The last time I had published my Beginner’s guide, I had some success with tables. So let’s try again.

	Inference	Policy change required	Alternative Conclusion
1	The poor have done worse under reforms. There are more poor people than before.	Reverse the reforms. Go back to Socialism.	But we would have done even worse under Socialism! Socialism had set us on a course towards bankruptcy. If we hadn’t changed course at that time, we wouldn’t have had dollars to pay for fuel and we’d all have regressed to the Bullock Cart age!
2	The lot of the poor has improved marginally under reforms. But when you look at the situation in detail, you learn that the situation of the poor has improved the most where the reforms have proceeded the most. It has improved the least, and even worsened in some cases, where the reforms have not taken place.	Reform faster. Don’t spend your time handwringing over whether to reform or not. Just go ahead and speed up the reforming.	But those who have benefited have done so at the expense of those who lost! Reforming faster is only going to accelerate the process!

I’ve repeated the first two rows of that table, but as you can see, I’ve added another column saying “Alternative Conclusion” (Please don’t say “Alternate” when you actually mean “Alternative”) The alternative conclusion can just as easily follow from the premise in the first column right?

“Actually no. In both cases, you have stealthily added new premises. “

“Who are you?”

“Your conscience. Your inner voice. That strange defect within you who will let you lie or cheat, but will never let you sleep if you commit a logical error.”

“OK, so what have I done now?”

“You have stealthily added a couple of extra premises that enable you to change the conclusion. The first one is that Socialism would have led us to bankruptcy. The second is that reforms have worked for the rich by harming the poor.”

“But I have stated them clearly, you nitwit.”

“But not in a separate column. That gives people the impression that one premiss can lead to multiple conclusions”

“You are nitpicking.”

“I am your conscience”

“OK, but it bolsters my original point.”

“Which is?”

“The Importance of Being Precise”
“It is important to be precise, because if you are unclear, people will misunderstand you and the slightest error may lead to the conclusions completely opposite to what they should be”

“Hey you are getting boring and repetitive. I thought that it was obvious the first time”

“But not to some people. Some people think that what I was actually saying was ‘Dilip is a bad boy'”

“There will always be some people who do that. Are you going to write a post every time some people misunderstand you?”

“But this person who misunderstood me is actually on the faculty of IISc!”

“The Indian Institute of Science?”

“Yes”

“So what did he do?”

“I said that Dilip’s conclusions do not follow from Dilip’s premises. He ignores this and claims that I do not appreciate that different conclusions may follow from different premises. He claims that I conclude that “Dilip is a bad boy” when I have specifically said that my concern is only what he conveys through his writing.

“To be fair, others have concluded from your writing that Dilip has engaged in dishonesty”

“Others are not me.”

“But what do you think of Dilip?”

“It does not matter.”

“But that’s what we are discussing right?”

“No”

“The point is, others have concuded from your writing that Dilip is dishonest”

“No”

“You mean others have not so concluded?

“I mean, that is not the point. As it happens, I think that Dilip is well-meaning, but wrong. He has exaggerated for effect, but I wouldn’t call that ‘dishonesty’.
But all that is beside the point. The point is that we should always insist that people talk of verifiable facts. We should always insist that people explain their reasoning process to others. We should always insist that people explain how their conclusions follow from their premises. This process ensures that we can talk of claims independent of the personalities of the people making the claim. So the issue here is Dilip’s argument, not his intentions or his personality.”

“That sounds familiar”

“It is called the Scientific Method”