Bracketing the target

[jack]

If you're firing a howitzer, get two shells on either side of the target, and then you can quickly home in on it using a simple (often trivial) binary chop. This may actually be better than two shells very very close but on the same side.

The same often applies to arguments: a totally crazy but totally different idea may be more useful than a cautious but unassailable refinement of the previous suggestion if the best answer is contained somewhere between. For instance:

(a) This is what people mean (or should mean) but "there are no stupid suggestions" -- even a ridiculous suggestion can contain a nugget of an undeveloped good idea or useful constraint. (Not always, but often.)

(b) If you're trying to get someone to grok something, you may say "it's a bit like [this film] and a bit like [this film]" or "it's a bit like a wave and a bit like a particle" or "it's a bit like a religion and a bit like a culture" then even if both examples are totally and utterly false, they may well give people a good intuitive idea of the domain of answers within which the correct one lies.

(c) if you come up with a long, complex philosophical argument, spend five minutes saying "would this be convincing to an intelligent person who doesn't know anything about philosophy, or would they say 'well, I can't tell you exactly where the flaw is, but I'm pretty sure it's false because here's a counterexample'"

Comments

[jack]

"It's showbusiness for someone who is something between a ringmaster and a pastor"

ROFL. That's an awesome description. Although I think "when you have a lot of different peeps on stage, the one who comes on inbetween to tell you who's coming on next and tell a few filler jokes" would have helped me more :)

When you want the middle ground as a compromise, send someone on the opposite extreme to argue against the extremists.

I agree that it's an utter, utter travesty that people get away with this, and I really hate the dishonesty of it, whether deliberately planned or not.

Although I don't know if doing it will actually help or not (partly depending whether you're asking for something extreme you'd really like, but don't think you'd ever get, or something that's plainly ridiculous, but would pull the debate more to your side than the other, or something that superficially sounds good to you, even if it would actually be a disaster if you thought about it).

[seryn]

When you're 8, it's hard to comprehend a variety show if you haven't seen one. And other than the circus I hadn't seen any live performances, it was all television, so I sort of thought if an awards show needed an emcee (once it was explained) then the back stage directors weren't doing their jobs right. Once I got the idea that the other "performers" might be amateurs, it made a lot more sense why you'd need someone like an emcee. Most of the people coming up on stage for the awards shows are used to their lines being pre-scripted, so they're effectively amateurish.

It's more than 30 years after the fact, so I know what would have worked for me based on the knowledge I had at the time. It's just a strange thing trying to explain something when the other person has zero reference points. And your idea of defining a range so at least the confused person could get the vague concept was really useful.

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The problem is that if you have people who are at -1 on the scale and want a compromise at 0-ish, if there are no +1s or even +.5s every compromise brings the overall situation more negative. But not sitting down with the people is how rebellions are fomented.

[jack]

I sort of thought if an awards show needed an emcee (once it was explained) then the back stage directors weren't doing their jobs right.

Ah, I see. I think the difference is, I would just have accepted it at face value, that if someone said there was a guy inbetween acts, then that's what there was: I hadn't thought enough about any sort of show to have any idea what would be normal or necessary :)

every compromise brings the overall situation more negative.

And I still agree it's an awful problem, but still am uncomfortable deliberately exaggerating what I think if it goes so far I don't agree with it, even if it's politically expedient. Of course come to think of it, in most situations, there is a more extreme position I actually WOULD be mostly happy with, and think having it aired does have some useful benefits. (Eg. I'm very uncomfortable having PETA running around doing atrocious things I can't countenance, but I admit having someone yelling "animals have rights" at least gets people to NOTICE the viewpoint.)

Of course, in contemporary American politics, you don't need to be very "left" at all to be seen as a "left" extremist. Views I've seen denounced as "left extremist" would include such things that -- to me -- are utterly fundamental, like "we should enforce the first amendment" and "people should not be trapped in exploitative jobs due to lack of healthcare" and "preventative medicine costs less" and "unregulated markets are no more free than government-controlled ones"...

[seryn]

Why would you need filler between acts unless the stage managers didn't send the next act out on time?

American politics do feel that way. That most of us are moderates and some people who are way way out there in wingnut land have skewed things their way because no one stands up for what's in the best interests of the country. But it's hard to take a firm stance on the squishy middle ground of compromise and not get tugged by the tug-o'-war rope.

A lot of it is cemented by pseudo-journalism (where they're just looking for the conflict) and the preference for the false dichotomy. So as long as the journalists are saying "every issue has two sides", I would just like to have the people hammering out the agreements to be compromising at the moderate position. I just can't think of another way than seeking out equally wing-nutty people going the other way.