Thinking is hard, and so is real argumentation that truly engages issues and other perspectives. Consider:

How much of rationality -- of being a good Bayesian Ninja or whatever -- isn't about intelligence, or knowing how to think, but about having the self-control and discipline to exercise those capacities? And what does it mean for our attempts to become more rational if, as a lot of recent psych research has been suggesting, our self-control generally is a limited resource?

How can we overcome rote cognition, if it sticks around even when we're trying our best to be mentally alert and careful?

One method is experimental apostasy.

Let's say you have been promoting some view (on some complex or fraught topic - e.g. politics, religion; or any "cause" or "-ism") for some time. When somebody criticizes this view, you spring to its defense. You find that you can easily refute most objections, and this increases your confidence. The view might originally have represented your best understanding of the topic. Subsequently you have gained more evidence, experience, and insight; yet the original view is never seriously reconsidered. You tell yourself that you remain objective and open-minded, but in fact your brain has stopped looking and listening for alternatives.

Another method is Engagement Swaps:

You might think that if, in addition to wanting to support our side, we also put some weight on wanting to know the truth, we might find "gains from trade" by making "engagement swaps." These would be deals between sides whereby we each agree to engage some points proposed by other sides. We might agree to write so many words, or talk for so many minutes, on each point.

In discussions and dashed off essays such as weblog posts much is assumed. To grasp the meaning of arguments those assumptions matter. Often it is assumed in any current argument that the information and perspectives of all previous arguments are known and taken into consideration. For example, my previous post that excoriated the brain dead advocacy of Michael Pollan assumes knowledge of all of my previous posts about the subjects he engages, Pollan's sloppy scholarship, and his devious politics. To repeat all of that in the current post, and so provide the assumed context, is difficult. It would end up being a very long post full of caveats and parenthetical remarks, a MEGO inducing long drone on ag arcana. A book.

Still, it may be that there is some benefit to partial engagement swaps when they anticipate and satisfy questions and confusions that might reasonably occur to a reader. Perhaps it isn't perfectly clear in that previous post that I too see many defects in industrial agriculture as it currently exists and have ranted against it many times.

It is Pollan's nonsensical prescriptions for reform more than the defects of agriculture that are in dispute. What he proposes will be ineffective at best and more likely destructive, impeding progress rather than advancing it. Indeed, that seems to be his real agenda. It isn't that he seeks reform, it is that he seeks loot for a small political constituency - a bail-out to use current popular concepts. He is just bellying up to the pork barrel demanding a share of the slops.

Real agronomic reform and improvement of mainstream practice will come from cleaning out the crufted up maze of obstacles that have been erected by past political efforts such as Pollan proposes to make even more opaque and convoluted. One of the most destructive aspects of the politicization of agriculture is that it increases risk and so reduces investment. Wise growers won't embark on reforms of their practices that take many years to achieve because the regulatory environment can change so quickly. If, for example, some new subsidy for increased carbon storage becomes law will those who have already stored carbon also benefit, or is it only those who held back until there was some payola for sensible agronomic practice? The threat of subsidy freezes investment. Growers become cynical. The idea of sensible agronomic practice is considered to be naive and foolish when what really matters is the regulatory environment. You don't prosper because you are a skilled master grower, you prosper because you are a skilled at exploiting the regulatory environment.

That's what needs reform. Getting wankers like Pollan out of ag policy is a first step. That's not likely to happen, of course, but it is useful to be clear about who the real bad guys are and what real reform looks like, just to stay grounded in reality.