[patcon]

> Middle between truth and lie is a lie.

It sounds like you're perhaps assuming the "middle" is a point in rational space. But maybe "middle" is best conceived as a point in possibility space -- it's the position over which someone must travel to ever get beside you in the future.

So allowing the middle to exist as valid (even if it isn't "truth") is perhaps important if the goal is for two groups to align more. Denying the middle position as "non-truth" is only helpful if one's goals have less to do with depolarization.

Anyhow, these are just some loosely held ideas. Maybe they're wrong :)

[watwut]

> Usually both sides of arguments both have truth to them and the way to objective truth exists via trying to understand why both sides believe what they do.

This is literally about two people arguing. It is actually very possible that one of them is right and other is wrong. Arguments are not just about abstract things.

> Denying the middle position as "non-truth" is only helpful if one's goals have less to do with depolarization.

Sure. Because "depolarization" while ignoring where it ends can end up in even worst place.

Plus, the "truth is in the middle" thing motivates actors on all sides to make up extreme lies. I don't mean just not caring about facts, but intentionally making them wrong. Because the more extremely I push, the more likely you will end up tilted toward my position.

[patcon]

Thanks for replying :)

> Plus, the "truth is in the middle" thing motivates actors on all sides to make up extreme lies.

No, this is not what the research points to. Rather, having people confidently (and NOT weakly) holding middle positions strengthens groups' abilities to reach consensus. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(...

And yes, I understand that this research is intentionally on topics of ambiguous morality, but that is because that served the protocol design: they didn't want to complicate the protocol with there being a "right" answer someone could look up. And increasingly in our public discourse, factual and moral disagreements are starting to share the same human qualities/challenges anyhow. Conversation about facts are increasingly like conversations about morality, and will be increasingly so as we become more networked.

> Arguments are not just about abstract things.

Believe me, I get that. I'm not overlooking that. But it doesn't matter to the divide that exists, and the steps required to repair it. And for me, the main value in even noticing a difference in perception is to repair it. Noting it for any of reason is just for posterity, and is pretty pointless imho.

Example: Someone you care to engage with believes their experience of the Mandela Effect[1] means they're hopping between dimensions. For the sake of stakes, pretend this is breaking apart this person's marriage. Pretend that giving up on them isn't something you want to do. There is a very clear factual truth here: the Mandela Effect makes no sense as anything more than human forgetfulness. But it's entirely possible that no amount of "bringing the truth" will change their mind, especially when they can easily hop on the internet and be validated by others who (for their own reasons) believe the same thing.

The more likely way to bring them to your reality is to be in closer relationship to their view. To ask questions about it. To make them feel like you're trying to understand and see what they do. Even if you believe 100% that they are wrong, you need to enter a mindset and perspective where they might be right.

That's all I mean. It's basically practicing humility about things you think you already know, because knowing something factual misses the whole process and serves no one. And honestly, my experience of building reflexes for acting this way, is that you actually do learn some things you thought you already knew. Maybe not about hopping dimensions, but about the underlying drives and motivations that animate the curious conclusions at the surface.

[1]: https://www.alternatememories.com/news/tv/mandela-effect-fea...

[dragonwriter]

> maybe "middle" is best conceived as a point in possibility space -- it's the position over which someone must travel to ever get beside you in the future.

Physical motion is continuous, but change of ideas is not physical movement. The ex-Trotskyites that became the original neoconservatives did not move through a continuous path of intermediary ideologies on their left->right journey.

> Denying the middle position as "non-truth" is only helpful if one's goals have less to do with depolarization.

Why would depolarization be a goal independent of the specific consensus position achieved?