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## Bad Arguments Against Something Can Become Good Arguments For It

A decisionmaking trick I often use is to take bad arguments against something as arguments for that thing. As a general qualitative principle this of course does not work - Reversed Stupidity is not Intelligence. Rather, I use this technique in a quantitative way.

Often we have to deal with large aggregates of critiques and praises; say, product or media reviews, or political arguments, or comments on an article or video. In these cases I expect a certain base rate of detractors, people who simply do not like the thing being evaluated and will go looking for arguments against it. Many nonsensical criticisms thus represent a failed search for better arguments; they are evidence that we do not live in the counterfactual world where better arguments could be found. Furthermore, in cases of taste, my disagreeing with detractors is evidence that I am liable to have similar sensibilities as proponents.

As added benefits, this signal is easy to evaluate, since it is easy to recognize particularly poor arguments at a glance, and it is somewhat resistant to manipulation, since my interpretation of it is unusual - most people will interpret weak arguments against something as weak evidence against that thing, rather than evidence in favor of that thing, and therefore few people trying to sway the public opinion towards something will argue against it.

Apply with caution, of course, as it is not a particularly high-fidelity signal. I mainly apply this principle when it comes to things like product or media reviews, as those tend to have high volumes of opinions easily sortable by emotional valence. Sometimes I also apply it to the comments sections of theoretical pieces, especially for the kind of author you’d expect to get hate regardless of whether they are right or wrong.