Why this is important?

• We suck at being rational
  • We should increase the odds for rational decisions
• One of the few things we can manage is how we use our time
• It is sad to watch smart people trying to communicate their point and fail

I recently tried to analyze a debate

FAILED

• I kept losing track even though I had the log and took my time
• Several threads for seemingly same discussion
• Temporal distortions (Déjà-vu)
• Arguments were orbiting around an unidentifiable problem
• Some key arguments were seemingly
  ignored. I got curios - why? 

So how did I become a respected author on this topic?

• I didn't. I'm just a hobbyist. 

Reading / Listening

Books I've apparently read
according to the Internet

• Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain
• A Mind of Its Own
• Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills
• Consciousness and the Social Brain
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change
• The Science of Influence: How to Get Anyone to Say "Yes" in 8 Minutes or Less!  (Don't judge the book by its name)
• Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being
• Your Best Brain: The Science of Brain Improvement

Podcasts

• Brain Science with Ginger Campbell
• The Sceptics Guide
• The Psychology Podcast
• Naked Neuroscience
• Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files
• Stuff You Should Know (a bit far fetched, but worth
  mentioning)

We suck at being rational

• Our brains are specialised in coming up with an opinion first and having an explanation for it later.
• Our brain is  very good at deceiving us in other fronts
• You think you see colours equally around you?
  • Full vision? No spots?
• Magic tricks, mentalists, the scientific method - quite a lot of things/professions work with or around our fallacies.

Selective attention test

Few tools to get a bit better

Starting Point

Your thoughts are deceiving you. Apply scepticism also to your own ideas.

WATCH OUT!

Also, read Internet-memes with the grain of salt.

Distinguish these

• Problem / requirement vs solution
• If you have a requirement, you should have a
  • ​problem which you can describe the way your peers understand
• Only after that, a sensible solution can be presented
  • There rarely is perfect solution(?)
• Thus, at the end,
  • after rational debate (ha-ha),
  • alternatives can be weighted objectively (ha-ha)
  • and rational decision is made (ha-ha)

Be mindful with the "moving target"

• "the moving target" = confusing the discussion by spawning new problems and requirements to justify the solution
• The way the chat discussions are flowing, it is easy to ignore the fact that the previous topic was never handled.
  • Few debatees may be attempting to keep an logical construct of the debate in their head 
  • Rest just cram forward? -> Drives people to insanity

Try to align where you can

• Don't drop the ball if you don't understand the opposite argument
• Ask -> Answer -> Ask -> Ask -> Answer -> Align

"No ought from an is"

• E.g. The Hume's guilliotine
• Of course it is good to know how the rest of the world operates
• This, however, should not be the key argument
• We don't want to be the Angry Monkeys

!

Understanding the alternative

• Proposed solution might be outside my box
• I need to do the effort to figure out if it is a good solution
• Prerequisite for that is that I understand and see the solution
• Example from our previous debate: "one repo for a product" requirement 
  • If I haven't used pull requests up to their full potential, combining requests, issues, comments etc - how could I appreciate the argument? 
  • So now I understand that I need give up thing X I understand well, to get vague thing ? in return.
  • No thanks. <- I've may have made a bad decision.

May our debates be glorious!

Jukke, pick it up from here!