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Title: Epistemic Legibility - "Tl;dr: being easy to argue with is a virtue, separate from being correct."
Author: Elizabeth
URL: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oRx3LeqFdxN2JTANJ/epistemic-legibility
Why it's good:
Things that make texts or discussions more "epistemically legible" include: making clear what you actually believe, making clear the evidence you're really basing your beliefs on (don't just search for a random hyperlink for a claim — say why you really believe this, even if it's "gut feeling" or "anecdotal evidence"), making the logical steps of your argument clear (don't just list assorted evidence and a conclusion — explain what leads to what and how), use examples, pick a vocabulary that's appropriate to your audience, and write the argument down.[1] I also think that summaries or outlines help.
So why is this important?
I think a lot of discussions are confused for a bunch of reasons. One of these is that it's hard to understand exactly what other parties are saying and why, both because communicating clearly is hard and because we have a tendency to want to hedge and protect our views — making it harder for others to see how we might be wrong (e.g. because of impostor syndrome).
For instance, I might want to say, "I think a lot of discussions are confused for a bunch of reasons," and walk away — especially if I find a good hyperlink for "confused" or something. But that would make it very hard to argue with me. I didn't explain what "confused" really means to me, I didn't list specific reasons, I didn't say which discussions, or approximately how many of them. (So what do you argue with? "No, I think very few discussions are 'confused'?") I could, instead, write something more specific, like "I think that too many posts on the Forum (for my taste) lead to discussions that misinterpret the claims of the related post or are arguing about details or logical connections that aren't actually relevant. This happens for a bunch of reasons, some of which I could list, but I'm focusing on a specific thing here that is one of what I'd guess are the top 10 reasons, and here's how that happens..." This is still pretty vague, but I think it's better. You can now say, "Here's my list of 10 reasons that contribute to this phenomenon, and epistemic illegibility doesn't get into the top 10 — which do you think are less important?" And I imagine that this leads to a more productive discussion.
There are downsides and costs to being more specific or epistemically legible like this — Elizabeth's post acknowledges them, and notes that not everything should necessarily be epistemically legible. For instance, the rewritten claim above is messier and longer than the original one. (Although I don't think this always has to be true.) But on the margin, I think I'd prefer more posts that are messier and even longer if they're also more epistemically legible. And I really like the specific suggestions on how to be legible.
Or, as Elizabeth puts it,
I also love reasoning transparency, but feel like it gets at the quality in a different way, with a different emphasis. And I've also been using "butterfly idea" a lot.
I like this essay a lot, on this point: Putting Ideas into Words. Excerpt is copied from a different place where I shared the essay, so I don't remember how relevant it is here specifically.