[tlug] Paul Graham's Disagreement Hierarchy

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Josh Glover writes:

 > Paul Graham defines a Disagreement Hierarchy, which can help both
 > readers and writers identify intellectual dishonesty and keep
 > disagreements from degrading into flame wars. Here's his definition of
 > "DH4. Counterargument.", which is the lowest level TLUG posters should
 > ever use:

I have to disagree.  Let me give a few examples.

One of my high school teachers once wrote "Stephen is one of the most
pompous writers I have ever seen."  He was correct (it was a habit;
although I broke the habit, now I do it deliberately to annoy people
who call me "Professor" in anger -- that doesn't include you, Scott).

Ad hominem arguments are often useful, even though they are a fallacy.
There really isn't any point in contradicting or attempting to refute
what I say about elementary microeconomics, including the elementary
microeconomics of the software industry.  The arguments are by now
logically airtight.  The only interesting things to say are "he's an
economics professor trained at a top 10 department" and "he's a known
liar".  Any attempt to deal with the content is going to put everybody
else on the list way out of their depth.

Actually, there's a third interesting thing to say, which is "He's
being a jerk."  This is especially important when the person is
capable of not being a jerk (ie, its not a DH0 argument), and isn't
aware that they *are* being one.  Speaking for myself, when I'm being
a jerk it's like the old story about the mule and the 2x4: "oh, that
doesn't *hurt* him, but anything smaller won't get his attention!"

And a fourth: "That can't be right."  More often than I'd like to
admit, that is true. :-)  Again, you need to get my attention.  And
I'm not the only one ....

So there you are.  Uses for all of DH0--DH3.  At least if you're
dealing with me. :-)

One thing that I think that Graham misses completely in his essay is
that often, perhaps even most of the time, DH4, DH5, and DH6 simply
are not available.  There's a disagreement about *values*, which are
essentially postulates.  So there needs to be a whole different way to
disagree, including "agreeing to disagree", which has to do with
identifying value differences in a way that doesn't demonize (or
daemonize, which is one typical source of a prolonged flamewar) folks
with differing values.

A big problem here, though, is that a lot of people really would
rather not examine their values because they involve conflicts.  And
that's the kind of situation where "u r a fag" becomes useful, because
it requires no thought about one's own issues. ;-)

Regards,