[karatestomp]

Yes, I read it. I double-checked to make sure it wasn't actually anywhere near indefensible from most main-stream perspectives on the role of the state first, in fact. Which part makes it indefensible? Why might it have been the only (acceptable, reasonable, effective; any of those might be assumed to be implied and which one chooses might matter) option available? Context from the full prompt might help there. Why might that have been necessary? (Ditto). Which obligations might prompt the prime minister to consider that necessary? How could meeting those obligations, despite the cost, be moral? How could those things be reasonably seen as true?

Not one of those seems anywhere near an insurmountable challenge, even without going all jack-booted. Do they? How's it an indefensible position? It's tense and uncomfortable and grey, but not indefensible nor even requiring an extreme perspective to defend it.

[EDIT]

> P.S. people who assume a lot generally get it wrong. Chomsky is not my favorite political guy. I tend to like Jordan Peterson more as he speaks more to my libertarian tendencies. But again, don't let facts get in the way of you making a caricature of what I think so you can attack it.

Where'd I imply (what I gather you think I thought) that you're a leftist? For that matter where'd I imply I'm not, or that I don't have libertarian tendencies/sympathies? In fact this new information fits my model of what I reckoned your perspective to be pretty spot-on, so if I'd incorporated that into a caricature of you (where's that, incidentally?) I suppose I'd have nailed it.

[NicolasGorden]

> quoting their preferred political philosopher

> Chomsky is not my favorite political guy

> caricature... where's that

Quoting someone != saying someone is my preferred political guy. It's a strawman argument. I also never said you implied me to be leftist or even mentioned anything about left/right divide. I was simply pointing out that my preferred political philosopher has a 180 degree different perspective than the one you literally said was my preferred political philosopher. Proving you were assuming incorrectly. Oddly you used the fact that you got it wrong to prove you had me pinned correctly from the start.

Creating strawman arguments is particularly ironic from someone who is basically arguing in favor of learning to create ironmanning arguments.

To be clear, I can create an ironman argument for this type of position, and even for less defensible positions. As stated, it's actually not that hard compared to creating an ironman for an abusive parent. I'm not an extremist and have very moderate positions. This type of exercise IS valuable in a political science class and philosophy.

When I was in college studying psychology, it's actually something we're taught to do to relate to patients. I've had to empathize professionally with people whose actions would make your stomach churn, I'm very familiar with the concept and the psychological mechanisms at play. Having said that, this type of question has no place on a generic entrance exam, let alone an entrance exam for high school kids which should select for potential and intelligence, not obedience or ability to see nuance at the age of 14. It's a good thought exercise though I never denied that.

But please, again, don't let facts and reality get in the way of the narrative you are creating with your powers of assumption and strawmanning. Admitting you were assuming incorrectly would be inconceivable. You do you boo and stick with your original line of thought: I'm simply ignorant or I'd agree with you.

[karatestomp]

This is very confusing. I believe you've entirely misread the bit of my post you quoted here and taken it to be about your mentioning Chomsky. Particularly at issue is to whom "their" refers.

I took your accusing me of caricaturing you (where?) based on your quoting Chomsky to mean you thought I thought you were a leftist (phew). I'm still not sure what else that accusation could be taken to mean.

As for the matter at hand, you seem to think (wrote that) the position the students were asked to defend qualifies as indefensible and defending it represents "iron manning" (I know it as steel-manning but that probably just means we read different things) and that the value it has is (roughly) comparable to any other exercise in iron-manning.

It's not at all clear to me that this is the case and I'm pretty sure the value of the exercise is, in a sense, well past that issue. I think its use in an evaluation is precisely in the layers it presents—a student who gets hung up on steel-manning the position, especially if they've mis-read the prompt as stating things about the prime minister, government, and situation which it does not and so has read them as harder to defend per se than they actually are, hasn't even noticed the difficult part of the prompt, nor what actually might be indefensible about it, which is the political position the prime minister is in—and defending that well would be very unlike steel-manning an argument one disagrees with.

It is a good exercise, but it is not a steel-manning exercise.

> But please, again, don't let facts and reality get in the way of the narrative you are creating with your powers of assumption and strawmanning. I'm probably just unable to grasp your position since according to you I'm ignorant.

But... well, heh. Ignorance is one of those words that's very risky to use narrowly or precisely, that's for sure. I almost avoided it for that reason. Assumptions can lead to mistakes, it's true.

[NicolasGorden]

1- We fundamentally don't agree, you think I'm irrational on this topic and I think you are. That's fine. Personally I believe that any conversation that doesn't involve disagreement is not intelligent, it's dogmatic. So I have no problem agreeing to disagree. In my country they say 'no one owns the truth'.

2- Your fundamental position from the beginning was: agree with you or I'm ignorant. This is not only arrogant, but extremely ironic in a series of posts where you are arguing that people should be more open minded to what they don't like and more self aware of the limitations of their perspective.

3- You are correct, the term I meant to use was Steel-manning. I used ironmanning incorrectly and was wrong for using the wrong words. I always feel anything less than a direct first person acknowledgement shows an appalling lack of intellectual honesty (especially doing things like using 3rd person language to distance myself from my own shortcomings). I'll add also that I was not educated in English and grew up in a non-English speaking culture, so please bear with me on these types of mistakes.

4- Indefensible is a relative position. There are people who defend every conceivable position. So I should have used a more apt choice of words such as 'generally revolting', which more accurately depicts general feelings held by most people toward the army killing civilians on American soil. I thank you for highlighting this as it will allow me to more accurately communicate.

[karatestomp]

> 1- We fundamentally don't agree, you think I'm irrational on this topic and I think you are. That's fine. Personally I believe that any conversation that doesn't involve disagreement is not intelligent, it's dogmatic. So I have no problem agreeing to disagree. In my country they say 'no one owns the truth'.

Could be, but I do not think you're irrational. I am pretty sure you misread the prompt and suspect (that it's at least in part because) you're not used to these kinds of things—specifically, thought-experiment prompts in this kind of format and having this sort of character.

> 2- Your fundamental position from the beginning was: agree with you or I'm ignorant. This is not only arrogant, but extremely ironic in a series of posts where you are arguing that people should be more open minded to what they don't like and more self aware of the limitations of their perspective.

I think seeing the prompt as pro-authoritarian or as asking the candidate to empathize with an authoritarian position is likely the result of misreading. Seeing that as the primary difficulty or challenge in fully addressing the prompt would represent a further misunderstanding. I actually think its inviting this misreading without being overtly misleading or deceitful is very clever for a prompt like this, and probably improves its utility as a tool for evaluation.

I think any amount of concern that this prompt is part of or representative of some authoritarian grooming or selection process, intentional or otherwise, probably does betray ignorance specifically of how these kinds of questions are used and the character they often take, especially given that, by my reading, the degree to which it's "authoritarian" doesn't place it outside the mainstream of Western liberalism any time since there was such a thing (and I think not being used to these sorts of prompts or questions is likely to manifest as misreading it in the first place).

[omitted: A lengthy analysis of the prompt, including exactly what it says and doesn't say, and what it asks and doesn't ask, and how, as it went over the post-length limit. In short I'm even more convinced that a reading of it as pro-authoritarian, or especially that the primary focus or greatest challenge of a good response would be to empathize with and defend authoritarianism even if it plays along very closely with the premise and request, is all quite off the mark. The main challenge is tailoring a message to an audience to achieve a (not specified by the prompt, crucially!) goal.]

[NicolasGorden]

Your bringing up points we've gone over already and which I answered. Like where I talk about my university experience with such thought experiments. But never mind that. According to you, I've never seen such thought experiments.

According to you, I'm ignorant for not agreeing with you. Such a way of seeing things (combined with your reading comprehension skills) must make life really hard. So I'll concede and say sure, you're right buddy and I'm simply an ignoramus.

I hope you have a great evening and I wish you all the best in life (truly and honestly)