Many hold strong beliefs and opinions, however not many know the roots of their belief. If a person agrees to explore it, both of you will learn something new and fascinating. The problem is finding someone who wants to think and ask the questions. This goes for both. Many want to “convince” someone, but how much do you truly know about the thing you’re trying to prove?
This also comes back to the “why?” game so many kids play. Parents get annoyed by it, but are they really annoyed at the game or their lack of knowledge depth? Play the game, find out how deep you lake of knowledge goes
Hmmm, but why?
Because if we did that all the time and everywhere, we would become smarter as a whole human race and maybe gain enough knowledge to stop slaughtering each other ❤️
Why do you think that is?
Because every human is continuously forced to check why they believe in what they believe and if it still makes sense. You build on pillars you once assume are stable. But with your latest knowledge and the question „Why?“, you may recognize some to be more brittle than you thought.
Why, necessarily, would they not follow human confirmation bias?
I personally think that they wouldn’t follow confirmation bias because in the discussion of “why?” we already have them questioning and looking deeper
Why that?
Why do you ask?
Why wouldn’t they ?
I don’t know. This can lead to completely different topics fast. An example:
You shouldn’t vote for XYZ.
Why?
Because he uses Nazi tactics and wants to be a dictator.
Why?
Because people often fall for these tricks and he likes the idea of being all powerful.
Why?
People don’t always think things through.
Why?
It costs energy and we try to save that.
Why?
Evolution.
Why?
Problem here is the answer contains multiple explanations. When asking “why?” it needs to be more specific otherwise you get your problem.
Fucking evolution the root of all evil.
You forgot to /s
I think the key is to remember you are trying to discuss opinions/convictions not facts.
When B says something like “C is a nazi”, A correctly asks why B believes C is a nazi, not why C is a literal nazi. So when you go down one level, A’s next question should be something like “why do you think these are nazi tactics?” and “why are nazi tactics bad?” It really requires both sides to be intellectually honest and curious about someone’s actual beliefs, otherwise the technique doesn’t work. I also think limiting yourself to just “why” isn’t always helpful. Sometimes you need to ask for clarification or the entire conversation becomes a farce.
Remember the goal is to learn something about the other persons views, not to set each other up with rhetorical questions.
Exactly. It’s harder than it sounds to ask the right “why”.
I never knew about this! Thank you, great resource
Surprisingly, not dissimilar from cause-of-death determinations on autopsies.
this doesn’t guarantee that the conclusion is correct, or is in scope of expertise of either of you
That’s a part of the enlightenment and purpose for open-minded people. One or both may learn they really don’t understand what they so firmly believed.
It doesn’t, but at least it makes both think and hopefully improve the quality of the arguments. And with internet at our finger tips, it doesn’t take much to double check a couple things :)
This reminds me of the 5 Why method from Toyota
We use this at work a lot when there’s been some kind of failure. The idea is to try and get to the real root cause of an issue, not just the immediate cause. Like maybe an engine failed because a valve didn’t open - you could correct that by replacing the valve, but why didn’t the valve open? Maybe it was stuck and the initial force to open it was more than the actuator could handle. Okay, so maybe we could lubricate it somehow, but why was it stuck. Maybe the supplier changed their cleaning method and switched to a new chemical. Why did they do that? Oh, because it was cheaper. That’s the real root cause: the supplier tried to cut costs by switching to an inferior cleaning chemical. Time to work with them to fix that. All of the other fixes would have only helped that one valve on that one engine - this one fixes all of them.
Yes! Just learned about it, seems to be very similar to what I had in mind ^^
Or, alternatively - you’ll be accused of Sealioning
Whoops! I may have been guilty of this in the past
Haven’t we all.
More annoying though, is when you are really trying to understand the other person’s point of view and they shut down debate by the accusation of sealioning. There should be a word for that
The word is “tired”, I think. A lot of people just don’t have the energy to answer the whys and are used to bad actors using why to exhaust them. So when it comes to things like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia…etc… it’s a) an exhausting subject to begin with when its aimed at you, and b) a magnet for disingenuous bigots and trolls, so people will just shut down the conversation rather than try and explain their whole existence.
Honestly, I think isms are the only times when sealioning is sealioning, because that’s the only time you get people arguing in such bad faith.
I think the only time I was accused of it was when trying to engage with a climate change denier. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were tired. I’m not particularly sympathetic.
Haha, yes that indeed might be a problem! Any idea how to approach this without being incredibly annoying?
I think the only way to avoid it really, is for the two people to agree in advance that they will each be open to questioning and will take the process in good faith. Know what yoiu are getting into.
i’ve never come across this before but this is an excellent term. nobody is entitled to an unchallenged opinion but at the same time forcing someone into that type of conversation is unlikely to be productive.
Nice meme, never seen it before haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ0eWm5PxkU
Seems appropriate
I think what you are looking for is kinda related to street epistemology.
Great responses in this post. Thank you for additional source
Not always. A lot of the time people will just lie about what they actually believe and why they believe it.
For example. People are going to say they support free speech because they believe in it as an important principle for a free society. No one is going to say they support free speech because actually they’re a full on Nazi and this is the only way to get their message out to the public until they get the reigns and then they can dispense will al the “free speech” stuff and lock down the opposition.
Actually this applies to a lot of politics related stuff. For example politicians always talk about how tax breaks are going to stimulate the economy, none of them say “well my mate paid me a few million under the table to push this, even though ‘trickle down’ has never worked in the 100+ years that it’s been around”.
Security patches, Everyone says “We need to insure that all new software has up to date security and patches.”, no one says “We want to collect every single bit of telemetry and integrate end to end DRM and the only way that can work is if the device is completely locked down so the users can’t bypass or root it.”.
You’re right. Going down through the levels of “okay, and why?” works on a theoretical level but requires both the person asking the right why-question and a level of intellectual honesty from both parties that is incredibly hard to find.
It’s not a bad approach for questioning your own beliefs though, if you can muster the strength to be honest with yourself.
That works only when people are ready to question their opinions. Many are not. The ‘why’ question does not seem to make sense to them – why ask for reasoning, when we know ‘the fact’?
The only meaningful ‘why’ in such situation may be: ‘why I am still talking to them?’
This process is generally referred to as The Socratic Method. As you said, the devil is in first convincing both parties within a debate that they should be searching for shared understanding through the process of attacking and defending ideas, not attacking and defending each other.
This also comes back to the “why?” game so many kids play. Parents get annoyed by it, but are they really annoyed at the game or their lack of knowledge depth?
I used to think this as well, until I had a three-year-old. One day she yelled under the bathroom door, “WHY ARE YOU POOPING??” I’ve realized that young kids may ask “why” more often to annoy and test social boundaries instead of actually trying to learn something. When she does ask “why” in order to learn, it’s fun explaining and teaching her. But it’s not as often as I thought it would be.
Well, why were you pooping?
💀
Ah, I see :D I guess it is important not to miss those actual sparks of curiousity though
Sounds like being grilled on reddit.
Why?
Why what? I wont answer unless you ask properly!
I think that style is the counter for kids asking “why?” just to piss you off or push boundaries. It’ll take too much effort to spam and will force real questions.
See also Double Cruxing
That was an interesting read - thanks for posting
