce goods and services)
In such a case, what I do is : I accept the conclusion, as “best temporary explanation”, and I live with it
If I find later a better explanation, I accept it (if it is more complete, with data more precise or more recent, it provides good counterpoints to the previous line of thinking I had, or has a more reliable source)
Now, the weakest part of this is number 1.5 : there may be good counterpoints but I may not be aware of them (for instance, one could say that we can do decoupling and still grow the economy with less energy). There are 2 different cases:
If this is not on an important topic, or it’s an information I can’t really act on, then I don’t do more research—maybe as I read more general stuff I’ll stumble over something better ?
If it’s an important information (like if we will have less energy in the next decade this would mean a very large recession), then I try to dig in more into it.
By reading books and articles. I try mostly to read experts that aggregated a lot of interesting data in a big picture view, and for whom I’ve found little criticism. They often provide useful links.
Note that while I read scientific papers, that’s rarely where I learn the best, since few of them provide a big picture, and their writing style is poorly suited to human psychology.
For stuff that I write (like a book or article), I need to step up my game. Then I try to find reviewers who know their stuff—the quality of what I write depends of the quality of my reviewers. If I find one that I disagree with, great ! It happened with the energy descent post, I exchanged a lot with Dave Denkerberger who was very knowledgeable, so I had to find good counterarguments, or accept his conclusion (which I did on several occasions).
For the energy/GDP stuff, for instance, we had only 2 or 3 graphs each—which was not enough. So I had some doubts about the validity of my data, I digged deeper, read about a dozen papers on ecological economics… and found that, surprisingly, the energy/GDP relationship was even more supported by data than I initially envisioned.
If I have two concurrent explanations that contradict each other, or if the data is poor on both sides, I flag the data point as “contested” in my head and I try not use it in my reasoning, until I’ve done more research (this is the case for the causality of energy/GDP, whether “GDP causes energy” or “energy causes GDP” or both. There is no consensus)
However, even if they disagree on causality, studies still indicate that a high GDP needs a lot of energy. Good enough, I use that instead.
Now, this is very rough, I agree, but I feel like I learned a lot, and changed my views on a wide range of topic, so I feel like this kinda works so far.
There may room for improvements, of course. What do you think about it ?
I’ve never actually rejected a debate request because a person had fewer than 20 articles. However, that is what I’m comfortable offering as a guarantee to the general public, which is binding on me even if I don’t like someone, think their argument is dumb, think their debate request is in bad faith, and would prefer to ignore them. 20 articles is a bar anyone can meet if they care enough. I don’t want to promise in writing to debate with any person who asks, who doesn’t meet that bar, no matter what.
Here’s some more concrete writing about rationality policies: Using Intellectual Processes to Combat Bias
Would you (or anyone else reading this) be interested in debating something about EA with me? (I don’t think finding a topic we disagree about will be difficult if we try.)
This article is interesting—and I agree that the base case you make that bias is hard to counter without a due process is convincing.
The policy you put forward (for you or Jordan Peterson) sounds good for public intellectual who are really busy.
I have more trouble seeing how that would play out in the EA forum, however.
As for me personally, I’m not sure that I will use it now—as I feel like I agree with the points you make, I’m less busy than you so I answer to everything even if I don’t agree with it, and I already try to do all you said in my mind.
(which might sound like from the outside exactly like bias- but I feel like I have a track record of changing my viewpoint on complicated topics as I got better information, even for some core questions like “Is industrial civilization good?” or “Is capitalism good?”).
I might use such a policy in the future in the future if I feel this would be useful as I debate more people, however.
For debating an EA related thing, I’m not sure I have a lot to debate on besides the basics. Maybe the following claims that I have in mind ?
Not being vegetarian causes a lot of suffering (unless you somehow manage to get food from scarce places with non-factory farming)
Conversely, donating to effective animals charities is one of the very top ways to reduuce suffering in the world
Meditation, if done right, is one of the best ways to improve one’s mind
Limits on energy depletion will have very serious effects on the world in the next 10-20 years, including but not limited to a probable long-term economic degrowth (this is one of the topic of my post)
This is a yes or no question, but you didn’t give a direct or yes/no answer to it. I choose to communicate more directly and literally than you do. The value of literalness in communication is actually one of the topics I’d have an interest in debating. You don’t have to answer, but I wanted to repeat the question because not answering looked most likely accidental.
Oh, you’re right, I wasn’t clear enough. This feedback is appreciated.
Then my answer is “Yes, I agree”, depending on the topic of course.
OK cool. I’m most interested in debating topics related to methodology and epistemology. They have larger potential impact than more specific topics, and they’re basically prerequisites anyway. I don’t think we’d be able to discuss e.g. animal welfare, and agree on a conclusion, without some methodology disagreements coming up mid-discussion and having to be resolved first.
The specific issue I’d propose to debate first is:
It does sound like bias to me, as you predicted. And I don’t think trying to do rationality things in your mind is adequate without things like written policies and transparency. So we have a disagreement here.
Ok, very well.
I must admit that I’m usually not that interested by things like methodology and epistemology, as I associate that with bureaucracy in my head. But I agree that they are important—I just want to avoid the pitfall where this gets too abstract.
Maybe I’ll start with the methodology I use to gather information (I use it implicitely in my head, but I don’t know if writing it down somewhere would change anything).
Let’s say I get a new information (say, that a serious drop in energy means a serious drop in economic growth). This is an idea that:
It’s new—I haven’t heard it anywhere else
It is supported by data, like say this graph :
I have a rough idea of how the conclusion was obtained (I can trace back to a study or a book) - the source is OK
It makes logical sense (the economy produces goods and services, and you need energy for that) - I see no internal flaw in this reasoning
I don’t have a serious counter point for that
It’s better than the previous explanation I had (economic growth is caused only by labor, capital and human ingenuity—which misses out on the fact that you need resources to produce goods and services)
In such a case, what I do is : I accept the conclusion, as “best temporary explanation”, and I live with it
If I find later a better explanation, I accept it (if it is more complete, with data more precise or more recent, it provides good counterpoints to the previous line of thinking I had, or has a more reliable source)
Now, the weakest part of this is number 1.5 : there may be good counterpoints but I may not be aware of them (for instance, one could say that we can do decoupling and still grow the economy with less energy). There are 2 different cases:
If this is not on an important topic, or it’s an information I can’t really act on, then I don’t do more research—maybe as I read more general stuff I’ll stumble over something better ?
If it’s an important information (like if we will have less energy in the next decade this would mean a very large recession), then I try to dig in more into it.
By reading books and articles. I try mostly to read experts that aggregated a lot of interesting data in a big picture view, and for whom I’ve found little criticism. They often provide useful links.
Note that while I read scientific papers, that’s rarely where I learn the best, since few of them provide a big picture, and their writing style is poorly suited to human psychology.
For stuff that I write (like a book or article), I need to step up my game. Then I try to find reviewers who know their stuff—the quality of what I write depends of the quality of my reviewers. If I find one that I disagree with, great ! It happened with the energy descent post, I exchanged a lot with Dave Denkerberger who was very knowledgeable, so I had to find good counterarguments, or accept his conclusion (which I did on several occasions).
For the energy/GDP stuff, for instance, we had only 2 or 3 graphs each—which was not enough. So I had some doubts about the validity of my data, I digged deeper, read about a dozen papers on ecological economics… and found that, surprisingly, the energy/GDP relationship was even more supported by data than I initially envisioned.
If I have two concurrent explanations that contradict each other, or if the data is poor on both sides, I flag the data point as “contested” in my head and I try not use it in my reasoning, until I’ve done more research (this is the case for the causality of energy/GDP, whether “GDP causes energy” or “energy causes GDP” or both. There is no consensus)
However, even if they disagree on causality, studies still indicate that a high GDP needs a lot of energy. Good enough, I use that instead.
Now, this is very rough, I agree, but I feel like I learned a lot, and changed my views on a wide range of topic, so I feel like this kinda works so far.
There may room for improvements, of course. What do you think about it ?
I created a debate topic at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gL7y22tFLKaTKaZt5/debate-about-biased-methodology-or-corentin-biteau-and
I will reply to your message later.
Please let me know if you have any objections to my summary of what the debate is about.