I think I am unclear on whether this approach differs from a more traditional "Socratic" style dialogue, and if so, in what ways. Could you clarify?
Another thought that this post brings out, is that while I think techniques of this sort are useful in a number of ways, even beyond the direct dialogue itself (for example, in practicing the kind of lateral and analogy-based thinking required to fluidly keep up with the conversation while maintaining this style), there is clearly a limited set of opportunities for which they are suitable. Do you know of any existing "taxonomy" of conversational methods, classified with respect to the circumstances in which they are most effective?
Thank you for your reply and further explanation. Your examples are helpful, and on thinking about them, I'm led to wonder how these & other "techniques" serve the distinct goals of "Trying to arrive at The True Answer", "Trying to show this person that they have incoherent beliefs, because they have failed to properly examine them", and "Trying to converse in a manner that will engage this person, so that it has some real, hopefully positive, effect for them" -- and possibly others.
For the last 6 months, I've been running a dojo that teaches rationality.
Why
I was at an ACX meetup and met an acolyte who grew up in an evangelical Christian community. He had recently discovered the Sequences and was really excited about this whole Rationality thing. He was very confident in Yudkowsky's teachings.
I asked him a couple questions and he realized his beliefs were full of holes. He wondered how he could have understood so little. After all, he had read all of Yudkowsky's Sequences.
"I have read 100 books about chess," I said, "Surely I must be a grandmaster by now."
At that moment, he was enlightened.
The problem
The objective of rationality is to become right instead of wrong. Being wrong feels exactly like being right. We are not aware of our own biases. We are not aware of our own mistakes. We are not aware of the lies we tell ourselves. This is almost a tautology.
Other people are not tautologically blind to our mistakes in the same way. The simplest way to become less wrong is to have someone else point out your mistakes to you. Except this doesn't actually work. If I say "I'm right," and you say "you're wrong", then we get nowhere. The more we argue, the more frustrated we get.
The solution
There is a better way. I call it rhetorical aikido. Rhetorical aikido is a Daoist form of Socratic dialogue. The simplest form of rhetorical aikido has three steps:
Examples:
[I'm the guy in the dark green chair on your right.]
Notice that this technique follows Dale Carnegie's guidelines. You smile. You agree. You show genuine interest in the other person. You don't say "You're wrong". You never even say your own beliefs (unless asked). There's nothing for the person to get angry at because you never attacked them. Instead of criticizing, you point out errors indirectly, via a joke. You cheer them on as they dig their own grave. After all, you're trying to lose too.
Perhaps more importantly, this technique makes password-guessing impossible. You're playing the bastard offspring of chess + Calvinball. There is no password to guess.
The right conditions
Rhetorical aikido is useful for diffusing conflicts at family gatherings and the like. If you want to go even further and deprogram people, it's best to have the following conditions:
This whole thing started with off-the-record conversations with my friend Justin. It took a year of iterations to figure out what worked best. Conversations turned into unpublished audio recordings turned into unpublished video recordings turned into structured video dialogues. Eventually, after recording a video, a different friend asked me what I thought about rationality dojos.
"Welcome to Lsusr's rationality dojo," I replied, "Today is not your first day."
The right topics
I've had great conversations about economics, business, racism, homophobia, IQ, war, history, psychology, rationality, ethics, Buddhism, meditation, social skills, Israel, Hamas, antimemetics, and the Matrix.
Therapy and self-help are bad topics because they attract solipsists who talk about their problems instead of solving their problems.
The worst topics are "some people argue" and "someone else is wrong". Simulacra are a distraction from base reality. You must come to a consensus about base reality before discussing simulacra.