A neutral, independent community in which members debate issues related to social justice.
Double Crux: A strategy for resolving disagreement
This is a post I found at Less Wrong about a strategy to argue more effectively. It seems useful to me. What do you think?




So basically, the idea is to frame the discussion in a collaborative rather than a competitive way. The two parties are not arguing against each other, they are investigating the issue together and digging down to the root of their disagreement.
I feel like if you can even get to the point where the conditions for a double crux are possible, the disagreement will basically solve itself. The thorniest disagreements usually do not stem from mistaken assumptions, but from different value judgments. That is, there is a trade-off between A and B. One party believes A is more important, while the other believes B is more important.
Yep, that's the idea. The rationalist community (where this post came from) is already all about that, double cruxing is just supposed to be a specific strategy.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by different value judgments. It seems like those could be resolved by double cruxing, since it forces you to find a concrete, measurable reason why you believe what you believe. Do you have an example?
Sure. Let's take an example of special relevance to this community.
"Should hate speech be prohibited or censored by law?"
Those for regulation of hate speech argue that hateful speech is damaging to members of minority groups. It lowers their sense of self-worth and makes them fearful for their own safety. Furthermore, it may actually incite discriminatory or violent action against these groups.
Those opposed would say that such regulation of speech is a slippery slope (who defines what is hate speech?) and has a chilling effect. People may be reluctant to express controversial opinions for fear of punishment.
I don't think this is really a disagreement about underlying facts, it's about where to draw the line. Too many controls and you will put a chilling effect on legitimate non-hateful speech which is simply controversial. Too few controls and you allow bigots to spew hateful attacks against minorities and incite animosity towards them.
Different countries have drawn the line in different places. On one end of the spectrum, the US holds that federal, state, and local governments cannot prohibit political speech unless it advocates immediate unlawful action. On the other end, Singapore has a sedition law that prohibits speech that "promotes feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore". Both countries essentially got what they optimized for. In the US, you can be fairly certain that what you say in public or online won't lead to criminal penalties. But you also get men like Trump ascending to the presidency partially by stoking racial resentment and xenophobia. In Singapore, they've built a pluralistic multi-ethnic society, but you can be fined or jailed for criticizing someone else's religion.
Well yeah, that is an disagreement about where to draw the line. Every possible choice here is a tradeoff between freedom and safety. So if both people agree that too many or too little controls would be bad, they can then work out where they think the line should be, and why. That sounds like it ought to be resolvable. (Since different states already chose different lines, we could look at them to get data about what happens at different lines.)
That assumes that everybody ascribes the same level of importance to each dimension. I agree that it is resolvable via compromise. But I think wherever you draw the line, there are going to be people who think it's gone too far in one direction or the other.
Yes, but just getting them to acknowledge that there are trade-offs and that the other side is not evil for having different priorities is major progress.
Yes, and I think that's really the hardest part.