Is This a Thing or a Thing?

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I think that's where I would start in terms of washing back. The planning of these trees would be good for the environment. So what do we actually argue about? There may be many pockets of agreement here. But there are also maybe ideas that neither one of us really understand well. And so how could we even think that we could be representatives of the environment that we're trying to do? Neither one of us understands deeply. You talk about an argument can be untrue, unimportant or outweighed. Maybe it won't help. Maybe it will help, but it doesn't mean that that's a good thing. That is fantastic. Good speakers will go out about their opponent's mistakes

This is the second episode in a three-part series about how to have difficult conversations with people who see the world differently, how to have better debates about contentious issues, and how to ethically and scientifically persuade one another about things that matter – in short, this is a three-part series about How Minds Change (which is also the title of my new book).

There seems to be a movement afoot, a new wave of nonfiction about how to reduce all this argumentative madness and epistemic chaos. I want to boost everyone's signal on this issue, so I thought it would be nice to collaborate instead of compete, since that's part of what we are all proselytizing with these books.

So this episode’s guest is Bo Seo, the author of Good Arguments – a book about how he became a world debate champion in which he not only teaches us how to apply what he has learned to everyday life but imagines communities built around, not despite, constant arguing and disagreement.

Seo says that a political life without constant disagreement would be impoverished. As he puts it, quote, "Nations are, at their best, evolving arguments. As he writes, “In a liberal democracy, good arguments are not what societies should do but also what they should be.” See believes that on well curated, well moderated platforms, ones that value good faith interactions, arguing and disagreement would flip from being catalysts for polarization to the very engine of depolarization and change. In the interview, he not only tells us how to defend ourselves against bad arguments, but explains how in his mind a great democracy isn’t a place where everyone agrees and sees eye-to-eye, but one where we work to have better quality disagreements.

- Bo Seo’s Website: www.helloboseo.com

- How Minds Change: www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome

- David McRaney’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidmcraney

- YANSS Twitter: https://twitter.com/notsmartblog

- Show Notes: www.youarenotsosmart.com

- Newsletter: https://davidmcraney.substack.com