EA Forum Podcast (All audio) “Socratic Persuasion: Giving Opinionated Yet Truth-Seeking Advice” by Neel Nanda
The full post is long, but you can 80/20 the value with the 700 word summary! Over half the post is eight optional case studies. Thanks to Jemima Jones, Claude 4 Opus and Gemini 2.5 Pro for help copy-editing and drafting
TL;DR: I recommend giving advice by asking questions to walk someone through key steps in my argument — often I’m missing key info, which comes up quickly as an unexpected answer, while if I’m right I’m more persuasive, and can still express my case. This is useful in a wide range of settings, as a manager, managee, friend, and mentor, and is better for both parties, if you have the time and energy and are able to seriously engage with whether you are wrong.
Summary
- Socratic Persuasion: When trying to persuade someone, especially if giving advice, I much prefer the Socratic method over directly presenting my case. I take my argument/thought [...]
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Outline:
(00:57) Summary
(06:57) Why does this matter?
(10:27) Caveats & Warnings
(13:26) Case Studies
(13:51) Managing/prioritisation: Convincing a team member that a project is a better use of their time
(18:27) Debugging/giving negative feedback: Retrospectives on Time Management
(21:14) Interpersonal/conflict resolution: Friend Having a Dispute
(23:06) Domain knowledge/negative feedback: Critiquing Research Project Ideas
(25:43) Ambition/career advice: Encouraging Someone to Drop Out of a PhD (to Accept a Job Offer)
(29:19) Debating: Convincing Someone We Can't Just Turn Misaligned AI Off
(32:22) Reflection/self-improvement: Receiving Negative Feedback
(35:23) Coaching/career advice: Giving Career Advice to Someone I've Just Met
(38:30) Conclusion
The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
May 26th, 2025
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.