Gist triangulation

Listening is the first step in making people feel valued. Mindful listening allows us to do more than take in peoples words; it helps us better understand the how and why of their views.

– Rebecca Z Shafir, The Zen of Listening

Gist triangulation is a best practice for fruitful discussions. It's a modality of engaging in good faith. As the name implies, it consists in actively doing your best to understand what your interlocutor is trying to get at, even when they are struggling to communicate it, by making informed guesses based on what they've said so far. You can try to triangulate the core of their message by scanning the constellation of data points they've shared up to nowThis could even include non-verbal cues. and infer what ties them all together.

If your goal in a conversation is to understand and share information with every person involved optimally, then avoiding misunderstandings and ambiguity is in your best interest. Furthermore, the faster you reach the point of mutual comprehension, the more time you will have to elaborate upon it, whether you agree or disagree with each other's positions.

The practical process of gist triangulation might still seem a bit elusive, but it should actually be pretty familiar, since everyone has already done it multiple times in their lives.

Examples #

Gist triangulation is what you do when someone you're talking to forgets their train of thought or has a word stuck on the tip of their tongue. In the first case, you start prompting them with the last things they were saying before they blanked out. In the second, you begin suggesting potential matches and synonyms. In both cases, you either hit the nail on the head directly or help them with the triangulation process by providing additional peripheral data points until there's enough to zero in on the answer.

A few popular games also rely on this technique, such as Twenty Questions or Time's Up and other variations on the same concept. The general goal is to find a specific answer (an everyday appliance, an animal, a celebrity, etc.) through indirect questions and/or clues under a time limit.

All of that is to say that regardless of personal proficiency, anyone is able to engage in gist triangulation when it's in their best interest, and they're not being pigheaded.

Collaboration versus domination #

Just like the analogous Socratic method, gist triangulation requires a collaborative mindset to work properly. It's about actively listening and assimilating your interlocutor's message, instead of intentionally or negligently missing their underlying point.

Gist triangulation is a win-win for all parties involved. It keeps you engaged when you're on the assisting end, and it can be helpful when you're the one being assisted. Sometimes the issue isn't that a person isn't clear on the message they're trying to convey, but that they're having a hard time communicating it in a way their interlocutor can grok.

If both parties try to meet in the middle, they improve their odds of reaching mutual understanding. Ideally, that should be the goal of most discussions.

Truth be told, most people just aren’t big enough nerds to disagree about complicated things effectively. You need to be much more literal, much bigger sticklers with semantics (because semantics are important) and much more eager to spend time pinning down exactly what the other person thinks — even if this is boring, pedantic and doesn’t lend itself to monologuing the way both of them spent too much time doing during their talk.

— John Nerst, A Deep Dive Into the Harris-Klein Controversy

Considering different perspectives broadens your horizons and helps further refine your own opinions. Furthermore, even if the other party's arguments aren't very good, you might yet glean something interesting by learning how and why they were convinced by them in the first place.

Unfortunately, this serves as a stark contrast to the antagonistic mindset of ideologic imperialism that largely underlies disagreements. The purpose of most debates isn't the pursuit of truth, but asserting one's dogmatical and rhetorical's supremacy.

Under this paradigm, there's nothing to be gained from accurately representing an interlocutor's position. The strategy shifts from elaboration to sleight of hand. It's better to derail the conversation by getting stuck on trivial details, evading clarifying questions, and pouncing on any rhetorical fumble to shred your opponent's perceived credibility rather than engage their actual argument.

Even as a simple spectator, it can be quite frustrating to witness people intentionally or cluelessly miss the forest for the trees, or in this case the point for the phrasing.

Although some may argue that combativeness is sometimes necessary to fight back bad faith actors and dangerous ideas, I think that the presumption of innocence is a good rule of thumb most of the time. Start by extending charitability and cooperation as long as they don't break the rules of fair engagement or until you're very clear on their thesis and strongly disagree with it.

You might object that public debates require a different strategy because they differ substantially from private conversations. In the former, the goal is usually to convince the audience rather than your interlocutor, since everyone's brand is too bought into their positions to ever give an inch, whether they have a leg to stand on or not.

Indeed, seeing as these exchanges are geared towards the pursuit of power and influence rather than truth, gist triangulation is probably a suboptimal approach. However, I'm not convinced that this is an indictment against it rather than the average public debate.

Alright, you might say, gist triangulation is a nice idea in theory, but is it really worthy of pontification and consideration? Isn't it just extraneous window dressing for the well-established concept of steelmanning?

Gist triangulation isn't steelmanning #

As it so happens, just like Ozy Brennan, I'm not a big fan of "steelmanning". Check out his post, Against Steelmanning, to read his thoughts on the topic.

On my end, I find the general idea of phrasing someone else's arguments better than they can highly dubious. Get your priorities straight. Start by representing their views accurately and truthfully before trying to give them a glow-up. To be honest, you should also probably be more concerned with understanding your own arguments before turning your gaze to others.

Is it truly surprising that, in practice, "steelmanning" is used far more often as a condescension tool for intellectual prigs and sanctimonious wannabes than a constructive and courteous conversational maneuver? It is rooted in a mindset of smug presumptuousness from the outset, after all.

Unfortunately, best practices for discussions can be corrupted into treacherous tactics. The Dunning-Kruger effect turns most attempts at steelmanning into self-satisfied strawmanning. The Socratic method can be used to funnel someone into a trap viciously for a quick gotcha. And gist triangulation can be twisted to ascribe inaccurate and disparaging positions to your interlocutor by injecting fake data points in their message and drawing spurious connections from them.

With all that being said, seeing as the practice of steelmanning lives up to its noble theoretical goal only about 1% of the time, I'm not sure that it's the most judicious choice for your conversational go-to move.

In contrast, gist triangulation is a more specific and actionable alternative. It also comes from a place of humility and collaboration rather than arrogance. It does not consist in putting words in someone's mouth or schooling them on their own perspective.

Proper gist triangulation deals with suggestions rather than assertions. You politely submit your conjectures for evaluation. You don't proclaim irrevocable judgments. It's not "so what you're saying is X" but "do you mean X?"

You always make sure they assent to your interpretation before running with it. It's a back-and-forth iterative process of clarification. The goal is to be helpful and save time reaching mutual understanding, not to speedrun misrepresenting them. As such, it's very reminiscent of the empathetic communication frameworks I covered in my post on constructive empathic inquiry.

Seeing as everyone already has the basics down, it's a pretty straightforward method. Plus, it's based on trial and error. Even mistakes are helpful since they reveal misunderstandings quicker and help clarify each other's thought processes. As long as they're genuinely trying, the vast majority of people should be able to use this techniqueSure, it'll probably be easier for some, but a skill gap should only result in a faster process. The end result should be the same regardless., which is far more approachable than both intuiting and upgrading your interlocutor's position in one fell swoop by channeling the might of your 500 IQ brain folds.

In short, gist triangulation is an accessible approach to conversation that makes disagreements more productive and pleasant. As such, it should be much more prevalent in everyday interactions.

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