I began organizing the current state of the animal rights debate into a discussion tree diagram. I started with Peter Singer because he's a well known intellectual with pro animal rights writing. I will update the diagram or create additional diagrams if some pro animal rights people point me to literature which addresses my unanswered arguments and questions, or make important arguments in the comments below. I hope they'll do that. I prefer pointers to specific parts of literature unless someone wants to first concede that key arguments for animal rights haven't been written down anywhere (and explain why they haven't been).

The diagram is just an outline. For details about a particular part, ask in comments below. The diagram is meant to show (a piece of) the structure of the debate/discussion. It selectively focuses on points Singer raised and points I consider important. I'm sure other people have written relevant things, but I don't know where to find that, I've done some Bing searches unsuccessfully, and I have other research priorities (such as how to have a rational discussion – this is an experiment for that purpose). My relevant expertise is primarily about epistemology, software and science, not the animal rights literature. I've debated ~25 people on these issues but they typically bring up sources like a YouTube video about how an animal did something that seems intelligent to them.

Click the diagram to expand or view the PDF for selectable text. The source links are clickable in the PDF and are Animal Liberation and Animal Liberation at 30.

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Update: I explain more of my position, and do some research, in the comments below, and in Discussion about Animal Rights and Popper

Update 2: I wrote Animal Rights Issues Regarding Software and AGI

I wanted to find Mind Mapping software for the primary purpose of making tree diagrams for discussions. They're also good for diagramming sentence grammar. I often prefer to write a bullet point outline in markdown then have software convert it to a tree. I generally prefer simple, readable output without customizing individual nodes. There are many options, most bad. I looked at 25.

OK

mindnode: solid UI, import, export. imports markdown with italics. no svg export. has mac and ios versions. curi’s choice

omnigraffle+omnioutliner: have to import and export through outliner. has svg export. many features and plugins. some hassle to get fresh imports usable. mac and ios.

iThoughtsX: import/export looks fine, no svg export, iffy UI, a review says it has some good power user features. has weird extra features like some calendar related stuff. mac, windows and ios versions.

xmind zen: limited customization, good themes and structures global options, ok import, no svg export. mac, windows, linux, ios, android.

graphviz: command line tool. many features. important tool that lots of people use. I would need to write a script to convert from markdown to dot including adding linebreaks cuz there’s no built in word wrap. already have an s-expression to dot script that doesn’t add linebreaks but works for grammar charts with one word per node. editing dot files sucks if you want to customize appearance of individual nodes.

jsSyntaxTree is an s-expression based web app suitable for small diagrams with single word nodes.

markmap converts markdown to a mind map. there's a plugin for using it with the atom text editor. but it has little configuration and doesn't do word wrapping. the results are basically unusuable if you put a paragraph of text in a node. i'm still glad to know it exists. it might be useful sometimes for personally looking at the outline of a document i'm writing.

Fail

GitMind: web. decent UI considering it’s a web app. img, pdf, txt, svg exports. import via paste from markdown list. but no wordwrap. nodes are all on one long line. RIP.

mindjet mindmanager: heavy advertising. UI looked bad in screenshots, wanted personal info including phone number for free trial, the web form had horrible formatting, didn’t try it

lucid chart: heavy advertising. web app. unclear if it can import markdown or tabbed text. trying to import from mindmaps was a premium feature. has pdf and svg export.

simplemind: bad export

Ayoa (bought iMindMap): no import, pdf export only, mac desktop app is a blatant port from web app with no file menu.

mindmeister: web app, iffy UI, no svg export

bubbl.us: web app, don’t see any import feature, no svg or pdf export

freeplane (was freemind): awful UI even for a java app, a million export options but crashed trying to export to svg.

Scapple: doesn’t import

mindmup: web app, publish online feature is auto-deleted after 6 months (not a permalink) and also you can’t delete it yourself. need gold membership to see what import options are. pasted markdown list in and it made every node a child of the untitled root node.

mindomo: mac app looks like web app port, no svg export, opening a txt or md file just opens it in default editor not in mindomo, wtf, RIP. can import with copy/paste (under the root node, need to manually paste your root node text in separately). bad UI and significant delay on zooming. has some tree structure options.

the brain: no png, svg or pdf export. no print. some sorta cloud upload feature. txt import says it had an error and logged the details (don’t know where). bad UI.

Coggle: Web. Imports with copy/paste but doesn’t wordwrap nodes by default. They’ll wordwrap with individual editing. no svg export.

mindmaster: heavy advertising. mac app is an awful port. only 3 weird import options that warn they aren’t 100% compatible. pasting lost all structure, made every node a child of the root node. has a lot of features including svg export.

Canva: art web app. not really for mindmaps.

InfoRapid KnowledgeBase Builder: $12 in mac app store with no free trial (every single other one i tried has a free trial). the name and other marketing look awful.

mapul: web, can’t import markdown data. has svg export. awful web ui.

miro (was: RealTimeBoard): couldn’t import markdown data, confusing UI, seems like a web app port

PDF to SVG Conversion

After reviewing apps and not getting svg export in MindNode, I figured out that pdfs can be converted to svg. Command line pdf2svg and pdftocairo worked but made unselectable text while the Convertio website made selectable text. I didn’t try Inkscape yet for conversion or extraction. ExtractPDF web app said there were no images to extract, so I don't think MindNode is creating an SVG embedded in the PDF. I got a working svg from importing and exporting with Affinity Designer. Affinity and Convertio both lost the hyperlinks though.

Source

patio11: A thing that keeps me up at night is that there is almost certainly, today, something which might not be shaped like penicillin but has a similar level of impact, and which is really sweating the next thousand dollars. https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1183833891209019392

patio11: And it’s not sitting in isolation; it is almost indistinguishable from 899 experiments which will go nowhere and 100 outright frauds which, after they lead the nightly news, will have your funding body of choice dutifully make sure that penicillin needs more paper for its grants.

patio11: I don’t know if I have a solution for this at the moment, other than not laughing when someone starts a conversation with “I think I am working on something bigger the penicillin.”

patio11: And, in the maybe 30% of lifetimes where I meet someone doing that, hopefully I immediately say “Good news, I have exactly one relevant professional skill. Here is all the money. Make progress on it and I can find you more.”

curi42: @patio11 I think I'm working on something bigger than penicillin. It's improved methodology for rational discussion and thinking. However, it's hard to monetize, hard to get anyone to listen or use it, and hard to use funding to help the project.

curi42: Also SENS (anti-aging research) is working on things that I think have a good chance to be bigger than penecilin. Their progress is being slowed dramatically by limited research budget. https://www.sens.org

patio11: @curi42 Most successful examples I can think of of popularizing "I simply think better than you" involve using single player mode to dominate valuable competitive environments until the entire world says "Oh eff me that parlour trick actually works." Sometimes this takes decades.

patio11: A corollary to this is that if one cannot dominate valuable competitive environments in single player mode, one should decrease one's estimate that one thinks better than everyone else. Examples from history: statistical process control in Japan, bond & options pricing, etc.

curi42: @patio11 SPC is massively underdeveloped today. Eg https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14783363.2015.1050181?journalCode=ctqm20 "Until now, there has been a lack of a sound, structured review analysing past publications and guiding future research on the implementation of SPC in the food industry context (Dora et al., 2013b; Grigg, 1998)."

curi42: And "The application of continuous improvement methods and techniques in the food industry are not as advanced as other industries and hence there are very few publications on Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma in the food industry"

curi42: SPC is not single player: "Employees’ high resistance and lack of statistical knowledge are the critical barriers faced by the food producers in adopting SPC." And even that review paper ignores Eli Goldratt's report about increasing bread sales 90% in The Choice.

curi42: Major SPC advancements as proof of concept of great thinking was tried by Eli Goldratt. He wanted to teach the world to think. Had charisma to get thru biz consulting social gates. Worked great as career but his SPC ideas, let alone rationality ideas, are neglected.

---

I like patio11 but I didn't expect him to actually want to discuss the matter. It's sad though. Comment below if you want to discuss it.

This is an open discussion topic for social metaphysics issues. Below is a conversation log which you can use as an optional conversation starter. It'll give you some leads on issues you might want to talk about.

StEmperorAugustine:
This one is Think Club. They look similar. https://youtu.be/bDTp4yg3XTk?t=396

StEmperorAugustine:
I like this retired Fighter Pilot. Seems to value reason more than most ppl I've seen on this.

curi:
is there something you dislike about reading?

StEmperorAugustine:
I like reading. Why did you say I dislike it?

curi:
why watch a debate like that over reading?

StEmperorAugustine:
over reading what specifically? I like reading and watching debates both. Not one over the other. What I like about debates is watching how people come to hold certain opinions and how they engage in trying to convince the other, or defend their reasoning. Reading I do more if I want to really understand a concept better in more detail.

Justin:
https://fallibleideas.com/books

curi:
You could read more. It is a choice you're making. And there are written debates which are better organized, give more info in a clearer way, e.g. the FI archives.

StEmperorAugustine:
Ty Justin. That reading list is what I am working on already plus some others. Starting with that list tho

StEmperorAugustine:
Reading takes more effort

StEmperorAugustine:
sometimes If I feel like relaxing I watch these debates

curi:
So the answer to the question "is there something you dislike about reading?" is "yes"

StEmperorAugustine:
I like it until I am to tired. I don't want to be misleading by saying I dislike it. I really like it. I like playing soccer but eventually I get too tired to continue.

curi:
you're not being very logical

curi:
you're confusing dislike something about reading with disliking reading.

StEmperorAugustine:
oh no. Where did I mess up?

StEmperorAugustine:
aaaah

StEmperorAugustine:
yes

StEmperorAugustine:
Parts of reading that I might dislike

StEmperorAugustine:
but not as a whole

StEmperorAugustine:
hmm. I don't really see getting tired after a while as the same as disliking it

curi:
you see reading as harder (higher effort) which is a downside which is a problem sometimes

curi:
audio books and text to speech allow you to read by listening. would that solve the problem of making it more relaxing like listening to a video?

StEmperorAugustine:
I have tried it, It helps but it still takes effort to think about the concepts being presented, and I do tire eventually too

StEmperorAugustine:
tho I am getting a bit better at sticking with it longer

curi:
doesn't following a debate take effort? those verbal debates are harder to follow than most books, IMO, because they're poorly organized and inconclusive (lots of loose ends to remember like a list of points that weren't answered).

NikLuk:
I do audiobooks the most. It can be combined with another activity. I like walking outdoors - that is easy to combine with audiobooks.

The negative with this combo is sometimes I get distracted and have to rewind some. I do not think audiobooks on new content are as good as actually reading the same thing, as I tend to miss more listening. On the plus side is I can work through the material faster.

curi:
the debates also lack editing. books are edited to take unclear or confusing parts and make them easier to understand.

curi:
with FI debates, you can easily reread context to check things to help you follow it. with YT debates that's hard.

NikLuk:
Re debates I think most of the time people just talk by each-other and avoid addressing the harder questions.

StEmperorAugustine:
What you're saying makes sense. books should be easier to understand due to editing. It still take more effort to me than to just sit back and enjoy a debate.

curi:
the standard reason for that is people watch debates socially. what they like about it is the social interaction, which is easier for them to follow than the intellectual stuff.

StEmperorAugustine:
so possibly what I enjoy about them is not the ideas presented but how they are presented and their interactions with the other guy

curi:
Adam Friended's body language and voice tones tell a story, a narrative, all by themselves without even listening to any of the words.

StEmperorAugustine:
Yes there's a lot of useful knowledge in just facial expression, body language and tone of voice

curi:
i didn't mean it's useful. i think it's an irrational way of bypassing which arguments are good to manipulate audiences.

curi:
voice tones are not arguments and can be done regardless of whether what you're claiming is true or false

curi:
it's not truth seeking

StEmperorAugustine:
What about useful in the sense of learning to be more persuasive when talking to other people

curi:
by persuasive you mean manipulating them b/c they are persuaded by things other than truth?

Justin:
Social persuasion is not rational persuasion

StEmperorAugustine:
not as a replacement for having true arguements but as a supplement

curi:
so e.g. if you get a more fashionable haircut, ppl listen more? that's irrational and it's pandering to their bad ideas.

StEmperorAugustine:
I think presenting yourself in a certain manner matters. Idk if it is manipulation, maybe in the sense that it might make the other person more receptive to what you have to say, and actually listen

Justin:
What about big tits as a supplement to arguments

StEmperorAugustine:
I think those signal something entirely different than what I had in mind

Justin:
Might make ppl listen more tho

StEmperorAugustine:
Honeslty they probably would listen less

curi:
looking smart and being smart are different things. if you try to look smart, you're playing into ppl's prejudices instead of focusing on truth.

StEmperorAugustine:
what about looking and being smart. Though "looking smart" is also not what I have in mind.

curi:
what's the upside there?

NikLuk:
Does the context not matter here? Say you're in advertising. Using more social would be beneficial, no? Was Jobs not good at the extra stuff making the releases more interesting for many people?

curi:
if ppl like non-arguments, they're wrong. if you want the practical result of more fans, it can work. if you want the truth, it's not helping.

curi:
advertising isn't truth seeking.

StEmperorAugustine:
Let's say I am making argument P. I can state argument P while being nervous, and looking messy, and mumbling etc.. Or I can make statement P with a good projected voice, a good sense of style, and clearly and confidently. The truth of P matter but how you deliver it does matter too. Like in a Job interview

Justin:
Matter for what

curi:
whether P or true or false is 100% separate from whether you looked messy when you said it.

NikLuk:

advertising isn't truth seeking.
Ok. Missed it was only about truth seeking. My bad.

StEmperorAugustine:
yes I am not arguing against that

curi:
so if ppl are focusing any attention on those things, it's bad, it's a distraction from the issues

curi:
it means less thought goes into what's true

StEmperorAugustine:
yes they are getting distracted from P which is what matters.

curi:
so it's bad to encourage that kind of thing, or to like that kind of thing, if the truth is what you value.

StEmperorAugustine:
if P is true regardless. Why is it not objectively better to present it properly and confidently?

curi:
who sounds confident or looks fashionable is a contest, a competition. the winners of that competition may have shitty ideas which then spread.

StEmperorAugustine:
not if the idea is the same

StEmperorAugustine:
in that scenario P is the statement that is true

curi:
the ppl who are best at sounding confident are not the ppl with the best ideas.

StEmperorAugustine:
ok but that's a different argument

curi:
if you have a good idea and also participate in that contest, you may be outcompeted at social stuff by someone with a worse idea. happens all the time.

StEmperorAugustine:
yes that can happen

curi:
competing at social stuff takes a ton of effort. it's a huge distraction. b/c that area is very competitive.

StEmperorAugustine:
well I am not arguing for competing at social stuff. Just at learning proper presentation. Only as secondary as presenting a proper idea.

curi:
and if you play that game, audiences spend some of their time not thinking about your argument, so fewer of them understanding what you said.

StEmperorAugustine:
secondary to*

curi:
what is proper and why is that proper?

StEmperorAugustine:
that I don't know

StEmperorAugustine:
being clear is proper vs mumbling

curi:
the way it actually works is there's no limit where you're good enough and you're done

StEmperorAugustine:
looking at your shoes vs at the audience

StEmperorAugustine:
that kind of thing

curi:
you can get to the 50th percentile or the 70th percentile at skill, or the 99th, and you can still climb higher socially

StEmperorAugustine:
I suppose you could but that's not really what I am arguing for.

curi:
there's nowhere to draw the line

StEmperorAugustine:
The line may be arbitrary but reality kind of imposes on you

curi:
there's no principle that says a certain skill at eye contact is important, but a higher skill at eye contact doesn't matter.

curi:
not reality. other people, and specifically the dumber ones, who you don't have to suck up to.

StEmperorAugustine:
there's so much time in the day, and you spend it building your argument. Once it is built then you can improve at presentation,

curi:
time is a scarce resource

StEmperorAugustine:
Indeed.

curi:
you could always put more time into truth seeking. any time on presentation is lost.

StEmperorAugustine:
I suppose it depends on the context too

Justin:
Augustine if you read FH u might have better understanding of FI view on social stuff

StEmperorAugustine:
Wouldn't your argument then depend on everyone having read FH then Justin?

curi:
you're changing topics a lot

StEmperorAugustine:
If I am presenting an idea and show up all disheveled, mumbled nervously through it, look at the shoes. Maybe the people who read FH are like right on. but somehow I doubt it

curi:
if your goal is truth seeking, what to do does not depend on how many audience members understand social dynamics rationally.

StEmperorAugustine:
that still doesn't tell me why presenting true argument P poorly is preferable than presenting it well. I mean presenting it as stating it in front of someone else or others.

curi:
https://youtu.be/bDTp4yg3XTk?t=3236 there are some examples here within 30s. e.g. Adam says "valuable" in a voice tone, does a shrug and does a voice tone at the end of the section right b4 the other guy talks again. those are just some of the more blatant ones.

curi:
Adam spends more than 50% of his mental effort, during a discussion, on thinking about (mostly subconsciously) what would impress dumb viewers, how to manipulate them, how to pander, etc. This gets more effort than his argument quality.

curi:
This is typical.

StEmperorAugustine:
The first thing people see is neither your personality nor your argument. A good first impression makes a difference. I agree that you should work on making argument P as strong as possible and that should be your focus. Then maybe you can put some effort in presentation. I still don't see the downside, but I do see the upsides. Could even be split 90% argument 10% presentation or move the dials there as needed.

Justin:
Augustine would you disregard someone's argument on some point if they didn't make eye contact etc?

StEmperorAugustine:
Depends on their argument

Justin:
!

curi:
Taking 10% of your effort away from truth is a downside.

curi:
Making eye contact in the socially normal way (an example Aug has given several times) takes a huge amount of effort. This effort is not recognized because the learning time and costs are mostly in early childhood. However, some people don't learn it then, are called "autistic", and are persecuted quite cruelly and extensively. The way people learn it in childhood is by learning to care more about how others think of them than about reality. It's part of a process where they learn not to prioritize truth, that they will be punished for not fitting in and need to prioritize that instead.

StEmperorAugustine:
But what if the truth of argument P is very important. Let's say if people adopted P the world would be a better place. Why would you not want more people to adopt P?

StEmperorAugustine:
Knowing that many do not hold your view on presentation

StEmperorAugustine:
and will judge based on that

curi:
People learn the "proper" way to do eye contact by learning to pay very close attention to the reactions they get from other people and then changing whenever they get negative reactions, and keep making changes until they get it right and get approval. This takes a huge amount of time and effort and the mentality is broadly incompatible with e.g. scientific thinking.

curi:
Aug you keep changing topics, we can't discuss everything at once.

StEmperorAugustine:
I have to go but once again I'd like to continue later.

StEmperorAugustine:
:slight_smile:

StEmperorAugustine:
ttyl

curi:
The things you're saying are everywhere but lots of ppl won't admit or say them in an intellectual context. They lie about how rational they are.

curi:
They're really bad though, but pretending not to think them just makes it harder to change.

curi:
One of the practical effects is ppl spend a lot of time engaging with lower quality material (in terms of ideas and truth seeking) b/c they want to watch ppl compete socially.

curi:
So they learn less.

curi:
ppl seek out material with e.g. facecam b/c they don't even know how to judge what's true, only how to judge social stuff.

StEmperorAugustine:
I've been thinking a bit about our discussion.

It is possible that we may be talking about two different things so I'll try to restate my position.

I agree that truth seeking is important, and that in an ideal world (even then I am not so sure that would be ideal) people would not care about how a message is delivered. But that is not how the world works.

People care about how the message is delivered as much as the message itself. For example, Jordan Peterson sells out large auditoriums in hundreds of cities around the globe. A lot of what he says is quite good, some is okay, other is standard self help stuff that people already know. But he is able to reach a large audience because he is a good speaker.

Another example, Job interviews. Most people get hired based on a 1on1 interview. They already have seen your resume, what they are looking for is how you present yourself. Are you someone they would be okay working with or talking to their customers.

It may be different for you because your job is to write philosophy articles. So you do not need to have charm perhaps. Although, even with philosophy articles you do have to worry about your presentation. Your website has to be readable, easy to navigate. Your sentences need to be clear and follow grammar rules to eliminate confusion.

All in all I think context matters. And as I said yesterday, if statement P is true. I would prefer that statement P is presented in a clear, unambigious, confident manner.

People think you should debate or explain stuff yourself, not cite books or articles. But the truth doesn’t depend on what ideas are in my head or what I remember. So they aren’t using a truth-seeking approach.

The proper way to deal with complex topics is to look at what’s already been figured out. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Try to research and understand the state of the debate. If you find something missing you can make an original contribution, add something new, but mostly you don’t do that for well-developed topics.

E.g. take economics and political philosophy. That’s a big, hard topic. Even most of what Rand, Mises or Reisman said about it wasn’t new. Partly they organized existing ideas and figured out which ones are important and how they fit together. They did add in some new ideas too. Most people add a lot less than that. And it’s harder today after them. Anyway, the point of debate/discussion isn’t really to add new ideas to the field. If you have a new idea, write it down. Then when you debate someone, your idea is a book or article that you can cite. So it’s just like citing a Mises book, it’s pointing at the existing literature and trying to figure out what the discussion tree looks like, what is answered and unanswered, refuted or not, etc. If you have an original idea and write it down so it’s part of the literature, then the general project of evaluating the literature is going to include evaluating your idea. Nothing changes.

People object to citations in discussion to address some practical problems. They include:

• Citing stuff you don’t understand or haven’t read.
• Citing a million things to overwhelm someone.
• Citing a new thing every time one is refuted.
• Judging cites by the author’s name or what his conclusion is.

The main problems here are appeals to authority and argument quantity over quality. The proper way to use cites is only to cite your best material on each issue, and if it’s refuted you don’t cite second best then third best, you start reconsidering. If your evaluation of the best material (in your opinion) was incorrect, your evaluation of other material is also suspect. Your way of evaluating needs to be reconsidered.

Discussion should be kind of like a research project where you each help the other guy look through the literature for your side. If I talk with a socialist, he can tell me the key chapters in Marx that, as a Mises-advocate, are relevant to me and he thinks Mises didn’t answer. There’s a ton of socialist literature and a socialist is a good person to help guide me to the best stuff and also, simultaneously, to the key stuff to criticize (or cite criticism of) to change his mind.

This does depend on your goal in discussion. Are you trying to figure out what’s true? Are you acting the part of scholar, researcher, intellectual trying to reach some conclusions? Then don’t do a literature-independent discussion. Alternatively, you might be practicing talking about ideas and practicing debating. If you’re just trying to practice explaining stuff, not actually trying to reach a conclusion in the field, then using little or no literature can make sense.

People routinely mix these two things up. They debate like it’s unserious practice, won’t consider literature, but also think, at the same time, that they are reaching conclusions and this is a reasonable way to form their opinions. They think it’s a serious debate that can figure out the right economics while, at the same time, that they don’t want to read Mises, don’t know of any refutations of Mises by anyone, etc. You can’t figure out the truth of economics in that manner.

Rewriting published material doesn’t make sense in general. Books are carefully written and edited. What I say in a discussion is going to be lower quality (unless it’s about a position lacking good literature).

So for well-developed topics (like economics but not AGI), most of your comments should be about how the literature fits together, how it applies to particular cases that come up, stuff like that. Like if Mises wrote a general principle and a guy has a question that it answers, usually what Mises wrote is not a direct answer to that exact question. So I can write 3 sentences explaining how Mises’ principle relates to the question and then cite what Mises wrote. Those 3 sentences by me help customize the general purpose material to a particular case. Those kinds of sentences are generally missing from the literature, but they’re very important because people have particular questions and don’t always see how the one-size-fits-many general statements in the literature answer their questions. Even if they’re good at that, maybe they figure it out 9 out of 10 times, but it’s still a big deal if I can help relate the literature to the remaining cases.

And there’s a lot of literature, so a socialist might not know which Mises book to look in to get an answer to a particular question, and maybe I can find the answer and find some key quotes a lot faster than him because I’m more familiar with Mises’ writing. So that’s something useful I can contribute to discussion, it’s a way I can be helpful. And similarly, he can help point me at socialist literature that addresses some specific questions I have because he knows where to find that better than I do.

Cites also improve discussion by providing more targets to criticize. If I cite a Mises book, now you have plenty of details about my position that you can point out errors in. In literature-excluding discussions, people will bring up their ideas and never give you enough details about what they mean. They aren’t rigorous enough about explaining, piece by piece, how their claims work. They often change their position mid discussion. Literature is a fixed target that’s suitable for critical analysis.

And how do you get your own position, alone, on a complex topic like economics? You learn some parts of the field and, for other parts, you don’t investigate it beyond a summary level. You don’t have time to go into everything because it’s such a big field. Even professional economists specialize and can’t cover everything. For someone like me who has read a lot of economics but it’s not my specialty, it’s not even close – there are tons of issues where I believe it’s been covered by Austrian economics, and I could look it up if it came up, and I have some kinda summary info about it which makes sense to me and fits with other ideas and principles I have, but I haven’t carefully checked all the details. That’s how it’s gotta be. It takes many people working together and writing books and so on to develop all the complexity and detail that goes into a position in economics. The field’s standards are so high that it’s too much for one person to cover it all. You can understand the main principles as one person, you can think rationally, you can investigate areas you think may be problematic, you can investigate areas that discussion and debate partners bring up, but you can’t just go step by step through every last thing in the field, detail by detail, there’s been too much thinking about economics done. So to get a position I look for a body of work that I think gets stuff right. Ideally I find one I’m 99% happy with and my position can be “Austrian economics + X, Y and Z” and just make a few changes based on my own ideas (as long as the changes are isolated, that’s OK. If I want to change some major economic principle, it’d end up changing hundreds of conclusions, so it’d be a big issue.)

Less ideally (it’s more work), I might use the ideas of one school of thought for one big part of the field and another school of thought for another big part. That’s what I do in philosophy. I have Critical Rationalism for the majority of epistemology but not all of it, and I have Objectivism for some other parts of epistemology and for several other major areas of philosophy, and I also have David Deutsch for some other stuff like jumps to universality. To do this, one has to create more supplemental material explaining what’s used for what. It’s more complicated than just agreeing with one school of thought (even with some minor customizations). It’s still far less work than developing all the ideas from scratch.

Developing ideas from scratch is, in general, bad. It’s like rewriting software from scratch. You end up creating a bunch of new bugs. The existing stuff has been exposed to a lot of critical thinking. Many errors/bugs have been fixed. If you start over, you might think you’re fixing all the problems, like now you know what you’re doing and will get everything right, but what actually happens is making tons of mistakes including tons of mistakes that were already made and fixed in the past.

If the existing ideas are inadequate, in general you should help improve them instead of just ignoring them and trying to develop new ideas. This is especially true for complicated, established fields like economics or philosophy. It’s less true for a very new field like AGI, but even then you shouldn’t be e.g. reinventing algorithms, data structures, or programming languages – there’s lots of existing stuff that’s worth using (even an imperfect programming language is generally far better than trying to make a new one).

It’s kinda like existing human knowledge is a million points but has flaws, and if you help get it up to a million and 500 points, you improved things. But if you start over, you aren’t actually helping for the first 999,999 points, you’re still behind, so you have to do so much work before starting over is useful. Yeah maybe if you reinvent 100,000 points from scratch there will be a big chunk there someone could use and combine with some existing knowledge, but if that’s what’s going to happen you might as well do that yourself (develop in, from day 1, as an improvement on some existing knowledge – as something that can be added to some existing knowledge and/or some changes to some existing ideas with problems – rather than ignoring existing knowledge and leaving it to someone else to convert your work to be relevant to other ideas humanity has).

It’s hard enough to work with existing knowledge and improve it. Most attempts actually make it worse. It’s hard to understand how existing knowledge works, what the problems are, and how you can make changes without breaking things. It’s much worse, though, to just take the field itself and try to solve it yourself without all the help and guidance of existing knowledge. Then you’re trying to outcompete thousands or millions of people’s cooperative efforts by yourself.

Most people trying to build up intellectual systems from scratch don’t know much about the literature. It’s related to the cliche that you need to know the rules (e.g. of English) before breaking them. If you don’t understand what’s already known and what’s good about it, you aren’t in a position to do things differently and do a good job. But once you do understand the literature well, and get a good grasp on what’s already known, then you’re in a good position to improve it. A lot of why people want to start over, instead of adding to existing knowledge, is specifically to skip the step of learning much about what’s already known. They’ll never accomplish much.

Discuss whatever.

If you post a link or quote, express an opinion about it, ask a question, say something. Also, if you think something is bad and are posting it for criticism, say so – the default expectation is you agree with, and have a positive opinion of, whatever you post. Or if it seems good to you but you're sharing it because you have doubts and want to find out if people have criticism, say that.

If you don’t have a debate policy, you have an unwritten, biased, inconsistent debate policy. Just like if you don’t have a philosophy, you still do, it just hasn’t been given much study or conscious consideration.

Public intellectuals use unwritten rules for who they talk to (gatekeeping, filtering) and how they talk during a discussion (how they think rational, productive discussion works).

Unwritten rules are confusing to others. They’re not predictable. If an intellectual had written gatekeeping rules, I could know “If I do X, Y and Z, I’ll get a discussion.” With unwritten rules, it’s unclear what’s even relevant (what helps at all), let alone what’s adequate, what’s enough.

Unwritten rules are usually applied inconsistently. They let people be biased and prevent accountability. They let people easily lie about the reasons for decisions (like not discussing with a critic).

Bias and dishonesty are hard problems. Instead of being confident we’re great at them, we should make it easier on ourselves. Written rules help keep us honest and prevent bias from affecting our discussions. We should be happy to find ways to combat bias and dishonesty rather than being so arrogant as to think that’s unnecessary. (Some people seem to think that doing anything about bias is like an admission of weakness, and admission that maybe they aren’t fully rational, so they’d rather take no anti-bias actions in order to deny they have any problem with bias.)

During discussions, people have unwritten rules for what they think should be replied to, what questions should be asked and answered, how much effort to use, whether links should be read or ignored, how conclusions are reached about sub-issues, in what circumstances the overall discussion should end. People who try to have discussions usually disagree about some of these things. Because neither side writes down or explains how they think this stuff works, it’s an ongoing source of conflict and misunderstanding. And then at some point someone gets frustrated and ends the discussion. Or they just end it because they’d rather do something else and that’s that – and then they also claim they’re really open to discussion and interested in ideas (just not that time, apparently, though they often make excuses like saying the other guy’s messages were low quality without providing conclusive specifics).

Going from unwritten, ad hoc, “I know it when I see it” type rules/behavior, to written, documented, policies procedures, methods and rules is a huge upgrade. It’s similar to going from “whatever the dictator says goes” (unwritten rules) to a system of law and order. The way intellectuals behave is really primitive compared even to governments (and I have a lot of criticisms of governments).

This is the unexamined life. People don’t know why they do things. They don’t know how they choose which discussions to have, what to do in the discussions, or when to end them. They don’t understand themselves. Writing down their discussion methods and policies is how they could both discuss better (figure out what their goals are, what they think is good discussion, share the idea with others, and try to do it) and also better examine their life, understand themselves, learn what they actually do (take some of their intuitions and whims and turn them into considered, written statements).

When people end debates, they usually don’t even try to make an objective claim that they won (or, impersonally, that particular arguments were adequate to reach particular conclusions). Here’s a standard form for an initial impasse statement which is worth knowing:

Here is my understanding of the situation: My arguments, X, Y and Z, were adequate to objectively establish my conclusion, C. Those arguments were conclusive. I said enough that you should be persuaded. A rational, unbiased observer would agree that those arguments won the debate and would tentatively accept the conclusion C. You gave no substantive replies to X, Y or Z (except for one reply to X, which was refuted by my reply X2, which you did not substantively respond to). You made no substantive arguments about C that I didn’t address. There are currently no open questions left. So you should concede, change your mind, and start learning about C. Or else, say something new to change the situation. But you won’t do any of those, which is an impasse.

Most people end discussions with less than this. Not an abbreviated version of it (which could be fine) but less content. They don’t even claim to have won the debate. If you can’t even make a statement like this, you have no business giving up on the discussion.

To have won a debate, you have to be able to claim to have won the debate. That’s necessary but insufficient. It’s required but it’s not enough. Your claim could be wrong. But if you don’t even have a claim like that, you didn’t win. That means making a claim like “In [quote] and [quote2] I gave compelling arguments. I tried several times to get you to engage with them. You didn’t. They were adequate that they should have persuaded a reasonable person.” Making a claim like that is the bare minimum needed to think you won the debate. Actually checking whether that claim is true is a more advanced step but most people don’t even make the claim. They don’t realize that’s the sort of thing that would indicate you won a debate. They don’t know that’s the goal.

Your goal in a debate is to objectively establish some claims. Make adequate arguments for why those claims are correct. Adequate means they should be persuasive to an intelligent, objective, neutral observer. People can easily be wrong about what’s objective or adequate but they should at least try to do this. But most people, in most debates, won’t even claim to have done it and seem to be unaware they were supposed to. People quit discussions without ever saying something like “I thought my argument X was adequate and your responses were missing the point. You’re not listening, dumb or biased or something so I’m going to move on.” That’s not great but it’s better than what people commonly do.

People usually stop discussing without even any claim to have provided information adequate to change the other person’s mind or help them learn better ideas. That’s irrational.

People usually end discussions without even claiming the other person did something specific wrong, was unreasonable about a particular issue, was irrational in a way they’ve stated (rather than just irrational in general), incorrectly judged any particular argument (with reasons the judgment is incorrect), or anything like that. Pointing out a specific, impersonal flaw with the discussion (rather than the person’s ideas) would also work. If you won’t point out any problem with the discussion or with the person, you’re in no position to end the discussion in your favor. And if you have no rational claim that you won, you should consider that you lost and you’re leaving to avoid facing superior ideas.

People often make general, non-specific comments about how bad the other person is or how dumb their arguments are. These do not attempt to rationally and objectively establish any particular claims about what happened in the discussion. They don’t provide a case for why they’re right which they could honestly think was conclusive.

When debating, you should try to make an objective case for some conclusions. You should get to a point where you can claim (in your own opinion) that your arguments were objective, rational and conclusive and the debate should now be over. If you don’t do that, don’t claim you conclusively won the debate. There’s a lot more needed, but this is a basic starting point that people often don’t even reach.