Don't diagnose your opponents

When you disagree with someone, there are two paths forward. The first is to try to engage with what they’re saying: what their reasons are, whether their position is true, what evidence could be brought to bear, and so on. The second is to diagnose them: to engage with the second-order question of why they’re saying it. For instance, if you’re arguing with somebody about microservices, you could say “well, you only like microservices because you want to polish your resume”, or “you only like monoliths because you’re scared of distributed systems”.

This happens a lot in online arguments. On the question “are AI models improving”, some anti-AI people will argue that people only think so because AI psychosis is rotting their brain, and the dumber they get, the smarter AI models seem in comparison. Likewise, many pro-AI people argue that people only disagree because they’re Luddites, or scared of change, and so on. None of these arguments are about the quality of AI models.

It feels so good to diagnose your opponents because there’s no possible response. If you say “I think AI models are improving because these benchmark scores are rising”, somebody might point out that the AI labs are training on those benchmarks, or argue that they represent isolated skills that don’t transfer, and so on, making you feel stupid. If you say “you only disagree with me because you want to roleplay as a revolutionary”, how could you be proven wrong? The more someone protests a diagnosis, the more it sounds like it must be right. Otherwise why would they be so upset?

Of course, they’re so upset precisely because there is no possible response. By moving to diagnosis, you’re no longer having an argument about the facts, you’re purely in the area of rhetoric. But when you’re in the middle of an argument, diagnosing always feels like you’re being piercingly analytical. It feels like you’re cutting right to the heart of the matter: these complicated arguments are just chaff, intended to distract you from the fundamental psychological reason why your opponent is being so foolish. This is just ordinary spite and anger, whatever it feels like at the time.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the second-order question of why someone person believes what they believe. It’s totally fine to think about it or form theories about it, like any other factual question. Just remember that it doesn’t bear on the question of whether they’re right. Every human being forms their beliefs on top of a cocktail of base urges, animal instincts, and barely-suppressed evolutionary drives. If they’re rational, they also have evidence for those beliefs. It’s the quality of that evidence that helps you determine whether the beliefs are true, not the existence of the base urges.

As a general rule, you should only diagnose your opponents when you also have a strong, unrelated argument about why they’re wrong. For instance, I think Ed Zitron has been thoroughly audience-captured by AI skeptics, whose demand for news about AI failures far exceeds supply. But I have written many long-form posts about why I think Zitron’s specific claims about the sustainability of AI are incorrect. When I talk to people who think Zitron is right, I talk about my arguments in those posts, not about my personal theory about why he says the things he does.

Scott Alexander famously called the “noncentral fallacy” the Worst Argument in the World. For me, diagnosing your opponents is the Worst Argument in the World. I cringe every time I see it in the wild (like most cringeworthy behavior, it bothers me because I myself have to struggle against the urge to do it). Just don’t! It’s good at playing to your base, but it doesn’t persuade: anyone who believes your opponents’ views will just be mad that you’re psychoanalyzing them instead of talking about the actual issues at stake.

1. Don’t.
2. Am I diagnosing the diagnosers here? Maybe, but I think it’s forgivable, since there is no specific argument about the facts at stake.
3. The philosopher in me wants to clarify that you could theoretically establish that someone’s motives for believing something are leading them away from the truth. In practice, (a) you cannot do this in an internet argument, and (b) it is always better and easier to make a straightforward argument about what the truth is.
4. “You’re a fringe member of some group which has members I have an emotional reaction to, therefore I will have the same reaction to you even though you yourself don’t do those things.” “Group” here is to be understood as “Christian” or “Italian”, not something like the WBC where the fact of membership itself is what’s being judged.