

Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence - b-man
http://lesswrong.com/lw/lw/reversed_stupidity_is_not_intelligence/

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tokenadult
"Corollaries of this principle:

" * To argue against an idea honestly, you should argue against the best
arguments of the strongest advocates. Arguing against weaker advocates proves
nothing, because even the strongest idea will attract weak advocates."

This reminds me of a plea I made to HN participants

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555734>

to avoid ad-hominem arguments against controversial claims when facts are
available to refute the claim without reference to who supports the claim.
Sometimes people with mostly bad ideas have a correct opinion or two.

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chasingsparks
_The least convenient path is the only valid one._

This should be a law in political discourse.

~~~
amalcon
I understand what's meant by this statement, and I agree with the intentions,
but it oversimplifies matters. It's not necessarily true that the next-least-
convenient path is invalid.

For example, suppose I want to argue against the statement that we have been
visited by poorly-hidden aliens. I _could_ go find all the compelling
arguments that we have been so visited, and refute them. Alternatively, I
could examine all possible poor hiding places, and demonstrate that there are
no aliens in these places. I can refute the arguments, or I can disprove the
conclusion.

Both of these approaches are valid. One is necessarily more convenient than
the other, and thus is not the _most_ convenient.

The larger point (that refuting a poor argument is meaningless) still stands
on its own, and _that_ should be a law in political discourse.

~~~
roc
The point is that you should argue against the best theory advanced by the
strongest proponent of the poorly-hidden alien crowd. _How_ you argue against
that point doesn't really matter, so long as you're being intellectually
honest. (no ad hominem, straw men, etc)

What the article is arguing against, is the method of dismissing the poorly-
hidden alien theory, because some crackpot who advances it believes that
aliens live in his bathroom drain.

One cannot simply inspect this one drain, find no evidence of extraterrestrial
life and then dismiss the entire poorly-hidden alien theory.

~~~
amalcon
My point is that you don't necessarily need to argue against a particular
theory at all.

The entire rest of the post is pretty good; it's just that one particular part
can be misleading if taken in isolation.

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bkovitz
The "reversed stupidity is not intelligence" principle and its corollaries are
all true, but only trivially so. In fact, many good ideas and opportunities
can be found simply by reversing what stupid people are doing (intelligent
people, even). Stupidity is more than falsehood. It's a certain kind of
attunement to the world: conformist, short-sighted, demanding. By seeking it
out and "reversing" it, you can often find new and fruitful directions to
explore.

Here is a down-home example. I have a couple friends who occasionally give me
advice. For them, it's probably good advice. But not for me. One day, it
occurred to me to always do the opposite of whatever they said. Wonderful
results! I would never have thought of some of these things without their
advice.

Does this mean to run headlong against everything you hear? Of course not.
That would be stupid.

------
jodrellblank
Do we often read that when beginning a startup, you should do the opposite of
what big enbcumbant companies are doing?

