You do have to pay attention to other people's authority a fair amount of the time. But above all, try to get the actual right answer. Clever tricks are only valuable if they help you learn what the truth actually is. If a clever argument doesn't actually work, don't use it.
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This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was The Rhythm of Disagreement, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
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Today's post, Principles of Disagreement was originally published on 02 June 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was The Rhythm of Disagreement, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.