# Reply to Duncan Sabien on Strawmanning

> DAVID: [...] Because that's all we can ever have of each other: an imitation, a Copy. All we can ever know about are the portraits of each other inside our own skulls.  
> LORAINE: Is that all you think I am? An idea in your head?  
> DAVID: No! But if it's all I have, then it's all I can honestly love. _Don't you see that?_  
> 
> And, miraculously, she does. She finally understands.
>
> —"A Kidnapping" by Greg Egan

In the comments on ["Basics of Rationalist Discourse"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XPv4sYrKnPzeJASuk/basics-of-rationalist-discourse-1) (where I am prohibited from commenting), Duncan Sabien writes, concerning my post ["Aiming for Convergence Is Like Discouraging Betting"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iThwqe3yPog56ytyq/aiming-for-convergence-is-like-discouraging-betting), that it's ["_important_ to [him] that [I] be understood to not actually be responding to [him], rather than to [my] own strawman"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XPv4sYrKnPzeJASuk/basics-of-rationalist-discourse-1?commentId=rFaq7vYWi3wqtJmN4).

I don't think I understand the implied semantics of "actually" responding to an author. I don't consider myself any kind of authority on Sabien's views, and don't see myself as attempting to speak on his behalf.

Rather, I consider "Aiming for Convergence Is Like Discouraging Betting" to be responding to the _published text_ of "Basics of Rationalist Discourse"—not Sabien's full private belief-state, which I obviously don't have access to. That is, I was attempting to use language to communicate some thoughts I had that were partially inspired by language that I read in "Basics of Rationalist Discourse".

Where I wasn't sure how to interpret the text because Sabien's thoughts and worldview differ so much from my own, I attempted to explicitly indicate my uncertainty, especially around the concepts of defection/cooperation and good/bad faith, of which I wrote (in the third summary bullet point) "I don't think I understand how these terms are being used in this context" and (in the body of the post) that the meanings "in _my_ vocabulary" and "in _my_ ontology" "don't seem consistent with the way Sabien seems to be using the words." I also included a paragraph "emphasiz[ing] [...] that this discussion is extrapolating a fair amount from the text that was written", and noting that Sabien might be using language differently from me "such that [my] objections don't apply".

It's quite possible that my reading comprehension of the post was poor, either "innocently" or ["motivatedly"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sXHQ9R5tahiaXEZhR/algorithmic-intent-a-hansonian-generalized-anti-zombie). That is, it could be that a reader might compare my quotation or paraphrasing of "Basics of Rationalist Discourse" to the text of that post, and conclude that my construal of the text was unreasonable, based on how the words would be typically understood by English speakers.

If so, I eagerly welcome corrections: if Sabien or anyone else thinks I've misinterpreted the published text of "Basics of Rationalist Discourse", I encourage them to write a comment explaining the misinterpretation, either on this post, or on "Aiming for Convergence Is Like Discouraging Betting". I furthermore encourage voters to upvote what they see as correct explanations of misinterpretations, and to downvote posts that they believe to contain misinterpretations. Furthermore, if anyone has any specific suggestions for how I might edit the text of the post to correct such misinterpretations, I will happily consider them.

As it happens, I did receive [a comment from Sabien](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iThwqe3yPog56ytyq/aiming-for-convergence-is-like-discouraging-betting?commentId=LzxyBKsv5eqCC5JAk) contesting a paragraph in which I "suppose[d]" that a speaker who said that he was "not treating [his interlocutor] as a cooperative partner" and was "motivated [...] to raise [his] status at the expense of [theirs]" "would not be engaging in the 'collaborative truth-seeking' that the 'Basics of Rationalist Discourse' guideline list keeps talking about." Sabien said that such a speaker would not be breaking any of the listed guidelines, and described the paragraph as "an excellent demonstration that [I] cannot pass the [[Ideological Turing Test]](https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html) of the post [I thought I was] objecting to, and [was] in fact objecting to a strawman of [my] own construction."

I [thanked Sabien for the clarification](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iThwqe3yPog56ytyq/aiming-for-convergence-is-like-discouraging-betting?commentId=WuHY6KL38qAQWJsKe), adding that I agreed that I wasn't passing his Ideological Turing Test (which I don't think should be required before replying to a post). A few hours later, I [asked a followup question](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iThwqe3yPog56ytyq/aiming-for-convergence-is-like-discouraging-betting?commentId=D62ovKEjzod3gJJFA): it still wasn't clear to me why my hypothetical speaker wouldn't be violating Sabien's Fifth Guideline. As of the time of the present post's publication, my followup question has not received a reply.

At the time of the present post's publication, I have not edited the text of "Aiming for Convergence Is Like Discouraging Betting", because it's not clear to me that doing so is necessary: in the one case above where I received an explicit objection to the text I wrote, it seems plausible to me that my use of the first person and the verb _suppose_ in the sentence "I suppose such a person would not be engaging in the 'collaborative truth-seeking' that the 'Basics of Rationalist Discourse' guideline list keeps talking about", is sufficient to communicate to a reasonable reader that the sentence refers to my interpretation of the text of "Basics of Rationalist Discourse", and doesn't necessarily represent Sabien's personal judgement of that particular scenario.

After all, how could it? The scenario of "such a person" was something _I_ made up while writing "Aiming for Convergence Is Like Discouraging Betting". I could hardly be expected to have solicited Sabien's feedback on the post in advance of publishing, given that he doesn't seem to want to communicate with me (him having blocked me on Facebook in December 2021, and having blocked me from commenting on his _Less Wrong_ posts).

In consideration of the above, I'm inclined to tentatively reject Sabien's characterization of my post as "objecting to a strawman of [my] own construction". I think if that were true, it would be easy to quote a passage from the text of "Aiming for Convergence Is Like Discouraging Betting" and convincingly explain to the median _Less Wrong_ reader specifically how it mischaracterizes the text of "Basics of Rationalist Discourse", without directly appealing to Sabien's personal judgement, and I don't think this has been done. _Less Wrong_ user Said Achmiz seems to concur with this assessment (writing, ["then I read Zack's post, thought 'yep, sounds about right'"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XPv4sYrKnPzeJASuk/basics-of-rationalist-discourse-1?commentId=PfHeTthknDhxEWvvC)), as does _Less Wrong_ administrator Ray Arnold (writing, ["I generated an understanding of 5 that was similar enough to Zack's understanding to also nod along with his post and think 'yup, sounds about right'(ish)"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XPv4sYrKnPzeJASuk/basics-of-rationalist-discourse-1?commentId=aFJPsRnK8o696YYhk)).

The reason I think an explanation is necessary to sustain a strawmanning allegation, and not just the say-so of an author that a critic is not correctly representing them, is because critics can't be expected to be mind-readers. Sabien writes that's it's possible to ["underestimate the corrosive power of a flood of bullshit, and how motivated some people are to _produce_ that flood."](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XPv4sYrKnPzeJASuk/basics-of-rationalist-discourse-1?commentId=WskxuTuzjnDxsoyeB). But I suggest this goes both ways: it's also possible to underestimate the corrosive power of people being motivated to _categorize_ things as bullshit in order to escape [the obligation to reply to intellectually substantive objections](https://rationalconspiracy.com/2017/01/03/four-layers-of-intellectual-conversation/).

It's no doubt true that I don't have a good understanding of Sabien's views, and I don't claim to. Unfortunately, I am not a mind-reader. I don't have direct access to his beliefs. All I have to go on is the text he's published—and if that's all I have, then it's all I can honestly reply to. If Sabien or anyone else disagrees with anything I write, they're welcome to leave a comment explaining why! But I don't see how the strawmanning allegation presently under consideration is credible in the absence of a more specific explanation than has heretofore been provided.