Arguments don’t change the beliefs of NPCs. Yet NPCs can be convicted of being moral cockroaches through social pressure from moral-debt and the violation of social norms. This means, the point of casual arguments is to convict the other person of moral transgressions as defined by social norms. The legal burden of “beyond a reasonable doubt” rarely applies when not enforced by a court; instead in casual arguments both sides and the informal jury are all partisan and usually dishonest. Evidence is chosen to support confirmation bias and partiality and plurality are jettisoned in favor of black or white thinking to make convictions easier. The usual tactic is to strawman the other person, so they look completely evil and stupid. Casual arguments are not about trying to understand, they are about trying to convict.
When someone is attacked by an argument they will respond by: pointing out evidential flaws in the strawman, replacing the strawman with a steelman, using whataboutism to redirect the argument, questioning the meaning of words, attacking the person making the argument, or any combination of the above.
Arguments have an explicit frame that is about: this is what we are going to talk about, and I am not going to let you deviate from it. Whataboutism is used to break that explicit frame by trying to widen the discussion to also include other topics. “You want to talk about Right-wing violence, but that is a misleading frame without also talking about Left-wing violence.” There is a meme that whataboutism is invalid, this is wrong. Whataboutism is valid if you are not accepting the frame of their argument and want a different and better frame.
The implicit frame of the argument is: commonly accepted social constructs, agreements on how we are going to talk (honest, non-threatening), binary understanding (good vs. evil, right vs. wrong), singular judgment (must be decided and acted upon).
Someone accuses you via an argument:
- Delay: ask for them to more information to gain some time to gather your thoughts.
- Goodness: Say you are reasonable and good. Entreat them to be reasonable and good. If not, then they are acting threateningly and are potentially dangerous and evil.
- Deny jurisdiction: say they are not deserving to judge you since they have not shown they are honest and impartial; instead, they seem partisan, bigoted, and hateful.
- Countersue: they are bad to attack you, their argument is morally wrong.
- Your Interests: bring up positive changes that you want to make or values that are important to you. Make it so they have to cater to your interests (you are not just a perp, they have positive obligations towards your positive interests).
- Attack their argument: Their characterization of your argument is strawman; detail how. Require them to repeat a non-strawman version of your argument, if they cannot or won’t then they are a bad faith actor.
- Attack their explicit framing: Their framing is a misleading trap (too narrow, too broad, Kafka Trap, Catch 22, damned if do, damned if not); detail how. If they don’t agree to your reframing, then a discussion is impossible.
- Interrogate their implicit framing: our tools of partiality and plurality can be used to attack the social constructs (concepts) that their argument uses directly or indirectly through framing. Partiality “it’s more complex than black or white.” Plurality, “there does not just have to be one way, there are other explanations as well.” The words and talking points we use for ease of communication can be interrogated (“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”). When we are not looking for just ease of communication but instead proving or disproving then words have to much more precise, and their definitions questioned. If you cannot agree on the meaning of words, then the discussion is impossible.
- Mistrial: If they are a dishonest and a bad faith actor then they are harassing you and should stop, and this argument is over. A judge / prosecutor / jury member should be recused if they lack impartiality.
Summary
- Strawman-vs-steelman-vs-good-enough: Require your opponent to restate your argument in a non-strawman version that you would accept and is not a purposefully weakened version of your argument. “You are a very brave man to attack opponents made only of straw.”
- Framing: The implicit assumptions outside the explicit argument are often more important than the actual argument. “Framing someone of a crime is illegal, your framing of this argument is so misleading that it should also be illegal.”
- Reframing-with-whataboutism: Do not accept a misleading framing of an argument, instead explicitly break that frame using whataboutism, and tell people that is a valid move. “Your framing is so misleading that we need to whataboutism to another frame.”
- Argument-concept-deconstruction: Use to tools of concept-partiality (“Yes and no…”) and concept-plurality (“Yes and other explanations too…”) to interrogate the concepts in the argument and framing. “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
Key Square 