Don't Let Your Side Use Deceptive Arguments
2,000 years ago (heck, maybe only 200 years ago) it was possible for a single human being to know virtually everything there was to know at the time. One could be expert on everything because there simply wasn't so much to know.
Since then there has been an increasing "division of labor" which has enabled accelerated advancements in ever more subjects.
Today it's impossible to know everything (the world has just grown too complex). So humans rely on "Experts/Authorities", "Paradigms" (mental assumptions & models) and "Heuristics" (mental short cuts) to navigate life and solve problems.
But avoiding critical thinking and relying on such experts, assumptions and short-cuts leaves us vulnerable to fallacies.
If a person has survived (and especially if he has thrived) he naturally assumes his paradigms and heuristics are effective. Consequently, when he encounters evidence that is contrary to his predictions he must naturally first assume that evidence is somehow flawed. This is as it should be. It would be untenable for people to immediately abandon their world views whenever they first encounter contrary evidence. Because, after all, that particular piece of evidence could indeed be flawed, fabricated or insignificant compared to the preponderance of evidence at large.
We should all agree, however, that it is therefore continually necessary for all of us to ensure we are using the most effective experts/paradigms/heuristics available. If we repeatedly encounter evidence that is contrary to our paradigms then that should lead us to question their effectiveness and require us to consider other possibilities. If another paradigm is more effective at explaining the world and, most crucially, better at predicting the future then we have a duty to accept it (until an even more accurate system arises). Indeed that is the essence of "The Scientific Method" which has brought humanity such amazing progress.
All of the above is so intuitively obvious and proven and unanimously accepted by literally all reasonable people that this post may seem superfluous.
But now I ask you to take a bit of a (hopefully somewhat original) new leap with me:
Given the above is true, I contend that those who repeatedly make bad predictions or speciously argue claims that are ultimately disproved should necessarily be distrusted. And, perhaps more importantly, the paradigms held by such people should be questioned first and investigated most thoroughly because they are highly likely to be wrong.
In short: If your "side" has a disproportionally large percentage of liars and ineffective prognosticators then you should probably question the "side" itself and whether you want to be on it.
The people who have an honest and accurate view of the world and consequently make better predictions needn't lie nor make deceptive arguments in political debates.
------------------
OK, I tried to make the above as non-partisan as possible so that my Republican friends would be willing to consider it (and its ramifications).
But now I'm gonna get "Liberal/Progressive"...
Somebody should make a website with video clips & pictures of all of the presidential campaign ads with crucial follow-up.
Show what Obama promised in his ads and what he delivered (also noting where he fell short). Then show the crazy "doom" the GOP supporters predicted in their ads if Obama won (e.g. "3am Phone Call", "Kenyan/Muslim" etc.) and how virtually NONE of that happened.
Do the same for GWBush vs. Kerry and also GWBush vs. Gore and also Clinton vs. Dole and also Clinton vs. GBushI.
NOTE: It is practically worthless to fantasize about "counterfactuals" (fictions about how someone thinks history "would have gone" in an alternate timeline where a different choice was made). A counterfactual is utterly unprovable in any direction (for the reality-based delorean-less population).
What would be the result of this glorious website?
I would bet the majority of its visitors would fairly recognize how relatively terrible the GOP is at predicting the future (with results often going entirely opposite of their predictions) and how the Democrats are substantially more effective (albeit too timid when governing and overly optimistic about the efficacy of its policies).
--------
WARNING: ONLY THE BIGGEST POLICY WONKS & ECONOMIC NERDS SHOULD CONTINUE READING...
A very smart and successful friend of mine is an active member of the Republican party in notoriously conservative (and wealthy) Orange County, California. He earnestly believed that "government regulation" is the biggest problem for Americans. He cited an SBA report that absurdly claimed that regulations cost America $1.75 Trillion (out of our $14.5 Trillion economy) and so I actually read the entire report.
That SBA report was embarrassingly specious on the whole. While it validly mentioned $281 Billion for environmental regulations (conceivably higher than it "should" be), $75 Billion for OSHA (which didn't seem crazy high IMHO) and $160 Billion for "Tax Compliance" (which seems to me to be way higher than it "should"), it then laughably added $1.23 Trillion in "economic regulation cost" by magically multiplying the World Bank's Regulatory Quality Index (which itself doesn't even claim to measure the regulatory costs other than "Environmental/OSHA/TaxCompliance") by the size of our economy (i.e. they used their own dubious and complex equation, that includes an artificial variable derived from another dubious & complex equation, and then basically multiplied by $14.5 trillion = WTF?).
That fundamentally flawed SBA report makes no effort to discount "double counting" (q.v. how can it determine the $1.23 trillion of artificially calculated costs doesn't already include Environmental/OSH/TaxCompliance costs?). But those aren't even the most flawed parts of the SBA's conclusion.
Get this: In that SBA report's very first paragraph it writes - "Regulations are needed to provide the rules and structure for societies to properly function. This research, while mindful of this fact, does not consider the benefits of federal regulations…" <<<That's in its own words!
Don't forget: Many, if not most, of those trade tariffs clearly HELP American businesses profit by making their international competition more expensive.
That SBA report speciously cites "Economic Regulations (based on the WB's RQI)" and yet makes NO EFFORT to calculate how much those regulations help American businesses.
It would be like saying Apple is a poorly run company because its Liabilities totaled $40 Billion and ignoring that its assets totaled $116 Billion.
In every remotely fair analysis of literally anything one must count the "PROs" and also the "CONs".
If one only measures one without the other then the conclusions must be viewed hyper-skeptically until the flip-side is fairly researched. This is so shockingly obvious that I feel like I'm condescending to you, dear reader. It should be the most basic "given" that having a trial where only the prosecution is heard from and the defense gets no say is fundamentally ridiculous. Even attempting to argue your point without at least citing the counter-arguments must be seen as sophomoric and not worthy of serious attention.
If I'm the first to write this then I hope I get quoted with the following: "Public policy debate should not be like advertising a fashion product. Art & Fashion are subjective so its marketing can't practically be "falsified". Whereas Public Policy Debate requires knowable truths and must actively eject deception."
And, of course, anyone who "knows better" but still deliberately makes deceptive arguments or promotes provably-false information should be ignored in public debate by all reasonable people. There must be a price for such damaging deception and in a free society that price can't be literal censorship because "Shunning" by other authorities can be just as effective.
FINAL NOTE:
Everyone should understand the difference between the following concepts...
• "Lie" = an untruth told by someone who knows the truth
• "Error" = an untruth told by someone who doesn't know the truth
• "Broken Promise" = an unfulfilled action by someone who predicted he would complete it
• "Bad Prediction" = an eventuality that runs contrary to someone's prophecy
Consequently, Obama didn't "lie" when he said the stimulus would drop unemployment to 8%. He simply made a bad prediction (albeit one that is not so terribly far off all things considered). Contrast that with GOP doom predictions if Clinton's tax hikes were enacted (which were followed by massive economic growth) and GWBush's predictions about what would happen if supply-side economics were further enacted (tax cuts for the top and the resulting Great Recession of 2007/8).
------------------
LINKS:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour
• http://www.thefreedictionary.com/paradigm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual
.
2,000 years ago (heck, maybe only 200 years ago) it was possible for a single human being to know virtually everything there was to know at the time. One could be expert on everything because there simply wasn't so much to know.
Since then there has been an increasing "division of labor" which has enabled accelerated advancements in ever more subjects.
Today it's impossible to know everything (the world has just grown too complex). So humans rely on "Experts/Authorities", "Paradigms" (mental assumptions & models) and "Heuristics" (mental short cuts) to navigate life and solve problems.
But avoiding critical thinking and relying on such experts, assumptions and short-cuts leaves us vulnerable to fallacies.
If a person has survived (and especially if he has thrived) he naturally assumes his paradigms and heuristics are effective. Consequently, when he encounters evidence that is contrary to his predictions he must naturally first assume that evidence is somehow flawed. This is as it should be. It would be untenable for people to immediately abandon their world views whenever they first encounter contrary evidence. Because, after all, that particular piece of evidence could indeed be flawed, fabricated or insignificant compared to the preponderance of evidence at large.
We should all agree, however, that it is therefore continually necessary for all of us to ensure we are using the most effective experts/paradigms/heuristics available. If we repeatedly encounter evidence that is contrary to our paradigms then that should lead us to question their effectiveness and require us to consider other possibilities. If another paradigm is more effective at explaining the world and, most crucially, better at predicting the future then we have a duty to accept it (until an even more accurate system arises). Indeed that is the essence of "The Scientific Method" which has brought humanity such amazing progress.
All of the above is so intuitively obvious and proven and unanimously accepted by literally all reasonable people that this post may seem superfluous.
But now I ask you to take a bit of a (hopefully somewhat original) new leap with me:
Given the above is true, I contend that those who repeatedly make bad predictions or speciously argue claims that are ultimately disproved should necessarily be distrusted. And, perhaps more importantly, the paradigms held by such people should be questioned first and investigated most thoroughly because they are highly likely to be wrong.
In short: If your "side" has a disproportionally large percentage of liars and ineffective prognosticators then you should probably question the "side" itself and whether you want to be on it.
The people who have an honest and accurate view of the world and consequently make better predictions needn't lie nor make deceptive arguments in political debates.
------------------
OK, I tried to make the above as non-partisan as possible so that my Republican friends would be willing to consider it (and its ramifications).
But now I'm gonna get "Liberal/Progressive"...
Somebody should make a website with video clips & pictures of all of the presidential campaign ads with crucial follow-up.
Show what Obama promised in his ads and what he delivered (also noting where he fell short). Then show the crazy "doom" the GOP supporters predicted in their ads if Obama won (e.g. "3am Phone Call", "Kenyan/Muslim" etc.) and how virtually NONE of that happened.
Do the same for GWBush vs. Kerry and also GWBush vs. Gore and also Clinton vs. Dole and also Clinton vs. GBushI.
NOTE: It is practically worthless to fantasize about "counterfactuals" (fictions about how someone thinks history "would have gone" in an alternate timeline where a different choice was made). A counterfactual is utterly unprovable in any direction (for the reality-based delorean-less population).
What would be the result of this glorious website?
I would bet the majority of its visitors would fairly recognize how relatively terrible the GOP is at predicting the future (with results often going entirely opposite of their predictions) and how the Democrats are substantially more effective (albeit too timid when governing and overly optimistic about the efficacy of its policies).
--------
WARNING: ONLY THE BIGGEST POLICY WONKS & ECONOMIC NERDS SHOULD CONTINUE READING...
A very smart and successful friend of mine is an active member of the Republican party in notoriously conservative (and wealthy) Orange County, California. He earnestly believed that "government regulation" is the biggest problem for Americans. He cited an SBA report that absurdly claimed that regulations cost America $1.75 Trillion (out of our $14.5 Trillion economy) and so I actually read the entire report.
That SBA report was embarrassingly specious on the whole. While it validly mentioned $281 Billion for environmental regulations (conceivably higher than it "should" be), $75 Billion for OSHA (which didn't seem crazy high IMHO) and $160 Billion for "Tax Compliance" (which seems to me to be way higher than it "should"), it then laughably added $1.23 Trillion in "economic regulation cost" by magically multiplying the World Bank's Regulatory Quality Index (which itself doesn't even claim to measure the regulatory costs other than "Environmental/OSHA/TaxCompliance") by the size of our economy (i.e. they used their own dubious and complex equation, that includes an artificial variable derived from another dubious & complex equation, and then basically multiplied by $14.5 trillion = WTF?).
That fundamentally flawed SBA report makes no effort to discount "double counting" (q.v. how can it determine the $1.23 trillion of artificially calculated costs doesn't already include Environmental/OSH/TaxCompliance costs?). But those aren't even the most flawed parts of the SBA's conclusion.
Get this: In that SBA report's very first paragraph it writes - "Regulations are needed to provide the rules and structure for societies to properly function. This research, while mindful of this fact, does not consider the benefits of federal regulations…" <<<That's in its own words!
Don't forget: Many, if not most, of those trade tariffs clearly HELP American businesses profit by making their international competition more expensive.
That SBA report speciously cites "Economic Regulations (based on the WB's RQI)" and yet makes NO EFFORT to calculate how much those regulations help American businesses.
It would be like saying Apple is a poorly run company because its Liabilities totaled $40 Billion and ignoring that its assets totaled $116 Billion.
In every remotely fair analysis of literally anything one must count the "PROs" and also the "CONs".
If one only measures one without the other then the conclusions must be viewed hyper-skeptically until the flip-side is fairly researched. This is so shockingly obvious that I feel like I'm condescending to you, dear reader. It should be the most basic "given" that having a trial where only the prosecution is heard from and the defense gets no say is fundamentally ridiculous. Even attempting to argue your point without at least citing the counter-arguments must be seen as sophomoric and not worthy of serious attention.
If I'm the first to write this then I hope I get quoted with the following: "Public policy debate should not be like advertising a fashion product. Art & Fashion are subjective so its marketing can't practically be "falsified". Whereas Public Policy Debate requires knowable truths and must actively eject deception."
And, of course, anyone who "knows better" but still deliberately makes deceptive arguments or promotes provably-false information should be ignored in public debate by all reasonable people. There must be a price for such damaging deception and in a free society that price can't be literal censorship because "Shunning" by other authorities can be just as effective.
FINAL NOTE:
Everyone should understand the difference between the following concepts...
• "Lie" = an untruth told by someone who knows the truth
• "Error" = an untruth told by someone who doesn't know the truth
• "Broken Promise" = an unfulfilled action by someone who predicted he would complete it
• "Bad Prediction" = an eventuality that runs contrary to someone's prophecy
Consequently, Obama didn't "lie" when he said the stimulus would drop unemployment to 8%. He simply made a bad prediction (albeit one that is not so terribly far off all things considered). Contrast that with GOP doom predictions if Clinton's tax hikes were enacted (which were followed by massive economic growth) and GWBush's predictions about what would happen if supply-side economics were further enacted (tax cuts for the top and the resulting Great Recession of 2007/8).
------------------
LINKS:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour
• http://www.thefreedictionary.com/paradigm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual
.
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