2023-09-10
- Reading more Yudkowski (Rationality: From AI to Zombies). Yesterday, I wrote about some of the problems with using “by definition” as part of an argument. Today’s reading produced some more thoughts on that. Yudkowski notes that one function “by definition” often serves in a conversation/argument is to avoid actually spelling out the structure of an argument. And in avoiding this, a person can “win” the argument without really putting in the work. When reading this, I was reminded of situations where I commonly hear people use the term “by definition”. The most salient one that jumped out to me has to do with discussions about systemic racism. In my experience, it’s fairly common in those discussions (which I have learned to avoid due to their consistently unproductive nature) to hear someone say something like “Group X can’t be racist, by definition.” In these cases, the definition in question usually looks something like “racism is when a group in power oppresses a
non-powerful group through policies, systems, and institutions designed to privilege those in power at the expense of those not in power.” Interestingly, this definition does not say who can or can’t be racist. That would instead maybe look something like “racism is when Group A does Thing 1 to Group B.” If that was your definition, I’d agree that Group X can’t be racist. If the definition specified that racism has to do with actions of Group A, it would be reasonable to conclude that Group X does not fit into the definition. But the actual definition used in these conversations doesn’t do this. It does not mention specific groups. It doesn’t make sense to claim from the given definition that some group can or can’t be racist. To get to that conclusion, you would have to add in other, implicit, assertions to complete the argument. But making those implicit jumps explicit would potentially open up the argument to reasonable counters, so it’s not politically convenient to do
that. It really is an unfortunate fact of life these days that it is often politically inconvenient to reason well. And this is, I think, why politics is so tiresome to so many people. This kind of thing is so pervasive in these discussions, you might even be tempted to say discussing politics is tiresome “by definition.” Now, I’ll add one more thing here. The folks who use “by definition” in these systemic racism discussions are often highly aggravated by any pushback at all about their reasoning (or lack thereof). So, I’ll add, in an effort to head off drama at the pass, that often the “by definition” folks have pretty compelling things to say without resorting to these rhetorical tricks. In the rare substantive conversation about issues of systemic racism, I think folks that are concerned about the issue have many valuable things to contribute. Unfortunately, and this is true of folks of any political persuasion, the interesting things get lost when folks become entrenched in a
given position. When you hear people pull out “by definition,” that’s a good time to stop and reflect on whether trenches are being dug, and whether it might be better to come back to the conversation at a different time.
Date
September 10, 2023