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Josh G's avatar

2 somewhat relevant examples:

1. In political discourse about the economy, lots of people give an argument that basically says something like relative inequality has all these bad effects, and we should orient our economy to minimize the difference between what people have. I don't find this convincing at all, so in my mind I substitute those arguments with a version that has much more to do with effective altruism and absolute living standards. Someone might read my posts and think I'm very far to the right, but in reality EA type arguments move me much closer to the center-left than typical inequality arguments do.

2. One time in a debate about population genetics, a prominent person said that there weren't meaningful differences between groups because it's not like some groups have the "engineer gene, banker gene" etc. Basically, having genes that are specific to professions. That struck me as an example of not evaluating the argument by the strongest version of the argument, which to me wouldn't say there are profession-specific genes, but general traits that could influence population outcomes.

Just 2 examples.

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Mike Hind's avatar

This is a convincing recommendation for the good faith engagement that tends to be lacking, especially in digital chatter. We do often tend to see arguments for one proposition in light of other worse arguments for the proposition. I've never noticed this before, so thanks!

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