Scott Alexander advocates for 'Socratic grilling' as a valuable learning tool, urging people not to mistake genuine confusion and questioning for arrogance or challenges to authority.
Longer summary
Scott Alexander discusses the importance of allowing and encouraging 'Socratic grilling' - a process where students ask challenging questions to resolve their confusion about a topic. He argues that this process, which may appear confrontational, is crucial for developing critical thinking skills and should not be discouraged. The post uses an example of a student questioning germ theory to illustrate how this process works and why it's valuable. Scott emphasizes that misinterpreting these questions as arrogance or challenges to authority can be detrimental to learning. He also touches on the difficulty of signaling a desire to learn without being accused of arrogance, especially in online discussions.
Shorter summary