[HN Gopher] The endgames of bad faith communication
___________________________________________________________________
The endgames of bad faith communication
Author : Thersites
Score : 436 points
Date : 2022-04-12 01:53 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (consilienceproject.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (consilienceproject.org)
| yeetsfromhellL2 wrote:
| The bad faith characteristics sound like some parents I know
| talking to their kids.
| bittercynic wrote:
| I'd just like to take a moment to express my appreciation for the
| discussion on this site. I believe there is a better ratio of
| good-faith to bad-faith communication here than on any other
| public forum where everyone is free to participate.
| [deleted]
| ohwellhere wrote:
| I find myself really inspired by the work The Consilience Project
| and a few other people are putting out about sensemaking,
| consensus building, and maybe generally empathy.
|
| I've started to feel that it might be my answer to "The Hamming
| Question." [0]
|
| I'm a burnt out software engineer. Do you have any advice on
| careers to explore to work on the above societal issue?
|
| [0]: > Mathematician Richard Hamming used to ask scientists in
| other fields "What are the most important problems in your
| field?" partly so he could troll them by asking "Why aren't you
| working on them?" and partly because getting asked this question
| is really useful for focusing people's attention on what matters.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| The problem isn't the prominence of bad faith communication.
| That's a symptom. Bad faith communicating happens because one
| party becomes cornered when their standpoint is indefensible, and
| they know it.
|
| Once one side renounces good faith communication, the other sees
| no point in maintaining communication in good faith, so they
| throw it away too. So the problem isn't communicating in bad
| faith. By the time you've gotten there, the battle for good faith
| communication was already lost.
|
| The problem is pride, plain and simple. If people could detach
| themselves from their views and not make being wrong anything
| more than that, then we could once again open the door to good
| faith communication.
| trtqy wrote:
| One of the most important parts of the article is a footnote:
|
| _NOTE: All signs of good faith communication can be "faked" in
| bad faith._
|
| Basically, in modern online mob communication, the winning side
| defines what "good faith" and "bad faith" are. The winning side
| defines a vague code of conduct, cloaks themselves in "goodness"
| and then openly uses the "bad faith" slander against anyone who
| disagrees on any issue (even purely technical ones).
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I have sometimes seen rules that don't try to spell out every
| specific, because most civil conversations don't require
| knowing exactly where the line is between good behavior and
| bad, so you can get riiight up to it, then say in bad faith,
| "but I was obeying the rules!"
|
| Rather, I consider vaguer rules like "don't be a jerk" to be a
| feature, and one can use context clues to see what the
| community considers jerkiness
| booboofixer wrote:
| A well-written article, especially clearly listing out the
| differences in the forms of communication helped make the point.
| But sadly, the people most prone to bad-faith communication are
| also probably least likely to take this criticism and improve. I
| have also resorted to bad-faith communications in conversations
| where it seems like that is the only way to be heard.
|
| Consider this example: Person A, displaying some humility, says :
| "You might be right, there is a chance politician X is in the
| wrong". Person A assumes this is interpreted by Person B as:
| "There is uncertainty about politician X being in the wrong"
| Person B actually interprets this as: "Person A has admitted,
| without any doubt, to politician X being completely in the wrong"
|
| If I ever find myself in a conversation where I'm in the shoes of
| Person A, using good-faith communication means actually risking a
| complete failure of communication. Why even bother to
| communicate?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _But sadly, the people most prone to bad-faith communication
| are also probably least likely to take this criticism and
| improve._
|
| It's not that people prone to this are doing so because of poor
| communication skills that can be improved upon, bad faith
| communication is by definition intentional.
|
| _Why even bother to communicate?_
|
| You probably should disregard anyone communicating in bad
| faith.
| ianai wrote:
| It's more basic too. Bad faith redefines the nature of the
| situation. It's no longer a conversation and instead a game.
| And in game theory you have to play on level ground as your
| opponent. Ie when they go low you have to go low or exit the
| conversation turned game. "Going high" in modern rhetoric
| doesn't actually net strategic advantage.
|
| So maybe that's insightful. Point out that conversations
| (unless they're debates and everyone's agreed to debate) are
| not games.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Does digitization remove the negative consequences of
| communicating in bad faith?
|
| In that sense, does it change the _game_ , just through
| removing those consequences and thus making bad faith a more
| attractive strategy than it would be otherwise (e.g. face to
| face reputation based communication)?
|
| Maybe you are right and positing it as a game is itself
| reductive, and gets people into a zero-sum mindset, rather
| than viewing conversation as a win-win.
| ianai wrote:
| Digitization has clearly added lots of negatives that
| otherwise wouldn't last. As simple as, does it really make
| sense for something local with only local and fittingly
| small consequences, to be discussed at a global level? But
| anybody can post a photo or video to be seen the world
| over. Depending on content there will even be users on the
| internet policing ("influencing") other users in the
| internet to weigh in on whatever. But clearly human
| societies function at a level of cohesion that breaks apart
| at scale. Ie there isn't one truly universal way to live
| that everyone can and in time could be made to live.
|
| Edit-I'd venture even the ability for the internet to bring
| together people who would otherwise not have a cohort
| "breaks at scale" because people just don't scale like
| that.
| rocqua wrote:
| I think digitization, specifically the commoditization of
| attention in advertising-supported social media, has
| strongly incentivized bad-faith communication. It turns out
| that outrage and conflict are a great way to get attention.
| So systems made to profit from keeping attention have
| inadvertently started promoting conflict and outrage to
| capture the value of the attention produced.
|
| This has been profitable enough that these social media now
| dominate a large part of public discussions, and other
| platforms have followed suit either by choice or by
| selection pressure. Hence a large part of public
| communication is happening in a context that is
| (inadvertently or intentionally) built to encourage
| conflict and outrage. This rewards bad-faith communication,
| so that is what we get.
| nicbou wrote:
| I find that it depends on the size of the community, and
| your stake in that community. If you're a regular
| somewhere, you're a lot less likely to start some shit
| there. After a while some users earn a reputation that
| affects all future interactions.
|
| I treat my local subreddit like I would treat my local pub,
| especially since I know a few of its users IRL, and many
| tie my username to my business. I can't say the same about
| large subreddits.
|
| Tight moderation also helps a ton. It enforces a certain
| tone, and after a while the community crystallises around
| that tone and enforces it itself. You don't pick fights at
| the country club.
|
| I realise now that I stopped interacting in larger
| communities. I prefer quieter channels where people have a
| reputation to uphold.
| SamPatt wrote:
| Agreed moderation is essential. It's easy to spot and
| remove people who don't care about harmony or true
| discussion, but it often doesn't happen (or moderators
| are themselves bad actors).
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| "Social media made y'all way to comfortable with
| disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face
| for it." - Mike Tyson
| throwaway15908 wrote:
| You can side step. A common tactic for mediators.
|
| Consider a verbal fight within a couple. Everyone wants to
| have the last word and both throw loudly anything they can
| come up with at each other. In such a situaiton you may be
| able to break that mental stance of your opponent by "simply"
| shifting the topic/perspective to something, they did not
| expect at all. This way, you may be able to force you
| opponent to give up the trench they dig themself into.
|
| I know its not simple. This is more education than
| superficial conversation.
| ianai wrote:
| At which point you've used a rhetorical tactic and turned a
| conversation into a game.
|
| I'm saying the space of people communicating is larger than
| the space of people using words in rhetorical games.
| throwaway15908 wrote:
| When a conversation is stagnating in a cycle and you
| elevate it on a meta level, away from the original topic
| to that conversation and how it is going, you will not
| only display good faith but you may be able to find the
| traces of good faith in your opponent and maybe turn back
| to the original topic.
|
| You cannot flip the table and still call it a game. Its
| not a game move when your intention is progress and not a
| rhetorical win.
| chillacy wrote:
| I personally use the meta-conversational move a lot, and
| it usually turns heated political discussions into more
| thoughtful philosophy discussions. I think because most
| people don't have such strong identity based beliefs
| around questions like "how can we know if something is
| right/true/good/bad, what does that mean?"
| jimkleiber wrote:
| The meta-conversation technique blew up for me once. A
| buddy and I got into it and I went in that direction of
| how do we know if something is good or bad, right or
| wrong, and it had him feeling incredibly frustrated and
| distraught, questioning whether his friends have
| fundamentally different values than he does. I recognized
| in that moment he seemed very emotionally vulnerable and
| so I switched out of my head exploration and opened up
| deep abkut some of the emotional struggles I had been
| facing. I think very often conflicts are not about the
| actual conflict we discuss, but about tangential, or even
| unrelated, things.
| prox wrote:
| That actually sounds like a true philosophical situation,
| where you both questioned some deeply held beliefs. This
| can have epistemologically and existential repercussions
| for the individual, especially if you are emotionally
| invested (and we always are at some level)
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Perhaps, I'll think about that a bit more. I think I was
| seeing it more as me using theorizing as a defense
| mechanism to avoid opening up emotionally and connecting
| with my friend on a deeper level. I've noticed in my life
| that I can often dive deeper into theory, hypothetical
| situations, and general philosophy as way to distance
| myself from how I'm actually feeling in the moment and
| from saying that to others.
| Veen wrote:
| I find the best tactic in this situation is to let the
| other party exhaust themselves. You're never going to be
| heard, so just listen (actually listen, not pretend) until
| they've got whatever they want to say out, and then make a
| response that shows you've listened and tried to
| understand.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| _Consider this example: Person A, displaying some humility,
| says : "You might be right, there is a chance politician X is
| in the wrong". Person A assumes this is interpreted by Person B
| as: "There is uncertainty about politician X being in the
| wrong" Person B actually interprets this as: "Person A has
| admitted, without any doubt, to politician X being completely
| in the wrong"_
|
| I think you intended Person A to be someone with an opposing
| view. But I read this Person A as a friend that strongly likes
| Politician X, and in some ways that seemed even more
| appropriate to what the article is talking about. Especially if
| "politician X" is something like a controversial issue that is
| strongly moralized. People often end up outwardly adopting an
| almost Manichean set of opinions on things, even if our
| internal beliefs are more nuanced. So we end up saying
| Politician X is perfect, even if we have more mixed opinions.
| It's not Bad Faith communication in the same vein as a troll on
| a forum, we're acting in bad faith to maintain cohesion and
| membership among our own social group.
|
| The OP articulates this well in a paragraph:
|
| _A key feature of escalating extremism is a belief that group
| membership requires bad faith engagements with out-groups. In
| these contexts, bad faith behavior is often justified to
| maintain in-group membership and consensus. The normalization
| of bad faith communication contributes to the creation of
| extreme in-group pressures, which can rupture identities and
| exacerbate mental health crises. Personal instabilities usually
| lead to a doubling down on the need for group membership,
| increasing rationalizations and amplifications of bad faith
| practices._
| rad88 wrote:
| You can't control the outcome of a conversation, and cynicism
| goes hand in hand with bad faith. Communication is still the
| most awesome thing that humans do, or will ever be able to do!
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's some serious pom-pom action you just did. There are
| times when bad faith communication is just a waste of
| everyone's time. It's great to think that by having a
| conversation positive results will occur. However, that's not
| always going to happen. Since I'm not part of a diplomatic
| entourage where the mere act of continuing to talk past each
| other is seen as a positive, that same behavior does not tend
| to benefit normal people. At times, I have chosen to just
| end/walk away from a conversation just to avoid the energy
| and inevitable frustration. Maybe it's cynicism, but as
| you've said, I can't control the outcome but I can control it
| as far as me continuing to be a part of it.
| rad88 wrote:
| You're right that my pom-pom action was serious, but it
| sounds like you're imaging a different kind of dilemma than
| I was. You're referring to walking away from an
| unproductive conversation, while I was responding to a
| cynical argument for choosing bad faith over good.
| [deleted]
| anon23anon wrote:
| I think the short answer is don't argue w/ an idiot.
| gumby wrote:
| I look for this in interviews. Obviously people are typically
| on best behavior _and_ nervous so liable to make non-
| meaningful* errors, but I look for humility and openness, hard
| as it is to find upon such a high pressure and artificial
| situation. If it does it's positive.
|
| More importantly the founders set the culture through their own
| behavior and most new hires adopt and adapt to the local
| culture. So if you can propagate humility, openness to changing
| minds, etc your company will become stronger and more fun.
|
| And I use the word "company" deliberately: "corporation" and
| "business" and technical tools, but a "company" is a group of
| people getting together. Often corporation and company are used
| interchangeably, but effective organizations know the
| difference.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Those most likely to have strong disagreements mostly consist
| of politically engaged liberals at 6-8% of the population and
| politically engaged conservatives at 6-8% of the population.
| Because of this a more accurate representation of what is going
| on is that persons A and B disagree strongly with persons C and
| D and persons E through Z really wish that persons A through D
| would find some middle ground that all can live with even if
| they harbor objections. In this larger context it may make
| sense to call out bad faith communication and engage in good
| faith communication for the benefit of the larger population
| who get dragged into political conflicts.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| rapind wrote:
| What you're describing is simply person B not really listening,
| and if that's true then it's pointless to argue the point
| anyways. Person A is better off sticking with the compromise
| because it doesn't cost him/her anything to do so, and hey
| maybe there's a very slight chance person B clues in.
|
| Basically sticking to good faith even when it's not
| reciprocated is usually the best option, or just saving your
| energy by dropping the topic. The alternative is usually just
| ego stuff.
| dsugarman wrote:
| When this happens I generally pause and say something like I
| just said X, what did you hear? If that doesn't work then I
| throw out a hypothesis like it sounds like you heard Y, is that
| right? Once we agree upon what I said and what they heard then
| I clarify that I don't believe Y, I sincerely believe X.
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| I think there's a degree of market segmentation (as it were)
| when it comes to arguing. The fastest way someone can discredit
| themselves in my eyes is to be too certain about something. In
| your example I'd be much more open to someone who admits that
| their side could be in the wrong than someone who says that
| it's impossible. Especially where there's not enough evidence
| for that kind of claim. But you're right that certainty does
| appeal in other contexts.
| antattack wrote:
| I think the biggest problem is cult of personality. Instead of
| discussing actual issues we focus on elevating or disparaging
| people. In your example - what is the chance that 'your'
| politician X is always right?
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "Consider this example: Person A, displaying some humility,
| says : "You might be right, there is a chance politician X is
| in the wrong". Person A assumes this is interpreted by Person B
| as: "There is uncertainty about politician X being in the
| wrong" Person B actually interprets this as: "Person A has
| admitted, without any doubt, to politician X being completely
| in the wrong""
|
| Reminds me of a discussion with a neighbor. I was talking about
| things I didn't like Obama or Biden had done. His response was
| "see? Should have voted for Trump". He didn't understand at all
| when I told him that Trump is even more wrong in my opinion.
| People are trained to totally agree or disagree with one side.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| Only a tiny percentage of users take part in online discussions
| . It is important to communicate with bad faith actors so that
| the overwhelming majority of users who are simply lurkers are
| exposed to ideas from "the other side". Refusing to engage with
| bad faith actors is leaving their ideas unchallenged out in the
| open.
| switchbak wrote:
| The issue being that you're operating in good faith, while
| they're putting on a show. You're immediately at a
| disadvantage because they can use any tool at their disposal,
| whereas you have to stick to truth and rationality.
|
| Unfortunately, the latter two don't typically scale all that
| well, especially as the bad actor hones their ability to put
| you in a rhetorical box.
| Jensson wrote:
| I have never seen anyone get converted by bad faith
| arguments, but I have seen people get converted by good
| faith arguments. So it seems good faith arguments are
| inherently much stronger, while bad faith arguments are
| useless except for frustrating the other side.
| banannaise wrote:
| Bad faith arguments convert by quantity, not quality. If
| you overwhelm the good faith information with mountains
| of bad faith information, you'll convince a lot of
| people, none of whom will be able to point at one
| specific thing that convinced them.
| altcognito wrote:
| Bad faith arguments can be as simple as a slogan.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Considering I see bad faith arguments from politicians in
| power all the time, I wouldn't say anything conclusive
| about good faith or bad faith being stronger. This is
| before mentioning how many people are running around with
| a victim mentality, quickly antagonize others or engage
| in social activities which reinforce segregation and
| labeling over trying to form a social understanding.
|
| A lot of people love drama, and bad faith creates drama.
| Good faith creates solutions, and a lot of people seek
| solutions. That alone is enough to be skeptical of
| anything conclusive.
| ModernMech wrote:
| The ultimate bad faith argument is government propaganda,
| which definitely works wonders in shaping public opinion.
| rocqua wrote:
| I think the continuation of this line of thought is often
| the argument 'their bad faith communication is so effective
| we have to counter it with our own'. I hope that this
| argument under-estimates the intelligence of the silent
| majority.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| That is another good way to phrase the problem described
| by the parent post of yours.
|
| There is not a way to beat bad faith communication with
| good faith communication at scale, because the latter
| doesn't scale, because the average/median person is not
| intelligent enough for it. I wish they were.
| openknot wrote:
| A problem is that one has limited time and energy to respond
| to these comments, though the idea you've mentioned has
| motivated responses I've made in the past. It can be draining
| to submit a well-sourced comment written respectfully, then
| get downvoted (this is more prevalent on Reddit) where fewer
| people see it.
|
| I've resolved to avoid responses, unless it's a subject where
| I have an especially valuable perspective (e.g. personal
| expertise, I have a passage from a credible book that could
| be relevant, or I have a highly relevant anecdote to share).
|
| It's almost always not worth it to get involved in a
| controversial topic discussion (examples include journalism,
| Apple products, urban planning and whether the ending of a
| popular television series was good or not). It can be
| distracting and draining, especially if people respond
| negatively or you get downvoted (I tell myself it's just
| internet points, but it feels punishing despite my rational
| thoughts), and I'm unlikely to change minds. There's more to
| life that's more rewarding (e.g. reading a book, physical
| exercise, even playing a relaxing video game for a few
| minutes).
| usernomdeguerre wrote:
| I think some other responders have touched lightly on this but
| I feel it should be explicitly said that sometimes engaging in
| conversation is not actually what the other party is doing,
| even though it might look like it.
|
| Sometimes they are not speaking to you at all, but rather to
| your listeners. And the larger your pool of listeners the more
| likely you'll encounter arguments in bad faith because it turns
| out that if the goal is persuasion then good-faith arguments
| don't scale.
|
| A tangent here is that on private-public platforms like twitter
| "your listeners" could be an entirely separate set from the
| people you actually have contact with. Algorithms that signal-
| boost opinions out of their actual social circle become
| essentially propaganda posters for a host of varying in and out
| groups.
|
| My personal opinion is that this is a misaligned incentive that
| social platforms should correct structurally, rather than via
| governance or policies. And pushing the corrective actions back
| down to the individual is a cop-out.
| verisimi wrote:
| You make a very solid point - public conversations are way
| more predisposed to bad faith - who's got ability to accept
| the perception of looking bad in public?!
|
| > My personal opinion is that this is a misaligned incentive
| that social platforms should correct structurally, rather
| than via governance or policies. And pushing the corrective
| actions back down to the individual is a cop-out.
|
| hmm... I rather think the opposite is the case. Its all about
| playing to the crowd. And that there is no incentive for
| anyone (apart from the good faith individual) to do anything
| about it - all that noise translates into engagement with the
| platform.
| andybak wrote:
| > if the goal is persuasion then good-faith arguments don't
| scale
|
| That phrase helps crystalize the concept very nicely.
| LichenStone wrote:
| Aye, the ideal goal of disussion shouldn't be to persuade
| in my opinion, but to explore each other's ideas with the
| aim of modifying and improving each position. I think the
| process of doing that happens to be the best way to
| actually get people to go along with something also.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _explore each other 's ideas with the aim of modifying
| and improving each position._
|
| That's the academic concept of discussion, which is a
| very fine and respectable (not to mention important)
| thing.
|
| Sometimes you do have to persuade, because _action_ is
| required.
|
| For instance, it is important to persuade non-believers
| in human-caused global warming; it's not just about
| improving their intellectual position.
| JoeEasy23 wrote:
| Take an interest, not a position. A position often causes
| us to feel like we have to defend a position, taking an
| interest helps increase the likelihood that both parties
| remain open
| naravara wrote:
| With many political matters, though, people inherently
| have to hold positions by virtue of the fact that the
| issues affect their material interests. You need to
| remain open in spite of that, but there are also limits
| to how open one can be when someone else is arguing that
| you should lose your job or that your health insurance
| should be able to deny you coverage for care, or maybe
| that you are culturally or genetically inherently stupid
| or incapable of self-governance.
| kazinator wrote:
| Not all controversial matters are political. For
| instance, it's not inherently political whether global
| warming is real or whether vaccines work in curtailing a
| pandemic. Only a certain side in these debates wants to
| reduce arguments in which there is rational evidence (and
| important actions to be taken) to something that is
| merely "political", and therefore a just a matter of
| constitutional free speech and action.
| LichenStone wrote:
| That's a good way of thinking about it. Reminds me of
| when Alan Kay asks "Are ideas like matter? [bumps his
| fists together] Or are they more like light? [Overlaps
| his hands]" (roughly paraphrasing there).
|
| The ability to entertain multiple, seemingly
| contradictory thoughts at once is a good skill I think.
| newbamboo wrote:
| "The ability to entertain multiple, seemingly
| contradictory thoughts at once is a good skill I think."
|
| Unfortunately large portions of the populace see this as
| being phony. You must be a red or blue team person, being
| "people without a tribe" is itself a heresy because by
| not conforming to this idiotic false dichotomy denies the
| simpletons and partisans their fallacious little world
| views. Socrates died in vein, I suppose.
| Thiez wrote:
| That's a strange take on Socrates, it makes him sound
| like he died (intended to die?) for our sins like some
| kind of Jesus figure. I doubt he'd agree with it.
|
| Anyway, I suspect you mean 'in vain'. Veins are those
| little tubes in your body that the blood flows through,
| in generally in the direction of the heart. Since
| Socrates died by poison one could argue that he literally
| died "in vein" but this is probably not the
| interpretation you were going for.
|
| I agree with you on the teams thing, and in my opinion it
| has a strong relation to two-party systems.
| naravara wrote:
| > That's a strange take on Socrates, it makes him sound
| like he died (intended to die?) for our sins like some
| kind of Jesus figure. I doubt he'd agree with it.
|
| Much of the Christian narrative about Jesus and the
| nature of divinity is influenced by Neo-Platonist
| thought, and Plato did kind of frame Socrates' story in
| those terms. So it's not that Socrates was a Jesus
| figure, Jesus was a Socrates figure.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| That's incredibly insightful.
|
| Expanding a bit further, all sorts of problems arise when
| participants bring with them different conversational frames.
| Take, for instance, the case where one participant frames a
| back and forth as in the same way they would a dyadic
| conversation, while the other participants frames the same
| strip of events as a debate in front of an audience. The
| former may see the later as being bombastic or evasive, while
| the later may see the former as being naive or pestering.
| There are all sorts of rhetorical registers available or
| unavailable to each depending on how each frames the exchange
| and using an "unavailable" rhetorical register in a
| particular frame can be keyed as a deception. Bad faith
| arguments, can then be thought of as deliberately fabricating
| a frame in order to induce a false belief (ex: that the
| participants share a common frame).
|
| > this is a misaligned incentive that social platforms should
| correct structurally, rather than via governance or policies.
| And pushing the corrective actions back down to the
| individual is a cop-out.
|
| Can platforms do a better job at framing online discussion in
| such a way that makes it easier to maintain common framing?
| Which sort of laminations are available or could be invented
| in order to facilitate common framing and allow readers to
| identify frame-breaking activity? Platform creators literally
| create the mediums for these interactions, the choices they
| make make them structural participants in the ways in which
| these interactions play out. As such there is an implicit
| responsibility placed on them because of their agency in this
| process.
| brimble wrote:
| I'll do this sometimes in web forums. There are certain
| points of view expressed certain ways where I already have a
| pretty good idea of exactly what the poster's opinions are,
| how they'll defend them, and how they'll respond to any
| questions, and I know my likelihood of getting them to
| reconsider or maybe even engage on terms I consider
| reasonable is nearly zero, but I might reply anyway just so
| lookers-on can get a sense that there are alternatives to
| that POV (and that, after a couple back-and-forths, that
| maybe their position isn't as strong as their very-certain
| tone implies)
| deadpannini wrote:
| > if the goal is persuasion then good-faith arguments don't
| scale.
|
| This is true, but only in a very narrow, specific sense.
| Arguments don't persuade on their own, they scale with the
| credibility of the speaker. Speakers gain credibility and
| respect by:
|
| - Giving good advice.
|
| - Showing good judgement and making accurate predictions.
|
| - Demonstrating that they understand various audience.
| constituencies, with bonus points for demonstrating that they
| actually care about these constituencies.
|
| Conversely, there are numerous ways for speakers to destroy
| that credibility, like a history of making deceptive
| statements.
|
| For most people, this means good-faith argumentation doesn't
| scale because they don't have the standing to make people
| take them seriously. But it isn't a rule of good-faith
| arguments as such: arguments are just constrained by social
| factors and by people's finely-tuned heuristics for who's
| worth taking seriously.
|
| I suspect this is the main reason people are frustrated by
| internet debates, to the point of wanting to give up on them
| and just start censoring people. I make what I think is a
| careful, reasoned case, and in response all I hear is
| crickets, or trolls, or "lol lol lol lmao lol lol lol". This
| is because, to almost everyone reading Twitter, Hacker News,
| Substack, or the NYT comments, _I 'm just a rando_.
|
| It takes time to build respect and credibility, so keep at
| the good faith discussion, give people a reason to read what
| you're writing, and keep your relative obscurity in
| perspective on the way up.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| This is only true at simulacra level 1 [1], when
| communication is focused on objective facts. This is not a
| good way to understand communication in business
| relationships, social media, traditional news media, or
| politics. I like talking with my friends who communicate
| this way, but it's not the only way that people
| communicate, and pretending that it is will lead to
| confusion.
|
| There are other ways to persuade: You could lie about the
| facts of the argument, you could convince others you're in
| their group or that your opponent is in a group opposed to
| them, or you could say whatever you think they want to hear
| and sprinkle your message in among it.
|
| [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fEX7G2N7CtmZQ3eB5/simul
| acra-...
| deadpannini wrote:
| I agree with all of that. The context for my comment is
| discussions involving good-faith arguments intended to
| change hearts and minds (more or less object-level or
| simulacra level 1 arguments).
|
| The parent commenter wrote that "good-faith arguments
| don't scale". I don't agree with that, because good-faith
| arguments do scale with social capital. People often run
| afoul of several problems that make it seem like they
| don't:
|
| - Their reach exceeds their grasp: they want to persuade
| strangers, but don't have enough social capital to pull
| it off.
|
| - They think they're involved in a good-faith discussion
| or argument, but the other participants are competing for
| status or trying to entertain themselves (or others).
|
| In other words, I don't think good-faith arguments are
| the only way to persuade people, but if that's your
| preferred technique, you have to develop credibility,
| respect, and trust - on _top_ of building an audience,
| which is a whole different matter.
| jayspell wrote:
| I agree with you to a point, but it's not my experience
| that speakers gain credibility and respect by giving good
| advice / showing good judgement / making accurate
| predictions. This would be true in traditional discourse,
| but not online. Online it feels as if speakers gain an
| audience by demonstrating their world view as loudly and as
| viciously as possible. It's like a group of children where
| one has learned that the way to get attention is to scream
| louder and longer than the others. I also have this feeling
| that social media is ruled by those who are willing to
| spend their time and effort to elevate a particular point
| of view no matter how unpopular it is.
| SamPatt wrote:
| I know of many specific examples in my field where the
| most thoughtful people who operate the most frequently in
| good faith have nowhere near the following of bad faith
| loudmouths.
|
| I assume it's entertainment. People enjoy watching drama.
| Social media is their drama hit, and genuine
| communicators are frankly more boring.
| deadpannini wrote:
| The dynamics you describe are real, especially on the big
| social-media utilities like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,
| and TikTok. "Boo outgroup" is the easiest thing to sell
| in the attention economy, the louder and more viciously,
| the better.
|
| But "building an audience" is a different than building
| credibility, trust, and respect. If you just aim for the
| most eyeballs, you find yourself vulnerable to what some
| people call _audience capture_ , where your audience
| controls you, rather than the other way around.
|
| For example, Trump has a huge audience, but that didn't
| stop an audience from booing him when he recommended
| getting vaccinated. [0]
|
| The best most of us can hope for, if we're careful, is
| influence on a small group of people.
|
| [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-
| booed-al...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Speakers gain credibility and respect by [...]
|
| Do you mean only at the local level, individually? Because
| it sure isn't hard to find _extremely_ popular speakers
| with a great deal of influence that run counter to most of
| those points. It is hard not to conclude that the only
| thing that scales well in social media is to correctly
| deduce what most people want to hear, and then say it.
| People don 't care about deception, good advice, good faith
| discussion, none of that, so long as you confirm the biases
| they already hold.
|
| People really want to be told they are right, and were
| always right.
| deadpannini wrote:
| No, I mean at any level.
|
| I agree with the what you're saying, but I'm not talking
| about things that make people _popular_ , I'm talking
| about argumentation and what makes someone _persuasive_.
| I 'm talking about the relatively rare circumstances that
| can create opportunities to repudiate biases instead of
| confirm them.
| lkbm wrote:
| Hypothesis: bad faith communicators are more persuasive
| among people who mostly agree with them; good faith
| communicators are more persuasive among people who mostly
| disagree with them.
|
| Not sure if this is accurate, and I'm sure misses some
| nuance, but rings true-ish to me.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| >Sometimes they are not speaking to you at all, but rather to
| your listeners. And the larger your pool of listeners the
| more likely you'll encounter arguments in bad faith because
| it turns out that if the goal is persuasion then good-faith
| arguments don't scale.
|
| I hesitate to throw this out there because, in general, I
| don't agree with all the hot takes such as "the internet has
| made us dumber" or whatever negative trait is the flavor of
| the week to blame on technology. But in this case, I'd say a
| lot of this is the direct result of forums/social media/etc.
|
| People are arguing/debating the same way politicians do on
| stage with each other. Functionally we are millions of
| surrogates arguing everywhere for whatever
| individual/policy/ideal we believe in. The goal isn't to
| change the mind of your "opponent," it's to convince
| onlookers that you're right. And whether that victory is the
| result of the "better argument" is secondary - the point is
| to win over the most people by whatever means are deemed most
| effective. This is bad for dialogue, but (usually) great for
| winning debate competitions.
| Vinnl wrote:
| > If I ever find myself in a conversation where I'm in the
| shoes of Person A, using good-faith communication means
| actually risking a complete failure of communication. Why even
| bother to communicate?
|
| The article actually addresses this, and in a good way IMHO (in
| the paragraph starting "Avoiding social catastrophe"). The
| reason to both to communicate, in such cases, is to attempt to
| demonstrate your willingness (and ability!) to engage in good
| faith, and thereby eventually restoring faith in Person B that
| good-faith communication is _possible_.
|
| Note that this is explicitly not an attempt to convince the
| other party of whatever it is you're arguing about. The goal is
| not to change their view, but to restore a society in which
| discussion about those views in good faith is at least possible
| again.
| ehnto wrote:
| > If I ever find myself in a conversation where I'm in the
| shoes of Person A, using good-faith communication means
| actually risking a complete failure of communication. Why even
| bother to communicate?
|
| Unfortunately you can't always know ahead of time, even here on
| HN I have found that sometimes if I give an inch, others will
| take a mile. But if that happens I think you have two options:
| Out right correction, just outright say "Hey wait a minute,
| that's not what I meant." or, step back and accept that you are
| probably not changing this persons mind today.
|
| The trouble with the internet, or really any public speaking,
| is that you might accidentally end up on the side of the
| conversation you are against in the eyes of the public, so just
| letting it go may not be a good idea.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I think to an extent people do this unconsciously, or offenders
| don't realize their projection onto others is bad faith. It's
| habit that is mistakenly believed to be a good heuristic. I
| expect this triggers as they switch to "argument" mode
| following contradiction, assuming a posture of
| attacking/defending, casting nuance aside.
|
| As online spaces are concerned, one thing I liked about forums
| is that communities, while large, became increasingly familiar
| and you could reasonably expect _some_ good faith discussion
| over time. On spaces like reddit, all the tip toeing in the
| world doesn 't prevent it. You could be Mr Rogers speaking to
| someone's "elephant in the brain" and it wouldn't prevent it.
| sacrosancty wrote:
| Isn't that more about drifting meaning of the language? "You
| might be right" is a common way of actually meaning to say "I
| reluctantly agree that you're definitely right".
| I_complete_me wrote:
| Did you forget the addendum "and I was definitely wrong"
| because that's how I use it!
| tappio wrote:
| Can someone point me to an example of a society where good faith
| communication has dominated? This article paints a picture that
| the issue is something new, but I don't know any human society
| where bad faith communication was not a norm. Differences are
| mainly related to power structures and who holds the Power to
| communicate. Besides, this is really a dualist perspective to
| communication. What if most communication is neither good faith
| or bad faith, but something in between?
| motohagiography wrote:
| Examples I would use would be sports teams, construction teams,
| hunting groups, military units, sailing crews, fraternal
| organizations, and other environents that apprehend
| consequences from playing games. These are environments where
| competence and integrity are moral virtues, and
| misrepresentation has real consequences.
|
| Good faith communication is not the norm in bureaucracies,
| institutions, large cities, and other environments where there
| are no significant or collective consequences to being
| misleading.
| tappio wrote:
| By society I meant civilizations, such as ancient Greece. I
| think I articulated it poorly.
|
| I believe that good faith communication dominates in ingroup
| discussion. Trust matters when you discuss with peers whose
| approval matters to you. Bad faith communication dominates in
| outgroup discussion. Trust is not important as you really
| don't care about the "others".
| cycomanic wrote:
| Generally a good article, but unfortunately it falls into the
| political trap.
|
| > Both ends of the political spectrum (the far left and the far
| right) express this view. Both sides believe that "the other
| side" simply can't be trusted and therefore cannot be engaged in
| good faith.
|
| I find it unfortunate that they blame this behaviour only on the
| extremes, because it is prevalent amongst moderates who often
| even state "you can't discuss/negotiate with extremists" and
| engage in bad faith communications towards the extremes.
| alwaysdoit wrote:
| I am a pretty big advocate for good faith communication and think
| the article is right that it is necessary. The thing that
| disheartens me though, is the asymmetric nature of the problem:
| good faith communication is hard. It takes time and patience. Bad
| faith communication is easy. You can write 20 bad faith drive by
| comments in the time it takes to post one thoughtful reply. And
| due to the wide open nature of most of these platforms you're
| rarely interacting with the same person twice. So it's hard not
| to feel that that effort is entirely going to waste.
| mojzu wrote:
| I agree, I think it's also likely that in many scenarios bad
| faith communication is more successful in the short term. You
| can appeal to a persons emotions, disparage the person making
| the argument, exclude nuance to make simple memorable
| statements, etc. Which is where I struggle with settling on a
| strategy for dealing with it (and trying to prevent myself from
| doing it), since so much of our lives are geared
| towards/optimised for short term results
| bongoman37 wrote:
| boredumb wrote:
| We've trained society to believe they are bringing in some form
| of enlightenment and all who disagree with the orthodoxy
| portrayed by popular media are quite literally evil and held with
| contempt. We've banned, censored, demonetized and ostracized
| people who disagree by finding even the most minuscule lapses of
| political correctness and excommunicating them from the public
| sphere or our own personal communities. We are training the youth
| (children books to graduates) that politics and culture are black
| and white (sometimes quite literally...), that people are divided
| into oppressed vs oppressors, privileged vs victims, good vs
| evil, activists vs status quo, rich vs poor.
|
| There is nothing you can do at this point on an individual level
| in 90% or more of interactions where you are in a political or
| social disagreement with someone using good faith communication
| without it being used to crucify you and be seen as naive,
| uninformed or apathetic. People have not arrived to their own
| opinions based on good faith communication or information, they
| have found themselves there through over socialization,
| indoctrination, bullying, media bombardment, and fear of not
| being part of the in-group that they are told are on the right
| side of history - and so they can only operate on that level of
| thought and "reasoning". Entitled "activists" and cultural busy
| bodies aren't going to suddenly find a viewpoint that has been
| deemed to them by authoritative figures (professors, celebrities,
| peer group majorities) as the views of an "SJW", "Nazis",
| "Fascists", "Rednecks", or "Libtards" as a suddenly viable option
| without suffering massive cognitive dissonance and you showing
| humility for/steelmanning their opinions will not change that, it
| will only further cement things for them if they are even
| listening and not just waiting for you to finish in order to pop
| the cork off their next manufactured talking point.
| kazinator wrote:
| I don't agree with certain important points of this article. It
| is rooted in what seems to be the following unwritten tenets:
|
| 1. _There is no truth; everything is relative. Therefore anyone
| who becomes convinced of anything (even if rationally so!) and
| remains in a debate is a bad actor._
|
| 2. _People who disagree can continue to debate forever, forever
| doubting their own positions and maintaining a willingness to
| change to the other side. The debate is just a game; there are no
| consequences as to who is right or wrong, therefore anyone who
| believes they have "skin in the game" is like a child who gets
| carried away with a game._
|
| 3. _Because the truth is relative, and debates are just a game
| with no consequences, whenever some claim of truth is used to
| establish guidelines regarding behavior claimed to be harmful to
| the world, that is just an unproven suggestion: those who are not
| convinced of the debate should be free to carry on as they wish.
| The slightest coercion in this constitutes totalitarianism more
| befitting of North Korea than a constitutional democracy._
|
| Note how many of the examples of the "Common Strategies of Bad
| Faith Communication", those that are not about general poor
| debating tactics anyone uses, are drawn from the behavior of some
| of those whose belief is based on rational information, e.g. from
| science. The list is not balanced by mentioning the specific
| strategies of other side: such as
|
| - the willingness to reject a mountain of evidence (e.g. as
| "fake") against one's view in order to cling to a teaspoon
| supporting one's view.
|
| - making up statements and believing in them
|
| - referring to irrelevant authorities.
|
| - general disdain for learning and intellect.
|
| This article is a manifesto for those who want to be forever
| doubting facts, and forever to be treated with silk gloves,
| forever to be implored to think, forever to require extraordinary
| effort on the part of others to find ways to convince. And most
| importantly: forever to be excused from following any
| inconvenient rules for avoiding harm, out of the utmost respect
| for one's non-acceptance of an argument.
|
| "Rules are based in truth. Truth is relative, therefore, the
| rules have no validity; I will conform to them if you find a way
| to convince me you're right (which is unlikely to ever happen)
| but please always behave toward me without a hint of contempt
| while you choose to engage me. An acceptable 'end game' of a
| debate is that we 'agree to disagree' with the utmost debating
| respect, and go our separate ways without changing any behavior
| that is contingent on the content of the debate."
|
| Also, I would add the following as a genuine bad-faith strategy
| in online debating:
|
| _Posting key arguments not as plain text, but images of text
| from which excerpts cannot be easily quoted without retyping or
| OCR tools.*_
| coding123 wrote:
| There's no way to win an argument anymore because the goalposts
| don't even exist anymore. All of the groups that exist have
| decided to remove them so that instead of winning small battles,
| they win the entire narrative by removing all goalposts (the
| thing that locks some conversation or argument inside some
| constraint). Without those constraints there's literally no
| argument to be had. At that point people just talk past each
| other so all that's really left in America is if your local radio
| stations tend to be more left or right. And whether you have Fox
| or CNN on your TV.
| airforce1 wrote:
| Really good article. Succinctly articulates and categorizes types
| of online social interactions I've observed over the past decade.
| I'm guilty of occasionally engaging bad faith communications
| myself. I'm trying to do better. For a while now I've felt this
| uneasiness that the escalating social discord we've been seeing
| over the past ~5 years could have disastrous consequences. I'm
| starting to think in terms of urgency, this year-over-year
| escalation of social discord needs to be addressed even before
| climate change.
| aaron695 wrote:
| lucidbee wrote:
| I have realized when browsing some twitter culture war exchanges
| that people almost never respond to the opposing party's
| arguments. They imagine a set of arguments that uses some of the
| same words and then argue with that. This type of exchange never
| results in agreement -- or even the exchange of information! It's
| unhinged from any communicative act. It's merely inflammatory.
|
| I do think this is extremely problematic in the long run.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That's just it, neither side goes to Twitter for a good faith
| argument, they're there to vent and lash out, but they've
| already dismissed the other party.
|
| I mean not always, but I do wonder if the posts that LOOK like
| they're in good faith are also misleading as such.
|
| Best thing to do is to not spend the energy. Don't engage with
| anyone if they don't have an open mind or are acting in bad
| faith. If it's more neutral, you can always ask "What will it
| take you to change your mind?"; the answer of that will
| determine if it's worth spending energy on. And the answer to
| that could be done in bad faith as well - for example, if the
| other says "I will change my mind if I see a scientific paper
| disproving me", but then proceeds to not actually read any
| scientific paper sent to them, they were acting in bad faith
| all along.
| a_square_peg wrote:
| Another point about social media - it's structurally easier
| to say things (done with a single 're-tweet' click to
| thousands of people) but increasingly difficult to listen
| (you still have only one thing you can focus), and even
| harder to carry on a two-way conversation because of this
| disparity. Even if everyone is well intended, it would be
| difficult if everyone is talking at the same time now mix in
| bad-faith actors and the situation becomes dire.
| Nowado wrote:
| Addressing your opponent position lets them pick what the topic
| is. They are picking a topic their position is strong at.
| Therefore addressing your opponent position in limited-
| attention setting (aka publicly) is simply a losing move.
| number6 wrote:
| So the only wining move is not to play?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| For your own sanity, yeah I think so; online 'debates' only
| drain energy and attention if the other party is not acting
| in good faith.
|
| That said, if you are playing, the winning move is not to
| play _their games_. Don 't engage with their attempted
| straw man arguments, or end up in endless discussions about
| semantics. Some of the best debates I've seen / read were
| people not playing games and not reacting to bad faith
| arguments / tactics, but instead cleverly pointing out
| something else.
| nicbou wrote:
| I have stopped playing, and it turned out to be the winning
| move.
|
| I get involved in conversations, but not in heated debates.
| I don't even dignify bad faith responses with an answer.
|
| Participation is optional. If it's pointless and
| unpleasant, I don't bother anymore.
| ohwellhere wrote:
| I try to do the same, now. From my perspective, a
| prerequisite is divorcing conversation from the concept
| of "winning."
| nicbou wrote:
| Same here, although I just redefine winning to learning
| something new, seeing a different perspective or refining
| my own position. It's all about exchanging information.
| watwut wrote:
| No, if you dont play, then your opponent point of view is
| the only one out there. People will move their opinions to
| match your opponents more.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I used to think like that.
|
| My online posting life got a lot less stressful once I
| realized that the world will be exactly the same if I
| neglect to rebut some twitter user's bad/uninformed point
| of view.
|
| Maybe you have a ton more social clout than I do, though
| :P
| Nowado wrote:
| There seems to be an assumption that the opponent isn't a
| competent player. They might be.
|
| The winning move is to seem like the winning side of
| discourse in their space.
|
| The truly winning move is to own a media conglomerate
| including social psychology people in communications.
| wskinner wrote:
| The purpose of such exchanges is not to communicate information
| to the other participant. It is to signal allegiance to one's
| own side. This dynamic tends to drive people who already
| disagree further apart, and those who already agree, closer.
| ben_w wrote:
| Hmm. I no longer log into Twitter, but I do browse it without
| being logged in[0]. At least with regard to Brexit (about which
| it seems the argument is still raging), pro and anti do seem to
| engage with each other, the problem is they reject each other's
| evidence.
|
| [0] The annoying popups you get when you scroll too far without
| being logged in, do at least prevent me from doom-scrolling
| lethologica wrote:
| You can actually close that screen if you click the login
| button. The next screen will have an x to close the window in
| the top right.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| re: Brexit, the "argument" has been poisoned by high level
| bad actors who pay money to have people and bots go on
| Twitter to defend their point, who pay for advertising /
| propaganda campaigns, etc. That goes far beyond some bad
| faith actors on twitter.
|
| This extends to a lot of politics these days. There are well-
| financed parties out there whose goal is to destabilize,
| mainly targeting the US and Europe but I'm sure it happens
| everywhere. These are the ones behind Trump getting elected,
| Brexit proceeding even though only 28% of eligible voters
| voted in favor of it, the referendum being bad for only
| having two options, and the referendum only being advisory,
| and countries like Hungary and Poland shifting hard to
| authoritarian right, breaking with the separation of state
| and justice.
|
| These forces have the destabilization of post-ww2 unions in
| mind on the one hand, and people focusing on each other
| internally instead of internationally on the other. Think
| things like JK Rowling's trolling, Trump coming out with
| something that all of twitter and the media pounce on, Reddit
| brigades.
| hans1729 wrote:
| >The annoying popups you get when you scroll too far without
| being logged in, do at least prevent me from doom-scrolling
|
| I feel the same way! When they come up, my reaction is
| "nice"+cmd-w. Thanks, twitter!
|
| To your response: I mean, there are _some_ curious people on
| twitter. Curious people don 't engage in the problematic
| dynamics outlied in the article, so some exchange of
| information happens there. That's clearly not representative
| of the bigger picture though, simply because the most people
| can't afford curiosity, courtesy of their cognitive functions
| (if you subscribe to Jungs model) and/or their position in
| maslows pyramid.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Addressing opposing arguments directly is not really a feature
| of arguing. That kind of good faith debate is more of a special
| case debate.
|
| It's just not what public debate is. You see rookie politicians
| do it, but it's generally a mistake.
|
| A huge part of what political debate is, is dominating the
| _frame_. The frame. The key facts, alternative or otherwise.
| The key question being debated.
|
| Once those are established, the conclusion tends to be trivial.
| LambdaTrain wrote:
| I am not familiar with public debate. Before two persons
| start a public debate, is it a common assumption that you are
| going to hold your ground till the end, whatever the
| information provided by the opponent?
|
| There is no flow of information and I could not see this form
| of acts as "communication" - it seems to be more like a kind
| of art/show/performance.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The goal of a public debate is to influence the perception
| of the many passive listeners, not the few other
| participants of the debate; There is extensive flow of
| information/communication, but it's simply not aimed
| towards the other participants of the debate.
|
| So a key part of such debates becomes influencing or
| provoking others to talk about things that advance your
| cause and avoiding discussion of things that hurt it. E.g.
| if someone says "you eat babies" and you respond with
| extensive evidence that you don't, then that public debate
| becomes a debate about you being a baby-eater and not
| whatever you wanted to promote.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Im not sure I was using the term correctly. What I mean is
| arguing or discussing matters of public discourse...
| politics and whatnot.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| Correct, public debate is theater.
| LambdaTrain wrote:
| It goes far beyond twitter culture. Even in daily conversation
| there are people who only open out port and close in port. One
| signal is that whenever you bring up a perspective (either in
| support/disagreement) this person gonna continue his speech and
| make the conversation expereince like attending a lecture.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Tongue in cheek, I'd call that "racist uncle at
| thanksgiving".
| nicbou wrote:
| If your packets keep bouncing, you stop sending 'em. Their
| packets get ACKed and disregarded.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| My main concern in online discussions is that you're
| effectively arguing against a hydra. Even if you successfully
| convince a group of people about the validity of a specific
| point, there will always be someone else who will show up to
| continue arguing (often, as you say, with a completely
| different argument). And if someone successfully convinces me
| that my argument was wrong, there is no way for me to declare
| the point settled - someone else will show up and keep the
| discussion going.
|
| It's turtles all the way down, where each turtle is yelling at
| the one on top.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's my personal belief that the endless arguing as you
| describe is the main point of Twitter for a lot of people;
| they're not there to settle an argument or to have their mind
| changed, they're there for the heated discussions.
|
| And I kinda get it, I was there for it as well and to this
| day will make shitposts on the internet with no intent to
| actually engage with any replies <_<
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > It's my personal belief that the endless arguing as you
| describe is the main point of Twitter for a lot of people;
| they're not there to settle an argument or to have their
| mind changed, they're there for the heated discussions.
|
| 'twas ever thus - some people just like arguing. Give them
| an amplifier and they'll never stop. Usenet was the same,
| back in the day, so its nothing new.
| prox wrote:
| I would recognize that as just another form of bad faith
| communication. If you're not in a debate to listen, learn
| and see things from another perspective you are just in it
| for emotional reasons ("I want to be right","Look how cool
| I am","My way or the highway", etc)
| adamhp wrote:
| There's no function similar to "likes", "upvotes", or
| "reddit gold" that incentivizes good faith communication
| either. The features are too ambiguous. One community on
| reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/ invented
| their own "delta" awards, where you submit a stance, people
| try to convince you otherwise, and if they do, they're
| awarded a "delta".
|
| It's a small community, but it's an interesting experiment
| at what online communication could be.
| [deleted]
| mr_toad wrote:
| > people almost never respond to the opposing party's arguments
|
| What do you think 'stay on message' means? It's as old as
| rhetoric itself.
|
| Cathago delenda est!
| jon37 wrote:
| "Bad Faith Communication: discourse that is intended to achieve
| behavioral outcomes (including consensus, agreement, "likes")
| irrespective of achieving true mutual understanding"
|
| I would argue that nearly all advertisements fit this
| description. The field of advertising has achieved a massive
| technological leap over the past few decades.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Or religions, traditions, cultures, political slogans and
| reductionisms of apply sorts. Essentially, anything that fits
| within the realm of the Noble Lie.
| TimPC wrote:
| Steelmanning is a bad idea that needs to go away. It's pretty
| condescending to say "your argument was bad I fixed it for you".
| It's also confusing when someone tries to improve an argument
| before responding to it. Lastly, steelmanning done poorly changes
| an argument into something that's easier to respond to without
| necessarily improving it. It might be a good concept for academic
| debates in ivory towers. In general, it's confusing and wildly
| impractical.
| deadpannini wrote:
| There's a risk that steel-manning can veer into condescension,
| but the real goal is to find a version of an argument that all
| parties agree represents it accurately and fairly.
|
| (As opposed to wasting time on superficial contradictions,
| reductio ad absurdum variations, and other hazards of bad faith
| conflicts.)
| nickdothutton wrote:
| What an interesting and thoughtful article. However we will not
| restore good-faith communication in public spaces. It's a 1-way
| process. This is why the future will be (I think) smaller and
| more selective communities where good-faith discourse can occur
| between a select sub-set of people. Probably the sort of people
| who do not feel threatened intellectually or otherwise in
| indulging in such an exchange. You are not going to educate or
| persuade "the mass" to change their approach now.
|
| If you disagree with me then you are evil and on the wrong side
| of history and I will summon a mob against you. ;-)
| oneoff786 wrote:
| No I think that's the dangerous part. It used to be hard to
| hold radical fringe opinions. If you openly identified as a
| Klansman you would likely get shunned in most communities. Your
| exchange of social power for your idiotic beliefs was made open
| and clear.
|
| Now it's very easy to find a large safe space to discuss these
| beliefs and organize without social ridicule. And by doing so,
| it becomes easier for others to join in.
|
| We have lost the power of the shun. Cancelling is the awkward
| and unwieldy big brother version. It's not nearly as effective.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Is "bad faith communication" always in bad faith (ie, socially
| undesirable)? Some people are just wrong because they are talking
| out of their arse, and need to be put in their place.
| seadan83 wrote:
| Depends how they are talking out of their arse, are they open
| to new ideas? The other side, is the dialog more to put them in
| their place, or more to illuminate the depths of their arse?
|
| The bad faith is more about how the communication is done and
| the end goals
| foxes wrote:
| At this stage I just reject communication anyway, I am never
| going to reach some dumb compromise with conservatives,
| [homo,trans]-phobes, racists, oligarch supporters, climate change
| deniers etc. In my view they are morally, ethically,
| scientifically wrong so there is absolutely nothing constructive
| to even engage with. I don't think the fundamental problem is:
|
| >wow if only you just were good faith and were able to engage
| with these people!
|
| They are fundamentally opposed to everything I stand for. I don't
| think communication is possible. Maybe there are unaligned or
| uniformed people that are still to pick, but the only solution is
| actually building a better society, and one side winning.
| bccdee wrote:
| I think the fundamental mistake this article makes is in
| assuming that bad-faith tactics are non-partisan. It's not as
| if fake news is coming from equally both sides of the spectrum.
| It's not as if there can be any equivocacy between Trump's
| administration and Biden's administration in terms of their
| willingness to lie. Right-wing media and left-wing media do not
| manipulate the truth to equivalent degrees. Science does not
| equally support liberal and conservative ideas about medicine
| and the environment.
|
| I'm not saying that no elements of the left operate in bad
| faith, or that elements of the right do not operate in good
| faith. I'm saying that (as the saying goes) reality has a
| liberal bias, and the question is not "how do we fix the
| discourse," but rather "how do we fix _what conservatives have
| deliberately done to the discourse. "_
| beaconstudios wrote:
| There's also the advent of the political dogwhistle, which is
| a pretty effective form of doublespeak invented by the right
| to court fiscal conservatives and racists simultaneously [1],
| that's done tons of damage to discourse. Part of the reason
| many on the left are trigger-happy with accusations that seem
| to come from nowhere is because Trump mainstreamed far right
| dogwhistling into American politics.
|
| 1: this has been explicitly admitted:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)
| rolandog wrote:
| I hadn't heard about steelmanning [0], and it was definitely a
| pleasant thing to learn about.
|
| > _A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a
| straw man argument. The idea is to help one 's opponent to
| construct the strongest form of their argument. This may involve
| removing flawed assumptions that could be easily refuted, for
| example, so that one produces the best argument for the "core" of
| one's opponent's position. It has been advocated as a more
| productive strategy in political dialog that promotes real
| understanding and compromise instead of fueling partisanship by
| discussing only the weakest arguments of the opposition._
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Steelmanning
| dlivingston wrote:
| Steelmanning the opposing side's perspective is an _extremely_
| effective tactic to convince people of your own perspective.
|
| That sounds cynical, but what I mean is this:
|
| - Steelmanning the "enemy position" indicates that your
| argument takes into account all of the nuance of the "enemy
| position"
|
| - It indicates that you're arguing in good faith, and not going
| for an easy win
|
| In other words,
|
| - Steelmanning indicates: "I have looked at the problem space,
| and this position fits it the best."
|
| - Strawmanning indicates: "I will present the problem space in
| a way that fits this position the best."
|
| Subtle, but important and gives you a lot of credibility as a
| speaker.
| senguidev wrote:
| Here's an alternative ending: what if good faith communication
| was superior to bad faith in a systemic way ?
|
| Clues:
|
| - at a personal level: have you ever tried to put in practice
| "highly skilled, non-naive good faith communication" ? If you
| did, you've probably noted that more often than not, it doesn't
| make you weaker. It increases your value, your status, even your
| financial success. So maybe this could also be a
| contagious/unstoppable strategy simply because it has an edge for
| personal success ?
|
| - as an organization: good faith leadership, good faith
| communication... seem to overall be a competitive advantage
| because it goes hand-in-hand with happy & productive people
|
| - as a society: democracy emerged despite a world of tyrants to
| take over most a the world. Why ? Maybe because it was stronger
| in a systemic way ? It unlocks collaboration, decentralization,
| resilience... Moreover, it doesn't sound unreasonable that
| democracy would be fittest as poverty diminishes. So maybe
| authoritarianism, not democracy, is in danger of extinction in
| the end ?
|
| Result: instead of spiraling bad faith, maybe we will have
| (though slower) spiraling good faith ? Maybe "good faith" will
| win simply because it's stronger, in a kind of evolutionary
| sense.
|
| This has implications in everyday life : practicing "highly
| skilled, non-naive good faith communication" may be the best way
| to personal success. And this may also be the best way to
| incidentally induce a "good faith" society
| pydry wrote:
| Good faith communication was a cornerstone of Jeremy Corbyn's
| leadership. It wasnt just a strategy it was who he was.
|
| While it won him lots of supporters it ultimately resulted in
| his downfall as he refused to use underhanded rhetorical
| attacks of any kind, even when the ends clearly justified the
| means.
| mindvirus wrote:
| Your comment makes me think, I wonder if some of the problem is
| power imbalances and one off communication leads to bad faith
| communication being a better strategy.
|
| For example, in social media the votes outweigh the replies 10
| to 100 fold, and fewer people read the replies than the first
| post (especially on sites where it's an extra click to see
| comments).
|
| Yet to your point, if it's iterated, that doesn't work as well.
| Of course this isn't just a technical problem, but I wonder if
| there's a way to weight high quality commenters similar to high
| quality posters, and if that leads to the virtuous cycle you
| describe.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| No matter if you're correct or not, we (society) should really
| push that narrative.
|
| "HIGHSUN: Your way to personal success through highly skilled,
| non-naive good faith communication"
|
| also sounds like a great title for a self-help bestseller ;)
| banannaise wrote:
| Highly skilled, non-naive good faith communication is
| successful because it allows you to curate a community of good-
| faith communicators. Attempting to apply that when talking to
| bad-faith communicators leads to disaster.
|
| Bad-faith communicators occupy a _lot_ of powerful positions.
| Perhaps even the large majority.
| senguidev wrote:
| That sounds right, I can relate to the curation effect.
| Whether it's another factor promoting success or against it
| remains to be explored
| q-base wrote:
| I hope your analysis is correct. On a personal level I have
| found it to work just as you describe, but on a more systemic
| higher level I am not yet convinced - I hope - but I am sadly
| not convinced.
| senguidev wrote:
| Yeah, this is understandable. TBH I'm still trying to
| strengthen the intuition and looking for more clues that it
| scales.
|
| The good thing is: the strategy for personal success seems to
| be aligned with the strategy for a global good faith. So I
| can live with doubts: maybe it scales, maybe it doesn't. That
| doesn't change my daily behaviour, I'm maximizing for myself.
| This is not a prisoner dilemna where I lose if I cooperate.
|
| I would even argue that if it wasn't aligned, this would
| certainly be doomed.
|
| The books "Reinventing Organizations" (Frederic Laloux) and
| "The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education"
| (Edward Deming) (intro: https://apenwarr.ca/log/20161226)
| gave me good intuitions that this can work at least at a
| corporate level.
| q-base wrote:
| No I agree again on a personal level. But on a "global"
| level I can still be worried about the implications of bad
| faith communication.
|
| Thanks a lot for the book recommendations. I read the intro
| you linked and it really piqued my interest.
| seer wrote:
| BTW, not sure how much you've lived in or are in contact
| with people in authoritarian states, but that strategy
| (being in good fatih in general) most certainly does not
| lead to more success, on a personal level.
|
| The best strategy there is to suck up to people in
| authority and derive benefits from that. Since (as the
| [Rules for
| rulers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs) idea
| states) authoritarian societies have way less keys, you
| will gain much more respectively if you're successful at
| sucking up to a power key.
|
| And that's why good faith strategies work great in open
| democracies - since there are _a lot of_ albeit smaller
| keys, just sucking up is harder, and its easier just to
| have a reputation of competence, then you can go from one
| key to another and keep what you've earned. Merit and
| proven record both become more profitable for an
| individual, and since there is high trust between keys, it
| can also be transferable.
|
| That's also a reason why authoritarian societies are so big
| on loyalty, since on a personal level, there are so much
| less keys, its better for you to stick with the one you
| have, and since there is way less trust in the society, you
| can't easily transfer your influence with one key to
| another.
|
| Honestly that video (or more so the book it was based on)
| should be a required reading in all schools...
| senguidev wrote:
| I'm immensely lucky to live a comfortable life in a
| democratic country. So you're right, there is probably a
| blindspot here. Good faith sounds definitely more fit for
| a kinder and more open environment.
|
| However, there were no such "kind" environments a few
| centuries ago. Yet they managed to be bootstraped against
| their surroundings. So maybe there is clues that we
| underestimate the strength of "high-skilled good faith"
| strategies in adversarial situations? But again, I can't
| really imagine what it's like to live in authoritarian
| states so my thoughts must not be very relevant here.
|
| I've seen Rules for rulers previously and remember it
| pretty well as it was quite instructive. It didn't
| provide enough guiding answers for me to the question
| "And so, knowing that, how should I behave to live my
| best possible life ??"
| csharpminor wrote:
| For some systems it seems as though a prisoners dilemma
| develops where communicating in bad faith can give one actor
| an edge over another.
|
| In company environments I think it's a factor of size and
| what core leadership will tolerate. With a good CEO, it's
| hard for a bad-faith leader to thrive at a 1000 person
| company. But at 3000 (anecdotally) it somehow becomes easier
| for this behavior to thrive.
| jungturk wrote:
| This general concept is described in the "evolutionarily
| stable strategies" aspect of game theory.
|
| In certain environments (say, one dominated by good-faith
| communicators) it may be advantageous to be a bad-faith
| communicator, while in other environments it may not.
|
| The resulting fluctuations in the mix of strategies
| deployed in the environment (as agents seek out better
| performing strategies) may well be unstable (i.e. a
| particular strategy's performance depends on what's
| presently dominant).
| thow-58d4e8b wrote:
| Good faith communication is maladaptive on large scale
|
| Imagine the war scenario. The honest, good-faith communication
| would be like: _If we capitulate outright, the worst thing that
| happens is paying taxes to somewhere else, and the set of faces
| on TV news will change to a different set of faces. Anyway,
| please go and die to prevent that from happening, while the
| people who have the most at stake hide in safety_
|
| It's not difficult to see why bad-faith war propaganda beats
| that every time
| watwut wrote:
| > If we capitulate outright, the worst thing that happens is
| paying taxes to somewhere else, and the set of faces on TV
| news will change to a different set of faces. Anyway, please
| go and die to prevent that from happening, while the people
| who have the most at stake hide in safety
|
| Is that actual truth? It seems to me that in quite a lot of
| wars, there is a lot more in stake then just where you pay
| taxes or who is on TV. This is not a good faith communication
| - this is flat out lie.
|
| And also, civilian casualties in wars outnumber military
| ones. Soldiers do die a lot ... but causalities and suffering
| in wars are not limited to them.
| daedalus_f wrote:
| > The honest, good-faith communication would be like...
|
| Perhaps I don't understand your point, but the experiences of
| people in the states annexed by the Soviet Union would beg to
| differ.
| m12k wrote:
| We're seeing the opposite play out in real time in Ukraine
| though. One side tells its soldiers that they are fighting a
| desperate battle to repel an invading dictator. The other
| side tells its soldiers that they are going on a training
| exercise in Belarus, then shoves them across the border
| telling them they will be welcomed as liberators, then
| finally switches to some handwavy explanation about nazis.
| The latter has massively worse morale and battlefield
| performance than the former.
|
| And not only that, the bad-faith communication goes back
| decades, and the equipment the invaders are fighting with is
| in disrepair because local administrators and subcontractors
| have been lying to those in charge while pocketing
| maintenance funds. We're seeing, in a massive way, the havoc
| that a culture of deceit wreaks on any organization or
| society's ability to function coherently.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Ukraine was morally indefensible from the start, as was the
| Nazi invasion of Europe; with the latter though, they had
| captured the "hearts and minds" of their own people thanks
| to over a decade of increasing propaganda. Hitler pulled
| Germany from an economic downturn post-WW2, and the showy
| militaristic theming really got people excited. And it
| still does, but for a much smaller demographic - current-
| day nazis like the combat boots and flags too.
| watwut wrote:
| > Hitler pulled Germany from an economic downturn post-
| WW2 and the showy militaristic theming really got people
| excited
|
| You probably meant WWI, but afaik, historians dispute
| that one. He was not that good in economy.
|
| I t
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| There are two periods of economic problems in Germany in
| the 1920's. The first involved economic collapse and
| hyper inflation in the early 20's immediately after WWI.
| The second started in 1929 and was a deflationary event.
| Argument I've seen is the sooner a country got off the
| gold standard the sooner things improved. Everyone but
| the French did that. Which is to say the solution wasn't
| rocket science.
| Nowado wrote:
| > at a personal level: have you ever tried to put in practice
| "highly skilled, non-naive good faith communication" ? If you
| did, you've probably noted that more often than not, it doesn't
| make you weaker. It increases your value, your status, even
| your financial success.
|
| Opposite experience. It leads to wasting time, especially
| compared to getting to the same conclusions using more
| effective, if less 'true', tactics. It just doesn't scale.
|
| At some level good faith is superior on a very large scale,
| since the reality tends to provide a somewhat consistent
| feedback, but there remains a local niche of maxxing out
| persuasion skill tree. Not to beat dead horse, but large
| organizations with too much resources seem particularly prone -
| it is an obviously self correcting mechanism, but the tactic
| remains valid locally.
| louis___ wrote:
| I would think that it scales, but that effectively practicing
| "highly skilled, non-naive good faith communication" is very
| difficult, and requires a lot of practice and honesty.
|
| It starts with not assuming bad faith from the other side.
|
| Trying to adapt your communication strategy depending on the
| profile of the other side is not really "good faith". The
| goal is to train _ourselves_ to look at reality in a less
| biased, personal way. Wanting to max out every opportunities
| precisely tends to distort reality.
| senguidev wrote:
| That's funny, my main drive for choosing this strategy is
| taking account of opportunity costs ie. not wasting time.
|
| I've felt that not focusing on the fact that people may have
| bad faith and we need tactics etc freed a lot of time and
| energy to invest somewhere more useful
| Nowado wrote:
| I'd guess it's, somewhat obviously, strongly context
| dependent.
|
| If you're talking to people who, for w/e reason, have large
| influence on your life, who you are stuck with and who are
| not very numerous, investing heavily in enforcing
| communications standards should pay off. Similarly in
| cooperative setting with aligned incentives you would
| expect assuming good faith to work out well.
|
| Now, in social media, sales or a large fluid
| organization...
| Slighted wrote:
| This is an extremely dangerous (and quite frankly stupid) way of
| thinking. Discourse is discourse, regardless of how you feel
| about it. When people feel as though "bad" faith discourse needs
| to be controlled through curation, censorship, or through some
| other means, you end up with idiots like Twitters Parag Agrawal
| saying things like "Our role is not to be bound by the First
| Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public
| conversation."
| https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/18/1012066/emtech-s...
| The "endgame" of "bad faith" communication is the endgame of your
| freedom of speech and expression. I agree that people ought to be
| more compassionate and open-minded, both on the internet and in
| real life, but I am in no position to control what another person
| thinks or says, and I'm certainly not in a position to make the
| judgement of what "good" or "bad" faith discourse is. No one is.
|
| This entire article is buzzword trash, using terminology such as
| "post-truth" and statements such as "Seeking to understand others
| and communicate honestly is an essential democratic virtue".
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Yes, all these "bad faiths" and "good faiths" just add
| confusion. As is using the word "communication" for
| unidirectional propagation of information.
|
| The article should go deeper with that MAD line of thought. A
| step forward is a strategic arms limitation treaty, where all
| the sides agree to ban _the most effective forms_ of
| propagation.
|
| The goal would be to put back the steer of our ship into the
| water, bit by bit.
| rogerallen wrote:
| I wish there was a "good faith" up arrow.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Is it just me, or are all of the listed bad faith communication
| mannerisms rife in government and the legal profession? I no
| longer trust the rule of law, because everyone involved acts in
| bad faith. From police, lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats... my
| experience has shown that are all untrustworthy in anything they
| say. The fish rots from the head.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I really wonder how much of it relates to how those professions
| often prohibit or strongly discourage 1st-person expression and
| encourage 2nd-person or 3rd-person. For example, police don't
| often say how they individually are feeling, often they refer
| to law and to the suspect and other parties. Politicians tend
| to talk about what their constituents want ("Americans want
| this! Americans hate that!") more than saying how they
| themselves feel and what they want.
|
| So I wonder how much of the appearance of bad faith is because
| the people won't or aren't sometimes allowed to even share
| their personal perspective and experience.
| pohl wrote:
| This was a great article. A practical question came to mind while
| reading it: Now that bad-faith communication has become
| normalized, does it makes sense to keep bringing good-faith
| communication to a bad-faith communication fight?
|
| Obviously it would be ideal to model the behavior that we'd like
| to see in the world, but what if this toothpaste can't be put
| back into the tube? Brandolini's Law suggests that this might be
| a cultural "innovation" akin to the invention of gunpowder.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| The article implies that there are productive ways to engage a
| bad-faith interlocutor in good faith. It's a shame it doesn't
| go into any details about what that looks like.
| adamisom wrote:
| I think it does make sense. I love this relevant classic SSC
| article: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-
| niceness-c...
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Yes, arguing in good faith is good but how do you deal with
| people who have no interest in arguing in good faith? I encounter
| this all the time and I just choose to stop engaging.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| > how do you deal with people who have no interest in arguing
| in good faith?
|
| The choices critically depend upon context:
|
| 1. Is the dispute one-to-one, or is there an audience? With
| skill, you may be able to turn the opinion of a reasonable
| audience against your bad-faith interlocutor.
|
| 2. Is disengaging a practical option, or are you compelled to
| continue the discussion under threat of yet more unpleasant
| consequences?
|
| So, I'd say that's 2*2=4 "game" scenarios, each fundamentally
| distinct.
| bkirkby wrote:
| i've taken a clue from Jessica Livingston. she responded once
| to bad faith communicators by saying (not a quote): "i'm not
| inclined to engage with people who are purposefully trying to
| misunderstand me."
|
| it both disengages you from the situation while also calling
| out the bad faith actors.
| cracrecry wrote:
| Propaganda and bad faith has always been normalized, it is not
| new, read Edward Bernays' Propaganda.
|
| Human nature is that of a predator. Powerful get advantage of the
| weak, and always has been.
|
| Take for example the USA, it was created by the "expansion" to
| the West, "expansion" meaning taking ownership of the land others
| inhabited, and killing them. That needed a propaganda machine to
| justify it, Manifest destiny.
|
| There were two parties, one won, the other lost. We are not
| mentioning slavery.
|
| When the US could take advantage of the remains of the Spanish
| Empire, they did, there was a man called Pulitzer that became
| rich and famous inventing lies like "remember the Maine"(probably
| a false flag attack) in order to take control of their colonies
| and colonize it themselves.
|
| Germans and French tried to do the same. England, Russia, Turkey
| and Spain did that before, because it is human nature.
|
| Pulitzer never wrote about the US extermination of Spanish
| teachers in Philippines for example, like modern Media did not
| inform about the abuses in US created wars like Libya, Syria,
| Iraq or Afghanistan.
|
| Media owners today have lots of business to do, they need the
| masses to support them.
|
| Most democrats were ok calling Trump Putin's puppy with no
| proof(because they hated the guy and benefited from removing a
| President using lies if necessary) and then Trump did the same
| thing with them(accusing them without proof of stealing the
| elections).
|
| The first thing you have to do in order to be free is to read,
| and not see the world divided in good and bad guys, because if
| you do you always will consider yourself in the good guys, even
| when you are the bad side. Then there will be no difference
| between you and the rest.
| [deleted]
| for_i_in_range wrote:
| Above the line communication: Openness, Curious, Committed to
| Learning.
|
| Below the line: Closed, Defensive, Committed to being right.
|
| Credit: Jim Dethmer, _The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership_
| chillacy wrote:
| I thought this was a pretty good book despite the seeming
| brevity to it. Anyways to really expand for those who haven't
| read it, Dethmer talks about an internal mindset dial between
| judgementalness vs curiosity. There are other dials like victim
| vs agency, emotional acceptance vs denial, etc.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I appreciate you both bringing him up. I had forgotten about
| his work and may dig more into his book. I had learned of him
| from the Tim Ferriss podcast, perhaps this episode:
| https://tim.blog/2020/06/09/jim-dethmer-transcript/
| anovikov wrote:
| Maybe the underlying reason is that there is no more common
| interest between groups that fight each other? That is, no more
| "society" as something common, most importantly, right-wing
| electorate can't benefit from what can benefit left-wing
| electorate, and vice versa? Indeed, the discourse has become
| quite ugly, but maybe the reason is not the form, but the
| substance: that it's no longer about arguing about what's better
| for society as a whole, but winning over the other side to
| achieve what's good for "us", by defeating the interest of
| "them".
|
| I believe this is the case, and core reason is that we are
| increasingly in the slow-growth world. Most people will not
| benefit greatly from overall progress of economy in their
| lifetime, just because it is now too slow. It's more and more
| about taking over something for "us" from "them" as opposed to
| "making the pie bigger".
|
| Same is the reason for rise of dictatorship. In a slow-growth
| world, there is no way a democratic government or leader can
| achieve any tangible goals in one electoral cycle. So they have
| to resort to bullshit of one sort or the other - nothing which is
| not a deliberate lie, can be attractive enough to their voters.
| Only a lifelong dictatorship can hope to get things done.
|
| One hope is that once the renewable energy takes over from the
| fossil fuels and we start seeing our worldwide energy base grow
| exponentially again the way it did through mid-1970s, quicker
| growth will return and things will gradually fix themselves.
| bjt wrote:
| If you want to see some great examples of politicians engaging in
| good faith communication, check out the series "The Constitution:
| That Delicate Balance" that Annenberg put out in 1984.
|
| I wish they'd repeat it with new participants. I'm not sure which
| politicians I can imagine taking part though. It does seem like
| we've declined from the level of discourse shown there.
|
| https://www.learner.org/series/the-constitution-that-delicat...
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| Why is it so difficult for people too see bad faith communication
| hurts their own ability to understand things?
| cycomanic wrote:
| I think the issue is that many people are emotionally invested
| in not understanding things, in other words you assume people
| want to understand things. In my experience there is a
| significant portion of the population who doesn't (and that
| crosses through all social and political spectra).
| deathanatos wrote:
| IME, it's because a.) it requires one to first admit one
| doesn't understand something (and hubris prevents this in
| some people) and b.) learning something requires putting
| forth the mental effort to understand it. The same reason
| people don't like reading source code they didn't write: it's
| hard, and you have to try.
|
| And to a degree and in some contexts (particularly work/in a
| company), c.) under too much time pressure to take the time
| to understand. (I.e., too little time is available to them;
| the dysfunction is higher up the ladder...)
| bittercynic wrote:
| I suspect engaging in bad faith communication goes along with
| not being too interested in understanding things. These tactics
| seems to say "Your perspective is unworthy of consideration. I
| want to ridicule or destroy it."
| 127 wrote:
| It has been quite instructive to watch what Russia has said and
| done about the war. Various tactics in their media, that once you
| think about them, are more common in every day use.
|
| 1. Euphenisms: "Tactical military operation" invent all kinds of
| word games that hide the true nature of actions committed.
|
| 2. Mirroring: Blaming the victim for doing the same thing you are
| already guilty of.
|
| 3. Hate speech: Saying you are a Nazi (or otherwise a bad person,
| insert any emotionally effective, hard to defend against bad word
| here) and therefore deserve to be murdered/silenced.
|
| Which also makes me question which comes first: authoritarianism
| and oppression, or the collapse of speech to these kinds of low
| levels.
| fullshark wrote:
| I'd argue bad faith communication now has mechanisms that enable
| audiences to call it out and criticize it, it was always
| normalized.
| hans1729 wrote:
| Here is my model:
|
| The root problem is: the 90% of people who are not inherently
| driven by curiosity want to contribute/validate their
| viewpoint/seek peer confirmation.
|
| This, left alone, leads to nothing good, which is why we came up
| with this funny concept of "culture".
|
| But culture is dead, courtesy of
|
| * the social-laissez-faire-boogaloo of the US' concept of "total
| freedom"
|
| * the decay of stability-providing social structures
|
| * existential dread/people trapped in the lower levels of Maslows
| pyramid
|
| Imagine how smart the smartest people out of one million are.
| Pretty smart, huh? We have 7000 of them, and they have lots of
| things to say, but nobody gives a fuck, because people don't
| actually seek to understand. They seek validation, righteousness
| and stability. And you don't have to be the smartest out of a
| million to be worth listening to, but the simple fact that our
| "culture" (which is decayed to complete archaic groupthink) sets
| up the wrong reward incentives should paint a clear picture and
| be accessible to understand for everyone. Its not that _stupid_
| people get famous, its that people who are not _curious_ get
| famous. _That_ is where we fail.
|
| The answer to this _must be_ culture, again. But this time one
| that matches the world we 've built since the last one collapsed,
| namely one that provides the stability people seek _across the
| board_. When the framework for that stability was religion,
| critically relevant people could not find social stability when
| they questioned god. That 's why religion as a framework sucks,
| it doesn't capture the entire group.
|
| The solution is easy: curiosity. Curious people are worth
| listening to, _everyone else is not_. This is something we have
| to cement in every piece of art and work we create. Literally:
| show the people who 's minds are trapped in a simpler place their
| limits, very gently, and offer salvation: man, there are lots of
| intelligent people out there who try to make the world a better
| place. You don't _have_ to understand it all, and you wont
| anyway, so don 't stress yourself. We can do this, together.
| This, roughly, is the rhetoric picture we'll have to paint over
| the last decades. That, and only that, fixes the problem at its
| root.
| JetAlone wrote:
| Exhibit A:
|
| >Curious people are worth listening to, everyone else is not
|
| Exhibit B:
|
| >The answer to this must be culture
|
| >The solution is easy: curiosity.
|
| It's an interesting model, but there's a serious contradiction
| here. You're claiming curiosity to be the 1-to-1 justification
| for being given an audience, yet making dogmatic assertions and
| setting out a viewpoint-driven agenda - you are not curious
| about curiosity, you dive right into how to . Therefore there
| must be a value that makes a non-curious person with a
| viewpoint-driven agenda (in this case, you) worth listening to.
|
| For brevity, the "90% of people who... want to
| contribute/validate their viewpoint/seek peer confirmation" can
| be more or less labelled "vainglorious".
|
| I think you're right about vainglory leading to nothing good.
| But, the hope of enacting that "something good" that there
| _should be_ instead is the real reason to listen to non-curious
| people. And most everyone hopes to enact "something good", so
| now we're back where we started, listening to ideologues, be
| they curious or not.
|
| My suggestion is to modify the model by instead seeking to
| listen to people who are not vainglorious. I think finding
| people who aren't vainglorious to listen to, and finding out
| how to not be vainglorious myself is the right direction to
| point my curiosity.
| kodah wrote:
| > Both ends of the political spectrum (the far left and the far
| right) express this view. Both sides believe that "the other
| side" simply can't be trusted and therefore cannot be engaged in
| good faith. To do so would be to fall into a trap, serving only
| to validate the dangerous views of groups known to be acting in
| bad faith.
|
| This is what I'm most tired of. Anytime you try to point this out
| one of these two groups will respond with, "both sides, both
| sides" like some edgy teenager sitting at the lunch table looking
| for a confirmatory laugh from their friends. People love this
| world that's developed to some degree; that's what the real
| uphill battle is.
| outsidetheparty wrote:
| It's interesting that you're making a both-sides argument while
| complaining about people making both-sides arguments. I mostly
| hear "both sides, both sides" coming from one side in
| particular. The other side just blames that one side.
| kodah wrote:
| I'm complaining about people who refuse to deal with the fact
| that these two groups cannot meet in the middle on a single
| thing. Everything is life and death, or some dramatic replay
| of a day time soap.
|
| I'm not complaining about people _making_ both sides
| arguments.
| tux1968 wrote:
| It would be great for people who desire good faith communication
| to call out people who are resorting to bad faith techniques.
| Especially, and most importantly, when those bad actors are of
| the same political stripe.
|
| It's impossible for those bad actors to hear criticism from "the
| enemy". Only people who share a position of almost total
| fundamental agreement, can maybe be heard in any criticism of how
| to better deal with the opposition.
|
| TLDR: We should be most aggressive and loud in criticism of those
| we agree with most.
| Vinnl wrote:
| I would think "calling out" is, or often takes the form of,
| exactly the type of bad faith communication that this article
| is trying to argue against (possibly categorised under "Undue
| social pressure" or "Villainization").
|
| Engaging in a good-faith argument, especially with those you
| often agree with, yes. "Calling out" - I'd be hesitant about
| that.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Indeed. I also rarely "call out" someone when they engage in
| what's clearly a fallacious argument. Instead, I will engage
| by saying "I don't think that is an accurate portrayal of the
| position, because [..]" (strawman), "because [other thing] is
| bad doesn't say much about [this-thing]; if you want to talk
| about [other-thing] we can do that another time"
| (whataboutism), "Just because [organisation/person/group]
| says X doesn't mean X is true, I think it's more important to
| look at the arguments they're making" (argument from
| authority), etc.
|
| This way it doesn't come off an an accusation, it keeps the
| conversation going, and is generally much more constructive.
| I found that people who "call out" logical fallacies and the
| like are generally looking to "win the argument" rather than
| actually have a conversation.
|
| Calling people out on "bad faith" is common; there's an
| entire string of terms for this ("gaslighting", "sealioning",
| "concern trolling", what-have-you). I've never seen it end
| well. If someone _is_ actually engaging in bad faith then it
| 's better to disengage and call it a day, and if someone is
| engaging in good faith then all you've did is insult them
| without actually contributing all that much.
| hedora wrote:
| "Gaslighting" has a different meaning (go watch the movie;
| it's a classic).
|
| I haven't heard the other two terms, and wouldn't be able
| to guess what they mean.
|
| Sea lions spend all day fighting over [arbitrary thing] to
| impress potential mates. I'm certain this happens on social
| media, and that most potential mates are as impressed as
| they are by an actual sea lion. :-)
|
| Concern trolling seems to be too specific a term.
| camtarn wrote:
| Gaslighting seems to have mutated to mean "asserting
| strongly that something isn't true, which I've personally
| experienced to be true", or in the more extreme cases,
| "...which I believe to be true."
|
| IMO it's an annoying corruption of what was actually a
| rather useful term, but there you go.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I'd say it slightly different: I hope that we can have the
| courage to tell the people closest to us when their behaviors
| make us feel angry or disgusted or ashamed.
|
| I don't like to use the word "criticism" because I believe it
| tends to be about trying to objectively label their actions,
| and much more prefer opening up about we individually feel or
| even how we imagine others might feel in reaction to those
| actions.
|
| I agree with you in that this may be more well received by
| people who feel closest to us and also may be easier for us to
| open up to them when we fee close to them.
| [deleted]
| endominus wrote:
| There are, in my opinion, two problems with that. The first is
| that it is very, very difficult for most people to view their
| own side objectively. The Russel conjugation comes to mind; "I
| am a freedom fighter, you are a rebel, he is a terrorist." The
| other problem is that often, calling out your own side's bad
| behavior feels like treachery. "When arguments become soldiers,
| to criticize your own sides' points is to stab your fellows in
| the back." Anyone who engages in that kind of criticism is
| likely to be ostracized as a traitor well before their
| criticisms are taken seriously. See, for example, the Hundred
| Flowers Campaign. I believe the book Scout Mindset by Julia
| Galef discusses ways around the first problem (I have not
| personally read the book), with the main thrust being that this
| is exceptionally difficult to train oneself to do and a mostly
| personal endeavor. For the second problem, I have no idea
| except to aspire to groups that welcome self-criticism.
| Mezzie wrote:
| The second problem is being made worse by the increasing
| polarization and the cutting of the ties that bound the
| different sides, at least in America. People with political
| disagreements were never best friends, but there used to be
| more shared socialization than there is now.
|
| I'm from a bipartisan family in a purple area in a
| purple/battlefield state. You can't grow up like I did
| without being exposed to both/all sides of the aisle, so you
| end up with a pretty decent idea of the follies of your own
| side as well as a lot of friends/colleagues/etc. that don't
| agree with you.
|
| 10-15 years ago, I was still 'allowed' to deviate from
| accepted practice/opinion, as long as I respected the hosts,
| and conditional/partial belonging was allowed. (e.g. I might
| be a dirty commie liberal, but I'm still a Christian or, on
| the other end, I might be a gun nut but I'm still queer so I
| fit in 'enough'). Now, not so much. We also used to have more
| defined and accepted internal fighting/it used to be accepted
| that sides were coalitions instead of Borgs.
|
| Now, not so much. We talk a lot about things we can't say/do,
| and share tips on how not to be pilloried for saying the
| wrong thing. Interestingly, these discussions are happening
| with people across all parts of the political spectrum.
|
| People were always somewhat suspicious of you for hanging out
| with the enemy, but it was accepted if you were of an
| intellectual or sneaky bent. Now it's not. You're in or
| you're out.
| rocqua wrote:
| I think the 'critisize your own is backstabbing' thought is
| much less relevant in private discussion, and that might be
| where it's most possible to call out and change compatriots
| who engage in bad-faith communication.
| endominus wrote:
| In high-trust social circles, certainly. But the risk of
| reputational damage still exists when using these channels;
| this is how whisper networks destroy people seen as
| insufficiently dedicated to the Cause. Criticize the wrong
| person or do so insensitively, do it to a person with an
| outsized ego, and you may find yourself ostracized. Jo
| Freeman's essay The Tyranny of Structurelessness well
| describes how such power imbalances can occur and how
| people suspected of insufficient loyalty can be informally
| but firmly removed from the decision-making of a group.
|
| This is, after all, why virtue signalling is such a common
| tactic. It shores up reputational defense against such
| accusations. Unfortunately, it also commonly has the effect
| of further deepening the divide between the group and other
| parties who might otherwise be interested in the Cause, as
| the most valuable signalling techniques require costly
| actions - i.e. ones that are materially or socially
| damaging to the member doing said signalling. This may
| affirm loyalty, but often harms proselytization efforts
| (you cannot advance the Cause to your family if you have
| cut off contact with them for not already being part of the
| Cause, for example).
| dfxm12 wrote:
| If you're at a point with your side where any criticism is
| taken as treachery, you're not really on the same side. Some
| even think the intention of the 100 flowers campaign was to
| weed out people who didn't exactly align with Mao (i.e. it
| was "bad faith" to begin with). Also, the campaign was open
| to all, not just members of the CCP (Mao's "side" in this
| context). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campa
| ign#Debat...
| colordrops wrote:
| This is consistently what Glenn Greenwald has done and the
| smear campaign against him by the DNC and liberal establishment
| has taken him from a world famous Oscar and Pulitzer prize
| winning journalist to a pariah and supposed Russian right wing
| shill, kicked out of the organization he founded, The
| Intercept.
|
| His beliefs and ideas are clearly left wing and he has remained
| consistent, but by doing what you suggest he has been
| effectively destroyed. It's really sad to see. And I agree with
| you, I think he did the right thing regardless of the
| consequences.
| threatofrain wrote:
| I think Glenn Greenwald was stressed into a place where he
| just kind of cracked, such as by governments actually
| hounding him. I have listened to his recent interviews and I
| think he's gone into classical conspiracy theories involving
| the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-
| greenwal...
|
| https://www.ifj.org/media-
| centre/news/detail/category/press-...
| colordrops wrote:
| Could you cite a particular unfounded "conspiracy theory"
| that he is espousing? Most of the things he's written about
| the CIA, FBI, NSA etc that I've read are grounded in fact
| and sourced..
|
| Are you suggesting that these three letter agencies aren't
| constantly involved in shady unethical often law-breaking
| activity? Have you not been reading hacker news at all?
| They make it to the front page regularly with their poor
| behavior.
| watwut wrote:
| Bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine.
| gkaly wrote:
| Greenwald (and Tulsi Gabbard) quoted Nuland directly, who
| admitted that there were biological _research_ labs.
|
| Greenwald had previously worked on the Anthrax story of
| 2001, where a couple of high profile people got sent a
| sophisticated Anthrax variant in the mail.
|
| It was supposed to be foreign terrorism at first, later
| it was found that the strain came from a _U.S. research
| facility_.
|
| Biological weapons aren't allowed by treaty. Research how
| to combat biological weapons however is allowed. So many
| countries produce strains in biological research
| facilities under the guise of defense.
|
| That is precisely Greenwald's point, he has never claimed
| that bioweapons are manufactured in Ukraine. He has
| claimed that dangerous biological agents might be
| present, like they were in the U.S. in 2001.
|
| It takes a lot of history and reading to understand
| Greenwald. The man is a walking encyclopedia, very
| careful in his statements and touches issues of great
| complexity. One can rarely refute him in a one liner.
| watwut wrote:
| > admitted that there were biological research labs
|
| Which is fairly normal thing to have in a developed
| country. And is much different thing the bioweapons lab.
|
| This muddying things does not make Greenwald's sound
| better. It makes him exactly what he is - someone
| building conspiracy theory.
| gkaly wrote:
| If you call my carefully written post "muddying things",
| there is no point in prolonging the discussion.
|
| You have been smearing Greenwald all over this
| discussion. This is what he actually said:
|
| https://nitter.net/ggreenwald/status/1501313109520175104
| watwut wrote:
| The jump from "bioresearch lab" which to bioweapons.
| Making it sound as if there was something to "admit" in
| Ukraine having same labs as everyone has. Then you try to
| confuse it with bioweapons, anthrax attacks in America
| and completely irrelevant treaties about bioweapons.
|
| If he wanted to make historical point about Antrax, he
| did not had to make it in context of Ukraine. If he
| wanted to make point about bioresearch labs in general,
| he could have made that one. He did not wanted to do
| either. He wanted to muddy waters precisedly at the time
| when is sounded like Ukraine has bioweapons precisedly
| when they were invaded.
| mistermann wrote:
| > The jump from "bioresearch lab" which to bioweapons.
| Making it sound as if there was something to "admit" in
| Ukraine having same labs as everyone has. Then you try to
| confuse it with bioweapons, anthrax attacks in America
| and completely irrelevant treaties about bioweapons.
|
| Who is it that's _actually_ doing the confusing here? It
| 's certainly possible that Greenwald is dog-whistling
| "bioresearch lab" into "bioweapons", but is he _actually_
| doing that, and to a large degree (mostly, etc)?
|
| Consider this: within your mind, might there be a bias
| toward perceiving that this is what he is doing, and
| might it be also possible that you may not be able to
| perceive that this is happening (due to the evolved
| nature of the human mind)?
|
| Let's try to simultaneously operate in a dual state of
| mind: both abstract (keeping in mind the phenomena
| discussed in the article, _and taking it seriously_ ) and
| object level (discussion of "these bio labs"[1]): is it
| possible that some of the things discussed in the article
| could happen to us folks here on HN, sometimes? To be
| clear, I am not asserting as a fact that this is
| happening here, in a big way - rather, I am merely _and
| explicitly_ offering it _as a suggestion of what might be
| happening_ , at least to some degree.
|
| [1] I put "these bio labs" in brackets because
| technically, at the cognitive/neuroscientific level, that
| is not what either person is actually discussing -
| rather, each person is _necessarily_ discussing their
| model of "these bio labs". However, while this is
| architecturally unavoidable, this is not to say that
| there is no way to optimize the manner in which we
| perceive and discuss our respective virtual realities.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| As a third party, I can weigh in to eliminate some of the
| ambiguity you're worried about:
|
| It seems like the views you're replying to, match reality
| (Greenwald is indeed spreading FUD about something which
| is totally normal), and, I'm sorry, you are coming across
| as incomprehensible
| mistermann wrote:
| > It seems like the views you're replying to, match
| reality (Greenwald is indeed spreading FUD about
| something which is totally normal)
|
| Consider this: are things always as they seem? If you
| consider the entirety of your history on this planet, has
| there ever been a time where you were at least partially
| mistaken? Or even easier: have you ever observed another
| human being mistaking belief for knowledge?
|
| I mean _technically_ : is it not true that you are
| representing/asserting your perception of "reality"
| (virtual/perceptual/cognitive reality) to be 100%
| perfectly _and comprehensively_ aligned with reality
| itself?
|
| > and, I'm sorry, you are coming across as
| incomprehensible.
|
| This is extremely common in conversations within certain
| domains.
|
| Consider this:
|
| - if someone has a bias against certain things, might
| this have some negative effect on the style and effort
| they devote to trying to truly understand it (also taking
| into consideration what is happening in the subconscious
| mind, which is sub-perceptual, and arguably has the
| ability to place a ~"hard cap" on what any given
| individual is capable of, especially if they are not
| intimately(!) familiar with the phenomenon and actively
| taking measures to counteract its effects)?
|
| - if one was to give a quantum mechanics textbook to
| someone who has no background in math/physics/etc, might
| it seem incomprehensible to them?
|
| And based on prior conversations, it is perhaps a good
| idea to preemptively counter some common rebuttals to
| this sort of thinking: often the response I will get to
| this sort of reasoning is that it is "pedantic", or
| various memes/slurs such as /r/iamverysmart, Gish Gallop,
| JAQing off, etc. I promise that this is not what I am
| doing - I am genuinely trying to have a _truly_ good
| faith conversation (which, unsurprisingly, may appear
| "very weird"), and I encourage you to disagree with any
| points I've made that you believe (after some self-
| critical contemplation, ideally) contain a _genuine_
| flaw(s), however small.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| >are things always as they seem
|
| you already asked that of the other person
|
| I am a third party confirming that, yes, in this case,
| they are as they seem to that person
|
| if you believe their position, as confirmed by a third
| party, contains genuine flaws, it might just be your
| biases showing through
|
| nonetheless, I encourage you to clearly (and succinctly)
| articulate them, and try to convince us that said
| person's views do not reflect reality
| mistermann wrote:
| > you already asked that of the other person
|
| > I am a third party confirming that, yes, in this case,
| they are as they seem to that person
|
| And now I am asking you. Two people agreeing that
| something "seems" true does not render it true in
| actual/shared reality.
|
| > if you believe their position, as confirmed by a third
| party, contains genuine flaws, it might just be your
| biases showing through
|
| This is one possibility, but another possibility is that
| their position, and the "confirmation" by the third
| party, is erroneous, perhaps due to their biases.
|
| > nonetheless, I encourage you to clearly (and
| succinctly) articulate them, and try to convince us that
| said person's views do not reflect reality
|
| I do not "have a dog" in this object level fight - my
| interest is in the abstract: what are the various ways in
| which human beings perceive reality incorrectly, and is
| it possible to get even one of them to _explicitly_
| acknowledge that it is possible that their belief is
| incorrect, at least to some degree.... _and_ , might it
| be possible that this ~methodology (exerting effort to
| discover what is actually true, and fine-grained "hard
| stops" preventing that discovery, etc) may have
| materially important utility to humanity, _and should
| therefore perhaps be taken seriously_.
|
| Note also that I explicitly encourage disagreement, as
| well as avoiding the premature formation of conclusions
| (I did not do this explicitly before, so I am appending
| it here).
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| >And now I am asking you.
|
| Actually, I am the one asking YOU!
|
| >I do not "have a dog" in this object level fight
|
| As the third party here, I am actually the unbiased one
| in your disagreement with the other person, and I am
| simply saying that your position is unconvincing compared
| to theirs.
|
| You, meanwhile, by attacking this person specifically,
| definitely seem to "have a dog" in this fight, despite
| your claims to the contrary.
|
| Just take it from an outside observer, you could stand a
| little introspection to apply some of the solipsistic
| philosophical musings to yourself.
|
| Or, if you believe something that person said to be
| false, feel free to make a convincing case for it.
| mistermann wrote:
| > Actually, I am the one asking YOU!
|
| I am happy to answer any questions you pose to me -
| unless I am overlooking something, I have not missed
| anything you have asked of me.
|
| However, you have missed some questions I asked of you. I
| would also enjoy reading any answers you may have to
| questions I have asked of others upthread.
|
| And of course, you have no obligation to answer my
| questions, but I would prefer if we are explicit and
| accurate about how each of us conducts ourselves in the
| conversation (ie: if one of us does not answer specific
| questions, acknowledge that simply and unequivocally).
|
| And if you were implicitly posing "Are things always as
| they seem?" to me, my answer is: no, things are not
| always as they seem. In fact, I argue that they are
| almost always not what they seem, and that this is
| necessarily the case due to the physical architecture of
| the mind/reality, plus a whole bunch of other
| scientifically uncontroversial reasons.
|
| > As the third party here, I am actually the unbiased one
| in your disagreement with the other person...
|
| We are discussing an object level matter - it is possible
| that you do not have bias on this matter, but that you
| personally perceive yourself to be unbiased is not
| convincing, and is certainly subject to a variety of
| possible well known phenomenon in psychology/etc.
|
| At the very least, I think the most epistemically sound
| stance is that it is not known whether you or I have some
| bias, or the degree to which each of us is biased. After
| all, science has a fair amount of depth in this realm and
| if you take their findings even partially seriously, that
| there is at least some uncertainty seems highly certain.
|
| > ...and I am simply saying that your position is
| unconvincing compared to theirs.
|
| I am less interested in being persuasive than I am in
| being correct. Actually, I have enough experience in this
| domain that I believe it may not be possible to convince
| certain people of certain things, at least on current
| communication platforms like this one, in cultures like
| this one. I think this could change with more
| sophisticated platforms and cultures, but such things are
| not the purpose or goal of HN (dang has been explicit
| about this).
|
| > You, meanwhile, by attacking this person specifically,
| definitely seem to "have a dog" in this fight, despite
| your claims to the contrary.
|
| As I already asked you (and you did not answer): "Are
| things always as they seem?"
|
| I respectfully challenge you to answer this question.
|
| > Just take it from an outside observer, you could stand
| a little introspection to apply some of the solipsistic
| philosophical musings to yourself.
|
| Ah, "solipsism", color me not shocked at all that this
| idea manifested in the mind of someone I am having this
| type of conversation with.
|
| Do you believe that I am a solipsist, or that the ideas I
| have written here are fundamentally and _necessarily_
| solipsistic?
|
| > Or, if you believe something that person said to be
| false, feel free to make a convincing case for it.
|
| The first burden of proof lies with the one making an
| assertion - I challenged the assertion above, no response
| has appeared thus far.
|
| As for making a case, consider this assertion:
|
| >> He wanted to muddy waters precisedly at the time when
| is sounded like Ukraine has bioweapons precisedly when
| they were invaded.
|
| Is this not mind reading? Or at the very least, stating
| one's opinions/inferences in the form of facts?
|
| And if this is ok, then should Mr. Greenwald not get a
| free pass on the very same basis?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| >I am happy to answer any questions you pose to me -
| unless I am overlooking something, I have not missed
| anything you have asked of me.
|
| You have indeed! I asked if there was any specific part
| of the post you responded to, with which you disagreed.
| Since you did not provide any, though, we can thus
| conclude that you agree with what was in that post.
|
| >>He wanted to muddy waters precisedly at the time when
| is sounded like Ukraine has bioweapons precisedly when
| they were invaded.
|
| >Is this not mind reading?
|
| No, it's drawing conclusions based on the available data.
| I also independently drew the same conclusions, so that
| should make you introspect a little, and ask what it is
| you're doing which causes people to conclude that based
| on the available data of your behavior.
|
| >Are things always as they seem?
|
| Indeed, are they? Is it possible that you aren't actually
| asking this question at all, and you actually agree with
| the person to which you responded? And you just think
| something else happened? Do you think this is possible?
|
| On a higher level, you believe you are engaged in meta-
| discussion, in response to the actual discussion started
| by the other person.
|
| I am thus engaged in meta-meta-discussion: My new
| question to you is, can you make a convincing case that
| your meta-discussion increases understanding of the
| original topic, rather than deflecting from it? Thanks!
| mistermann wrote:
| > You have indeed! I asked if there was any specific part
| of the post you responded to, which which you disagreed.
| Since you did not provide any though....
|
| I replied addressing that. If you are unsatisfied with my
| reply, please quote the text of the specific question you
| asked that you believe I did not answer.
|
| Note also: I may not hold a position on object level
| matters - me pushing back on a claim should not be
| interpreted as a belief in the opposite (as is usually
| the case, in my experience).
|
| > ...we can thus conclude that you agree with what was in
| that post.
|
| You can certainly conclude that, and even assert it, but
| this does not make it true.
|
| > On a higher level, you believe you are engaged in meta-
| discussion, in response to the actual discussion started
| by the other person.
|
| This is my intent and desire, but whether this is a group
| undertaking _in fact_ I cannot say, I can only hope.
|
| > I am thus engaged in meta-meta-discussion: My new
| question to you is, can you make a convincing case that
| your meta-discussion increases understanding of the
| original topic, rather than deflecting from it? Thanks!
|
| I would hope that it would help: the goal is be to
| highlight that perception and reality are similar but
| different, _and that this is extremely important_ , but
| whether I am successful in the slightest I do not know -
| if forced, I would predict that I am not successful,
| based on hundreds if not thousands of similar
| conversations. This seems to be a very difficult nut to
| crack, but then I don't think that should be very
| surprising.
|
| If you don't mind: could you state explicitly whether you
| will answer the questions I stated above ( _physically_
| answer them, in this thread)?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| >> You have indeed! I asked if there was any specific
| part of the post you responded to, which which you
| disagreed. Since you did not provide any though....
|
| >I replied addressing that. If you are unsatisfied with
| my reply, please quote the text of the specific question
| you asked that you believe I did not answer.
|
| and I replied to that reply, concluding from it that you
| had no substantive material disagreements. If you're
| unsatisfied with this conclusion, please reply with, for
| each disagreement, a quote of the claim, what you believe
| to be wrong about that claim, and your evidence for your
| assertion that the claim is wrong, and I'll evaluate your
| evidence to see whether it convincingly supports your
| doubts.
|
| >perception and reality are similar but different, and
| that this is extremely important
|
| Indeed, and, this is extremely important: isn't it
| possible that you only perceive yourself to be in
| disagreement with what the original poster said, but in
| reality, you are in total agreement, and have no
| complaints or criticisms whatsoever? Furthermore, isn't
| it possible that you only _perceived_ yourself asking the
| questions you think you asked, and in reality, you did
| not ask them? Is this a possibility?
| mistermann wrote:
| > and I replied to that reply, concluding from it that
| you had no substantive material disagreements. If you're
| unsatisfied with this conclusion, please reply with, for
| each disagreement, a quote of the claim, what you believe
| to be wrong about that claim, and your evidence for your
| assertion that the claim is wrong, and I'll evaluate your
| evidence to see whether it convincingly supports your
| doubts.
|
| My initial grievance is here:
|
| >> (someone) The jump from "bioresearch lab" which to
| bioweapons. Making it sound as if there was something to
| "admit" in Ukraine having same labs as everyone has. Then
| you try to confuse it with bioweapons, anthrax attacks in
| America and completely irrelevant treaties about
| bioweapons.
|
| > (me) Who is it that's actually doing the confusing
| here? It's certainly possible that Greenwald is dog-
| whistling "bioresearch lab" into "bioweapons", but is he
| actually doing that, and to a large degree (mostly, etc)?
|
| Here one human is accusing another human (or several),
| whom he doesn't know, of speaking deliberately
| deceivingly, making ~invalid associations between things,
| etc - a not abnormal interpretation of this might be
| something like "this guy doesn't know what he's talking
| about, he's trying to tell a tall tale, he might even be
| a conspiracy theorist".
|
| At the very least, there's little acknowledgement I see
| about the complexities and uncertainty involved. This is
| but one of my overall complaints about culture war
| arguments, people play so fast and loose with the truth.
| If there's a post about computing on HN, attention to
| detail and emphasis on correctness is bountiful and
| uncontroversial. But in a culture war conversation, I
| proclaim that the inverse is true - and, I also think
| this abstract phenomenon is a big deal in the big scheme
| of things.
|
| > Indeed, and, this is extremely important: isn't it
| possible that you only perceive yourself to be in
| disagreement with what the original poster said, but in
| reality, you are in total agreement, and have no
| complaints or criticisms whatsoever? Furthermore, isn't
| it possible that you only _perceived_ yourself asking the
| questions you think you asked, and in reality, you did
| not ask them? Is this a possibility?
|
| Of course, why not.
|
| But you brought up solipsism earlier:
|
| >> Just take it from an outside observer, you could stand
| a little introspection to apply some of the solipsistic
| philosophical musings to yourself.
|
| Perhaps you cannot (or will not) think in these terms
| without falling into a state of solipsism (or impotency
| due to indecision, another common complaint), but it's
| certainly not necessary. It is possible to address these
| ideas as they are, and take them seriously (as opposed to
| representing that they are silly, woo woo, bad faith,
| whatever). Perhaps it is not possible in the mainstream,
| in 2022, but it is possible.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| >Here one human is accusing another human...
|
| And one can presume you disagree with them.
|
| The evidence supporting their position is convincing, you
| may now present your evidence to the contrary, and I'll
| determine whose position between the two of you is more
| tenable given the evidence.
|
| You see, raising questions does not add to any position
| in particular -- if you have questions, feel free to find
| the answers, and hopefully they will be ones which make
| your case more convincing than the case you are arguing
| against.
|
| >Perhaps you cannot...
|
| I think it is a bit primitive to make assumptions about
| what I can or cannot do. Perhaps I address these ideas
| better than you can comprehend, and you just _PERCEIVE_
| it to be biting satire that cuts any hypothetical
| dissembling to the bone
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| It's totally normal and expected for biological research
| labs to have biological samples with which to do
| research.
|
| What is being described is beyond that, with thinly
| veiled suggestions of covert maliciousness sprinkled in.
| gatgy wrote:
| As we see in Wuhan, a virus can be devastating no matter
| if it escapes from a research facility, a wet market or a
| deliberate bioweapon. That was the primary concern of
| Tulsi Gabbard.
|
| In Ukraine, matters are exacerbated by the fact that
| these research facilities, according to the left wing
| newspaper The Guardian, were U.S. funded:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/russia-
| biologi...
|
| _Ukraine does operate biological laboratories that
| receive US funding. The US undersecretary of state
| Victoria Nuland affirmed those facts in a Senate foreign
| relations committee hearing this week, in which the
| Republican senator Marco Rubio asked directly if Ukraine
| had biological weapons._
|
| Given the politically unstable situation in February 2022
| and earlier, people like Greenwald and Gabbard simply
| point out that Putin will view this as a provocation,
| same as the Nuland/Graham involvement in the revolution
| in 2014.
|
| Most people who are called Putin apologists are simply
| doing one thing: They know that Putin is a bully with
| 6,000 nuclear weapons, so they try to understand his
| thinking and possible reactions. As we see now, they were
| right in many ways.
| watwut wrote:
| > They know that Putin is a bully with 6,000 nuclear
| weapons, so they try to understand his thinking and
| possible reactions.
|
| This would require reading what Putin wrote and
| commenting on it. This would require listening to his
| speeches in Russia. This would require close listening to
| Russian ideology and mythology disseminated in Russia
| itself and commenting on it. This would required reading
| Russian and Easter European politics and history - at
| least recent one.
|
| It would require watching which of his statements are
| shifting, which are ignored the moment they are not
| useful, which are staying and which are supported by his
| actions. I dont see them _ever_ mentioning Putins
| historical theories, his theories about Ukraine
| statehood, about Stalin.
|
| And somehow, that concern exists only when Russia is
| trying to excuse invasion by bioweapons labs. Somehow,
| magically, this concern did not existed before, nor in
| other countries and stopped existing as it turned out not
| many people are buying it as excuse for invasion. There
| was no "maybe the war did not started due to that"
| consideration either.
|
| This was not concern about "provocation" or concern about
| Putin being good-faith afraid of new covid from Ukraine.
| This was muddying waters, trying to build up new WMD-like
| narrative, because libs are at Ukrainien side.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| >And somehow, that concern exists only when Russia is
| trying to excuse invasion by bioweapons labs. Somehow,
| magically, this concern did not existed before, nor in
| other countries and stopped existing as it turned out not
| many people are buying it as excuse for invasion.
|
| Seriously, like are we supposed to believe Russia has no
| biological labs? Or that only Russia is allowed to, and
| not other countries like Ukraine?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| To reiterate:
|
| It's totally normal and expected for biological research
| labs to have biological samples with which to do
| research.
|
| Ukraine, like any other country, has a vested interest in
| the health of its population, and so Ukraine, like many
| other countries, performs research on diseases that ail
| mankind.
|
| Additionally, "receives US funding" is a better way to
| put it than "US funded", which is calculated to make it
| seem more like the US was the _only_ country funding
| them. Though one would expect that one of the largest
| economies in the world would help its allies research and
| treat their diseases.
|
| The accusations and suppositions put forward are beyond
| that, with thinly veiled suggestions of covert
| maliciousness sprinkled in.
|
| As for Putin, he views the existence of a free Ukraine
| that isn't part of Russia, as a provocation, thus the
| invasion, so it's pretty clear that what he viewed as
| provocation is not necessarily an actual provocation, but
| rather a pretext for further violence that he already
| planned anyways.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > What is being described is beyond that
|
| Instead of describing it, why not provide a quote with a
| citation to its context?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I'm not doing either at the moment. Why do you ask?
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| cycomanic wrote:
| I think it's not quite so simple. I previously believed in
| some of the strong ad honimems against him (and I have
| revised that position). However, I am very critical of some
| of his behaviour, he himself has used bad faith communication
| (often adopted from right wing pundits) strategies to
| criticise "his side/the left" and had the same time goes onto
| shows like Tucker Carlsson and does not use it to engage in
| critical dialogue with him, or call out his constant bad
| faith arguments, but instead "bash the left".
| gkaly wrote:
| Of course he goes on Tucker Carlson's show, because stories
| like the Hunter Biden laptop were suppressed by CNN,
| Facebook, Twitter and others. In fact they were called
| "Russian disinformation".
|
| Now in 2022, many of the same outlets suddenly acknowledge
| the authenticity of the story. CNN has James Clapper as its
| own security analyst (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C
| lapper#CNN_national_sec...), why would Greenwald appear
| there after all that has happened in 2013?
|
| Many of Greenwald's "conspiracy theories" are facts two
| years later.
| colordrops wrote:
| Attacking him for going on Tucker Carlson is a typical bad
| faith smear used against him and many others. CNN and MSNBC
| won't have him on despite him being willing to interview.
| Why must people only go on shows that are on "their side"?
| That's propaganda, not journalism.
|
| Every journalist has a particular topic and audience that
| they focus on. His topic and audience is around waking up
| left wingers to the bad behavior of the "their own side".
| This topic is almost completely unaddressed amongst the
| left. To attack the right would be singing to the choir,
| and also be part of the choir, because 99% of the rest of
| left wing media already focus all their effort on "the
| other side". Do you not think it's a waste of time to
| convince the left that trump and fox are bad?
|
| The fact is that most media are just cheerleaders for team
| red or team blue. Glenn is not a cheerleader, and thus not
| an establishment mouthpiece, and so he gets smeared by
| people like you.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > Attacking him for going on Tucker Carlson is a typical
| bad faith smear used against him and many others. CNN and
| MSNBC won't have him on despite him being willing to
| interview. Why must people only go on shows that are on
| "their side"? That's propaganda, not journalism.
|
| Hold on, I did not say he shouldn't be going on Fox news
| or TC. However going to Fox news and calling NYT biased
| left wing media of the "rich elite", without any
| criticism towards Fox news, their ownership and agenda is
| not engaging in a good faith debate.
|
| > Every journalist has a particular topic and audience
| that they focus on. His topic and audience is around
| waking up left wingers to the bad behavior of the "their
| own side". This topic is almost completely unaddressed
| amongst the left.
|
| So do you believe that going to Fox news and essentially
| repeating their talking points is a good way of "waking
| up the left"? I mean the audience he is trying to address
| is not really listening there is it? Also why not take
| the opportunity to also engage critically with Fox?
|
| >To attack the right would be singing to the choir, and
| also be part of the choir, because 99% of the rest of
| left wing media already focus all their effort on "the
| other side". Do you not think it's a waste of time to
| convince the left that trump and fox are bad?
|
| I find the notion that any media in the US is left
| completely alien. I mean the NYT would maybe considered
| centre right in most of Europe.
|
| > The fact is that most media are just cheerleaders for
| team red or team blue. Glenn is not a cheerleader, and
| thus not an establishment mouthpiece, and so he gets
| smeared by people like you.
|
| I find it ironic that in a discussion about bad faith
| communication, you call my criticising Glenn as smearing?
| Where did I attack his character? I think what he is
| doing is not constructive, and I explained why I think
| that is the case.
| watwut wrote:
| > CNN and MSNBC won't have him on despite him being
| willing to interview.
|
| The majority of journalists and opinion writers wont ever
| be on CNN and MSNBC. Overwhelming majority of them, in
| fact.
|
| > Every journalist has a particular topic and audience
| that they focus on. His topic and audience is around
| waking up left wingers to the bad behavior of the "their
| own side".
|
| Well, in that case, he is massive failure. Probably
| because he argues in bad faith and also because hate is
| dripping out of him.
|
| > This topic is almost completely unaddressed amongst the
| left.
|
| The left is constantly engaged in in-fighting.
| colordrops wrote:
| Glenn Greenwald is worthy of being on CNN and MSNBC, and
| has been on before, but mysteriously was no longer
| invited once he started criticizing the liberal
| establishment. Hmm..
|
| And in-fighting is not the same as calling out the
| corrupt elite that maintain the Overton window of what
| most blue journalists and politicians speak about.
| watwut wrote:
| Overwhelming majority of journalists is "worthy" of that.
| But, Glenn Greenwald seemed to be mostly emotional bundle
| last years as I was watching him. And completely unable
| to handle any pushback or criticism back - responding
| with pure insults and anger half the time.
|
| I used to like him and respect him, which is why I was
| following him. It was not other peoples criticism of
| Greenwald that made me loose respect to him. People I
| normally follow dont comment on Greenwald. It was him.
| watwut wrote:
| Nah, Glenn Greenwald is not arguing in good faith and was not
| for a long time. And I did not needed to "smear campaign"
| against him to figure that out. All I needed was was to read
| his twitter feed regularly - as I was. He is good at strong
| words and insults, but not at good faith discussion at all.
|
| > His beliefs and ideas are clearly left wing and he has
| remained consistent,
|
| Kinda yes and no, not really. He has some lefty opinions, but
| that is it.
| bena wrote:
| I mean, I don't think colordrops/gkaly is defending
| Greenwald in good faith either.
| colordrops wrote:
| What did I say that was underhanded or otherwise
| indicated bad faith? Your direct ad hominem labeling
| without any context or explanation is the most bad faith
| thing in this thread.
| bena wrote:
| Cycomanic pointed it out thoroughly enough that I'd only
| be repeating what they said.
|
| One of your bigger tells however is how you never
| actually defend your positions. You only attack the
| others' opinions. You constantly require everyone else to
| be on the defense while never actually defending your
| positions yourself.
|
| You're not here to engage in debate, you're here to rant.
| colordrops wrote:
| Are you not aware that you are doing everything you are
| accusing me of?
| bena wrote:
| I'm not and you know it.
|
| I notice you also didn't engage with Cycomanic after he
| deconstructed your post and called out all of your bad
| faith tactics. I also pointed out another.
|
| You also like to sneak in hyperbole. You claim I said you
| were underhanded, when I did no such thing. It's an
| effort to get me to argue something I never said.
|
| This isn't so much an accusation as just pointing out
| what you're doing here.
| colordrops wrote:
| Anyone reading this thread sees that you aren't even
| discussing the topic, labeling me, and criticizing with
| vague generalizations, then accusing others of exactly
| what you are doing, which is bad faith argument. Your
| response here is not worth further comment.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I agree with this, but in spaces where bad faith is the
| predominant form of communication, you'll probably be accused
| of being a centrist for not falling exactly in line.
| johnm wrote:
| You'll be called much much worse than that. IME, you'll be
| lumped into the "other side" as defined by each of the bad
| faith participants. And if you point out their bad faith
| intent and rhetorical games, the level of ad hominem attacks
| increases exponentially.
| switchbak wrote:
| Exactly. This explains why those in the middle receive the
| most aggression: they're traitors AND hated by both
| extremes.
|
| Whether you want to or not, as things get more polarized,
| it becomes ever more difficult to maintain any kind of
| nuanced position.
| XorNot wrote:
| Except centrism isn't a real position - by definition.
| It's solely defined by the sides in opposition. There's a
| real and important difference between holding positions
| which make you "roughly" at the center of apparent sides,
| and the apparent holding of positions because "moderate"
| or "centrist" is being held up as a virtue.
|
| And that last part is key: at the point where people are
| arguing that they are moderate, rather then what they
| actually believe, they're not arguing in good faith to
| start with - they're trying to argue they're morally
| superior without engaging with the actual subject matter.
|
| At best, they're in fact arguing for the status quo and
| trying to pretend that they are not in fact very
| definitely asserting a position by doing that.
| notahacker wrote:
| "Centrism" is every bit as real as "right wing" or "left
| wing", both positions also defined in different contexts
| by what is to the left/right of them. And people can be
| as genuinely enthusiastic in principle and detail about
| "a market, but a heavily regulated one" as they can about
| "the government has no business interfering in markets"
| or "private profiteers can't be allowed to exploit this
| resource". Or indeed hold a particular "right wing" or
| "left wing" position purely because they believe that
| agreeing with their tribe or expressing the appropriate
| degree of vehemence of disagreement with the other tribes
| makes them more virtuous.
|
| There's a certain amount of irony in dismissing a entire
| range of political opinion as uniquely susceptible to
| "trying to argue they're morally superior without
| engaging with the actual subject matter" under an article
| about bad faith communication.
| cnelsenmilt wrote:
| > Except centrism isn't a real position - by definition.
|
| > they're in fact [...] very definitely asserting a
| position by doing that.
|
| You seem to have talked yourself out of your own argument
| through the course of making it.
| XorNot wrote:
| Status quo conservatism is definitively right wing.
| mistermann wrote:
| I think what's caused a disagreement here with you and
| /u/notahacker is the word "real" in this casual,
| seemingly fine phrase:
|
| >> Except centrism isn't a real position - by definition.
|
| There is _something_ distinctly and _genuinely_ different
| about centrism, but it is still a _real_ position (it
| does in fact _exist_ , and is thus "real").
|
| I think what you're actually getting at is that centrism
| is a relative position ( _by definition_ ), whereas non-
| centrists are _absolute_ positions. Well...at least
| potentially. Fundamentally, few positions are not mostly
| relative (especially if one includes premises, axioms,
| etc), as the mind fundamentally and _almost_ necessarily
| perceives reality thorough relative lenses (with respect
| to the individual 's prior experiences, or in neural
| network terms: according to the training of their model).
| And if one is to discuss things in purely/highly absolute
| terms, the other person will balk ("That's pedantry/Gish
| Galloping / JAQing off!", behavior which more than a few
| HN'ers are not immune to themselves).
|
| I believe a large percentage of the population actually
| possesses these abilities, and some subset of people even
| exercise these abilities on a very regular basis, with
| extreme skill (say, when we are programming software) -
| but only under specific circumstances. Take someone who
| has these capabilities and drop them into an object level
| culture war discussion, and these abilities will vanish.
| This phenomenon can be seen in large quantities not just
| on sites like Reddit, but also here - it is our nature,
| at least for now (perhaps some day someone will notice
| and try to address the issue).
|
| There are also other hidden fundamental problems that are
| rarely realized or discussed: as just one example, the
| very language we use to communicate - take the innocuous
| looking word word "is"....oh, the problems this one
| _seemingly_ simple word causes in "reality".
| hedora wrote:
| I've found they usually assume I'm secretly on the other
| side.
|
| Someone (that is generally thoughtful and level-headed) once
| implied I was racist because I agreed with a conservative.
|
| The conservative had claimed, and I agreed, that, on average,
| people of African descent have quantifiably darker skin than
| those with Northern European ancestry.
|
| Edit: The context was a paper on Vitamin D deficiency arguing
| that funding for increasing Vitamin D supplementation should
| be aimed at African American communities, since Vitamin D
| deficiency is more common in darker-skinned communities.
|
| According to the paper, darker skin means less sunlight gets
| through, which means less Vitamin D production per unit of
| sun exposure. This matches common sense, and also their
| epidemiological data.
| colordrops wrote:
| Nah, you'll be accused of being the opposite of what you are.
| See Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.
| projektfu wrote:
| Why it happened to Taibbi I am unsure, but Greenwald has
| often resorted to bad faith callouts, before and after his
| "excommunication". I remember his Iraq war era blogging and
| uncharitable paraphrasing was pretty common. I just didn't
| care at the time because I was also antiwar.
| thombles wrote:
| "Concern troll" is another popular one.
| softfalcon wrote:
| I agree that it's important for your own side to call out bad
| faith communication as much as possible. Scrutiny of your own
| sides arguments helps improve your position and intellectual
| honesty.
|
| That being said, what is ideal in theory, breaks down in
| practice.
|
| Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, my experience has
| been that when one person calls out another on their side for
| bad faith communication, a weird popularity contest happens.
|
| As others have said about "feeling like a traitor", the person
| who is called out feels metaphorically "stabbed in the back" by
| someone they now perceive as a "turncoat". The ensuing
| popularity battle is used to discredit the position of the
| person who called out the bad faith communication. I've seen it
| many times, it's both predictable and bizarre. Watching folks
| alienate their closest friends and advocates to protect a
| perceived attack on their ego is wild.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| One of the things about call out culture is that it can be an
| extremely potent weapon for bad faith actors to silence
| everyone else. Thus stiffling vital dissent and making
| organizations stupid. In the recent Atlantic, there is an
| article by Jonathan Haidt that argues precisely that.
|
| Looking at past results, I would not encourage call out culture
| further.
| hedora wrote:
| I once got in a long argument with a pro vaccine journalist
| about this (I am also for vaccines).
|
| The predominant viewpoint in modern day journalism is that a
| true headline that is technically correct and gets page views
| is a good headline.
|
| This is the first sign of bad faith communication in the
| article (misleading with facts).
|
| Example (ficticious) controversial headline:
|
| "Scientists extremely concerned that new variant will kill more
| children."
|
| Two scientists, and only two dead kids globally (so, less than
| the current variant), and this is a fine thing to say,
| apparently.
|
| The goal of a good journalist, in their mind, is to be
| technically correct while selling papers by getting people to
| assume the headline means:
|
| "The scientific consensus is that a larger percentage of
| children will die from the next Covid variant".
|
| No minds were changed during the argument, but I think we both
| learned something.
| ModernMech wrote:
| In the sprit of TFA, let me try to steel man their argument,
| with which I don't agree.
|
| Effective communication requires nuance, and definitionally
| nuances are subtle, and therefore are often difficult to
| convey in a terse way.
|
| Headlines definitionally are restricted in length. So we can
| say that nuance and headlines are natural enemies.
|
| Therefore, the best thing a headline can do is to direct a
| reader toward nuance, which hopefully is contained within the
| article. So an article that gets page views is not just good
| for the publisher, but it's also good for discourse in
| general.
|
| But what about technically correct? Well, I think it's safe
| to say that a headline that gets clicks but is technically
| wrong is not what we want. Then let's consider technically
| correct, what does that even mean? To me, I'd really have to
| hear the argument in full, but in the spirit of steel manning
| I'd have to think what they meant was "factually correct", as
| "technically correct" has some negative connotation having to
| do focusing on facts while ignoring or discounting more
| salient issues.
|
| Then again, due to the limited nature of a headline, some or
| even most of the context _must_ be elided. So really I think
| the difference between something being "factually correct"
| and "technically correct" is intent to deceive through lies
| of omission.
|
| Given the above, I would say a good headline is one which
| drives the reader to nuance and does so in a way which is
| factually correct, which I could see characterized as
| "technically correct and gets page views".
| ajross wrote:
| > It would be great for people who desire good faith
| communication to call out people who are resorting to bad faith
| techniques.
|
| In fact that practice is expressly disallowed on this very
| site, whose guidelines demand we assume good faith on the part
| of other commenters.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Thank you. I wondered how many others have reached the same
| conclusion. I know I did almost immediately
| cycomanic wrote:
| According to the article always assuming bad faith by the
| other side is part of the problem that we are lead into. So
| by calling for the assumption of good faith we can avoid
| falling into the spiral of bad faith communication.
| projektfu wrote:
| I see a dynamic on Twitter a lot where a person who is probably
| aligned with the retweeter is thrown under the bus to demonstrate
| the purity of the retweeter. The retweeted person is usually
| misrepresented or uncharitable interpreted.
|
| Why so much friendly fire? It is hard to imagine we can truly
| heal discourse across a political divide when we cannot even do
| nice to our neighbors on the spectrum.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Why, why for god sake, half of the text in this article is made
| of pictures?! JPEG pictures!!
| alexb_ wrote:
| This article is great at explaining many differences between good
| and bad faith communication, but repeatedly asserts that bad
| communication = wars, violence, etc while providing no proof or
| argument to support that claim.
|
| In reality, we are in a world where there is absolutely 0 reason
| to be arguing in good faith for anything you truly care about.
| The most effective way you convince people of something is using
| all of the bad faith tactics listed here - you get no bonus
| points from the audience for avoiding these, since a very small
| amount of people are willing to say something about it, and by
| avoiding these tactics you are just letting your opponents use
| them to gain an upper hand.
|
| If there is something you truly care about, something that you
| think swaying general opinion could make a real difference in
| your life, arguing in "good faith" is foolish.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Why would you ever say that?
|
| Facebook is suffering a slow death from burning up all it's
| good will on bad faith money grabs. The news feed could still
| be the place where people discuss their lives, but close to
| zero people trust facebook anymore.
|
| Mental note: alexb_ will lie to my face.
| alexb_ wrote:
| I'm not saying that is how it should be. I'm saying that's
| how it is. You earn no sympathy from the audience by only
| using logic and reason - in order to make change in the
| world, you must additionally use fallacies, diversions,
| personal attacks, false equivalencies, and every other trick
| in the book. If you refuse to use these, you will lose to
| those who do, every single time. It does not matter how well
| thought out, reasonable, logical, or correct your argument is
| if you can't convince anyone.
| JetAlone wrote:
| "Guys we have to use any effective tactic possible in the
| book to win, even lies and cruelty!"
|
| >"You mean like the possible tactic of not posting an open
| exhortation to lie and be cruel, so as to maintain
| beneficial optics?"
|
| "..."
|
| You played yourself.
| alexb_ wrote:
| You think I'm playing any side? Of what argument exactly?
| I'm just telling people how the world is working. I don't
| really care what you think of me in particular lmao
| JetAlone wrote:
| I looked through some of your comments and I agree with
| the sentiments expressed in many of them. I had actually
| already +1'd a small handful of them. I do have to wonder
| what you actually believe though since, in your
| pragmatism you have already stated a maxim to sacrifice
| truth/honesty for power. Regardless of which side(s) you
| are actually on, you are _playing yourself_ if you are
| going to live by this model of reality and doubly so if
| you then go on to openly espouse it. In my absolutist
| mentality, it is better to be 100% honest, for the sake
| of the truth, because in it you can prove your
| trustworthiness to somebody and have a real connection at
| least with them, even if the whole rest of the world
| totally sucks. Even if your enemies do cut you down one
| day through grimy means, you still at least lived some of
| your life in truth. That 's a life worth living. A life
| spent consciously engaging in dirty tactics is not.
|
| You have said you don't care what I think, but I have
| little certitude to believe you really mean that, so I
| will say it; I think you are totally lost until you back
| up and reconsider this line of reasoning.
| hans1729 wrote:
| Game theory 101. You want to build a good/better world? Then
| don't be shit. Don't contribute to shit dynamics. Build a
| sustainable culture where people listen to each other. I'll
| never get how this isn't ingrained to reasonable people from
| the get-go
| dataduck wrote:
| It is, but sometimes it's difficult even when you're trying;
| and of course, not everybody is reasonable.
| paradite wrote:
| There might be only one Pareto Optimal solution, but there
| can be many Nash Equilibrium solutions.
|
| Also, humans are not 100% rational agents.
| narag wrote:
| It's not foolish. Aldous Huxley explained why in his _Ends and
| Means_ , more than eighty years ago.
|
| Ends don't justify means. On the contrary, if the only way to
| achieve some end are nefarious means, it's a very strong signal
| that the end itself is not as desirable as it seems.
|
| Most times, people sell their souls only to find later that
| they can't get what they paid for.
| [deleted]
| Zerverus wrote:
| One only needs to look at the spiral leading to both world wars
| to see that there is absolutely a good reason to communicate in
| good faith.
|
| Tragedy of the commons right here.
| dataduck wrote:
| Another lesson from Munich etc. is that it might be a good
| idea to go to violence pre-emptively when it becomes clear
| someone is communicating in bad faith.
| cardanome wrote:
| Neither world war was caused by bad faith communication nor
| could have been resolved by any form of communication. This
| is a hopelessly naive take.
|
| Yes, in times of war the truth and with it good faith
| communication is one of the first things to go. This is a
| symptom, not a cause of war.
|
| The view that every conflict can be solved by good faith
| communication in a for both sides acceptable manner is
| insane.
|
| If one side wants to murder all people with a certain
| intrinsic attribute be it race, sexual orientation or
| whatever and the other side does not want to be murdered,
| there is no compromise to be made. The people of the first
| group will never engage in good faith with the later group
| that they view as subhuman. Any attempt to establish good
| faith communication will only HURT the later group.
| rhaksw wrote:
| To say nothing of communication issues caused by social media
| users themselves, the platforms can have _built-in_
| miscommunication. For example, on reddit your removed comments
| are shown to you as if they are live, as shown here [1]. You can
| try it yourself in r /CantSayAnything [2].
|
| You can be having a conversation with someone that suddenly stops
| because a 3rd party removed the last reply. Often, neither of the
| speakers is aware this happened, making it appear to each as if
| the other ghosted the discussion.
|
| [1] https://i.imgur.com/E3bFvKh.png
|
| [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything
| RyanShook wrote:
| This "feature" of Reddit has always really bothered me. Who is
| Reddit helping when a user's comment is removed but they're
| tricked into thinking it's still up?
| beebeepka wrote:
| I know this is likely a rhetorical question but since you
| asked: it benefits whoever controls the narrative
| npteljes wrote:
| And it preserves the integrity of the community at a larger
| scale.
| beebeepka wrote:
| How exactly? It's not like the only other option is
| "always assume bad faith".
|
| Since reality is a bit more complex, I think such things
| should be decided on a case by case basis. I've seen
| plenty of both extremes here on HN, and tons of unknowns
| npteljes wrote:
| By being an effective moderation tool. I like
| shadowbanning more than a simple ban, because I think it
| works better by not giving the bad actor an instant
| response. They can't use the feedback for further bad
| action, creating a sense of confusion, or being ignored.
| And then if we suppose that it works well, then with
| other useful tools in the moderators' bag of tricks, they
| can do a good job keeping a community's discussion above
| a certain level, thereby benefiting the community at a
| larger scale. I'm sure that if used in bad faith, it can
| be used to control a narrative, but in this regard it
| doesn't do a better job than other moderation tools, like
| editing a comment or banning users.
| bittercynic wrote:
| If the user could tell they were banned they might be quicker
| to create a new account and continue the behavior they were
| banned for.
|
| I get the practicality of it, but still think it's a pretty
| nasty thing to do. Even to a troll.
| XorNot wrote:
| HN has shadow ban functionality:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26940481
| rhaksw wrote:
| Good question. Research suggests providing removal
| explanations [on posts] results in less work for mods [1].
| And more research into reddit moderation is on the way [2].
|
| The first time silent removals were discussed on reddit was
| apparently in 2007,
|
| > "A better idea is a silent ban. Let him post comments" [3]
| (found via [3.a])
|
| In 2010 reddit's CTO said he supports silent bans [4] after a
| blogger discovered they had been silently banned. And the CEO
| in 2017 said it was necessary [5], then in 2018 said,
|
| > If we knew everything everything we know today about spam,
| enforcement, and transparency, we probably wouldn't build
| shadow-banning. It's use is really limited to spam, and I
| think the downsides (false positives, lack of transparency)
| outweigh the benefits.
|
| > That said, it was useful in the early days when spam was
| more of an arms race, we didn't have moderators or reporting,
| and our content policy was limited to spam. [6]
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/duwdco/should_m
| ode...
|
| [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/tk7xl1/met
| a_c...
|
| [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20070604141333/http://reddit.
| com...
|
| [3.a] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20647592#20650370
|
| [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/bbc58/silent
| ly_...
|
| [5] https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/5q4qmg/ou
| t_w...
|
| [6] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/8k5qh3/i
| f_y...
| npteljes wrote:
| It's a tactic against spammers and trolls. It's believed that
| they are not as likely to continue the behavior as they would
| if they saw the immediate consequence of their actions.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning
| overthemoon wrote:
| With the caveat that I very much believe in civil, good faith
| discourse, I find that in being a formal critique of the
| discourse, it can nevertheless introduce the author's own
| ideological preferences (fine) in a way that appears neutral (not
| fine) or purely formal (very not fine). Here are two examples:
|
| > Calls for good faith communication are understood at best as
| naive requests to calm the outrage and conflict that now runs
| rife in political discourse. Both ends of the political spectrum
| (the far left and the far right) express this view. Both sides
| believe that "the other side" simply can't be trusted and
| therefore cannot be engaged in good faith.
|
| This phenomenon exists, it permeates the spectrum. However, the
| use of the word "far" here sticks in my craw. It implies, without
| outright suggesting, that the center is the reasonable referee,
| rather than existing on a spectrum that has a history. What is
| center today may very well have been "far left" or "far right" 40
| years ago, and its relative distance from other ideologies is
| irrelevant when it comes to objectivity. You have a home base.
| It's not just "Liberalism". No one is a contentless unit of
| democratic formalism.
|
| > Given well-documented advances in the field of information
| warfare, there should be no illusion: today's culture war cannot
| be won by any side. Mutually assured destruction is now the name
| of the wargame.[6] The saturation of bad faith communication
| throughout culture is steadily increasing, like a kind of
| dangerous background radiation emitted from scientifically
| engineered memetic weaponry. Public political discourse is
| quickly becoming a toxic warzone, leaching externalities into
| families, friendships, and identity structures.
|
| "Culture war" is a slur for a particular kind of vitriolic
| discourse, but it is in fact a war over what we consider the
| common good. In other words--politics. This is the meat and
| potatoes of democracy. Liberalism says the state shouldn't have
| an opinion on it. The "common good" is what we all agree it is.
| People will disagree. So then it stands to reason that whoever
| has the most influence (defined as broadly as you'd like) gets to
| decide what the common good is. This war has high stakes.
|
| This also smuggles in the notion that so-called information
| warfare has in fact warped political outcomes, which is far from
| being well-documented. The cause->effect sequence is not
| established. But let's say it is--who are the actors, and why are
| they doing it? Those motivations have political causes. What are
| they? Or is misinformation just metastasized communication,
| chaotic irruptions that happens over a long enough time scale?
|
| Overall, this presents a primarily formal and cultural diagnosis
| of political chaos and fracture as the root cause, couched in
| objective language, when that is itself an ideological position.
| There are other analyses. One might argue that the fractured
| discourse is an effect, not a cause, but it's taken for granted
| that _formal_ misbehavior is the cause of the fractious political
| atmosphere, rather than... well, anything else, I guess.
| Substitute your favorite diagnosis here.
|
| It's fine to have this analysis. It's not fine to pretend it's
| anything but an ideological, non-objective analysis. I get the
| impulse to try to rise above the fray. Politics is ugly, but it's
| ugly because the stakes are so high. Getting lost in the weeds of
| formal objections isn't going to fix anything. There's more going
| on than just procedural fuck ups.
|
| Just my take. I might be imbuing this article with the sins of
| similar pieces it doesn't commit (although I don't think so), but
| I think this tendency is common enough that it's worth bringing
| up. It happens fairly often on HN. Nerds love rules. I'm no
| exception.
| LichenStone wrote:
| I agree that this article perhaps veers a little too far into
| the kind of 'objective' territory that you mention, it's
| something I see and dislike often in similar pieces, though to
| be fair I think it's probably quite hard to avoid while
| remaining personally relatable to many people.
|
| My strategy in general for taking in ideas is to simply pick
| and choose the bits that seem interesting and productive, and
| internally reinterpret those parts to remove the author's
| biases and excessions that don't seem relevant.
|
| This tends to cause issues when I share things like this
| article though, people often seem to prefer to interpret the
| tone of the piece as a whole, and that overall or initial
| reading colours their view of the individual ideas that were
| espoused, making it harder for me and them to have a productive
| discussion about it.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > Bad faith communication has become normalized.
|
| Like it or not, believe it or not, this is true of all actors.
| (In the USA) it's not just Team Red, or Team Blue. Both have
| become masters of the slight of information hand (i.e.,
| propaganda).
|
| If you choose to go binary and take sides then at least try to
| avoid hyprocricy and hold your side to the same standards you
| hold the other.
|
| At the moment, bad faith comms and hyprocricy go hand in hand.
| thedudeabides5 wrote:
| The end game of bad faith communication is that noise begins to
| dominate the channel.
|
| Humans, reacting to this degradation in signal rely less and less
| on channels that are dominated by noise.
|
| This opens up opportunities for technology to build new channels,
| which accumulate users, engagement and momentum by supporting
| good faith communication (truth).
|
| Thus the cycle continues.
| throwaway15908 wrote:
| Good communication does not speak of truth.
| goatlover wrote:
| > by supporting good faith communication (truth)
|
| You can have good faith communication over something like the
| Fermi Paradox or SETI, but the truth is unknown. With a lot of
| complex social and political realities, the truth is also
| unknown. Some facts are known, but how they fit whatever grand
| narrative is in dispute. And with technology, often the dispute
| centers around preference or what's popular, where for example,
| which programming language is better doesn't really have a
| truth value in the general sense.
| kilburn wrote:
| The truth in this case is that there's no programming
| language that is better in all regards. There are programming
| languages that are better at certain things, or that provide
| certain benefits that are more important for some tasks.
|
| Turning the conversation away from "X language is better" to
| "X works best than Y to accomplish Z", trying to gauge by how
| much (e.g.: will it pay of for you to learn X if you only
| have to do Z once in your lifetime?), etc.. is what I'm
| understanding "good faith" communication to entail in such
| situations.
| braingenious wrote:
| I like the part where the author mentions having heard "you can't
| argue with Nazis!" and then just sort of wanders off into
| theoreticals about being polite or whatever.
|
| I was really confused about what the author's actual experience
| was like until I realized that this was published by some sort of
| think tank. This whole article is basically a big bongrippy, chin
| stroking hand-wave about the importance of Decorum.
|
| Props to whoever got paid money to write this silly piece.
| Whoever is funding this stuff clearly has too much money to
| interface with reality and it's a good thing that they're
| (hopefully) being fleeced to the max by writers that are happy to
| churn out drivel
| legalcorrection wrote:
| There is no room for a truce. To oversimplify it, liberal
| democracy was basically a 200 year armistice between liberals and
| conservatives. Now, both sides see the imminent prospect of
| either final defeat or final victory. The only thing that matters
| is winning. On this, both sides are right.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| The liberal-conservative dichotomy is a modern invention that
| only came about sometime during the 60's. There have been
| various parties and coalitions within parties throughout
| American history.
| tempestn wrote:
| I'm not sure about that. Polarization in the United States
| has certainly ebbed and flowed over time, but if you study
| history, there has been a rough liberal-conservative
| dichotomy in nearly every society I can think of, going back
| at least hundreds of years. There's a great podcast actually,
| Revolutions, by Mike Duncan - it devotes a season to each of
| several famous historical revolutions. Currently it's in the
| last season, on the Russian revolution, which is particularly
| interesting in the present day, as it plants the seeds for
| modern Russia. But given that these revolutions span
| centuries, it's really striking how many commonalities they
| have, and the echoes you can hear in modern discourse.
|
| For example, liberals are generally agitating for greater
| democratic freedoms, or in non-democratic societies, at least
| freedom from oppression. Conservatives are, as the name
| suggests, generally dissatisfied with the pace of change, and
| in favor of maintaining current power structures. Also,
| revolutions are generally presaged by exactly the kind of
| breakdowns in communication described here. Increased
| polarization, unwillingness to give the 'other side' any kind
| of a political win, even if it's beneficial for everyone,
| etc.
|
| So yeah, while I could see that digital communication might
| have been a catalyst for our current situation, for the most
| part this all looks very familiar. And as the article
| describes, the likely result doesn't look good.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| There's also reactionaries who want to run the clock back -
| traditionally these would take the form of loyalists after
| a monarchy was already deposed, like the Bonapartists in
| France.
| legalcorrection wrote:
| The battle isn't always being fought in interparty electoral
| competition. The left-wing project to replace all traditional
| hierarchy with radical egalitarianism has been in motion in
| Western society since at least the French Revolution, with
| some elements appearing in the American Revolution and
| Protestant Reformation. The right-wing project to preserve
| the traditional order has been around for longer, at least
| since the merchant classes threatened the power of the old
| aristocracy. This conflict has been sometimes dominated and
| drowned out by more particular, parochial, and pressing
| disagreements. The US, and to a lesser extent, England,
| through liberal democracy were able to contain the jacobin
| forces much more than societies on the continent were. But a
| 100 year streak of leftist victories has basically put them
| on the cusp of completely eradicating the old order. Even
| today, a conservative's mindset has little in common with the
| thoughts of a monarchist from the late 18th century. Those
| ways of thinking have been eradicated by political force.
| Some have tried to revive it, but it is just a faint echo,
| like trying to recreate a song from a critic's review of it.
| goatlover wrote:
| What does winning mean for either side? The other side doesn't
| just cease to exist. Nor do the people in the middle our
| outside the dichotomy. Does it mean autocracy? And how will the
| prevent revolution? How does it prevent an ongoing, unwinnable
| civil war which fizzes out to another armistice after everyone
| is sick of not winning?
| legalcorrection wrote:
| Opposition to homosexuality and racial integration did not
| disappear in America, but they substantially waned. Even the
| minority of people that privately hold opposite sentiments,
| they will not express them publicly for fear not just of
| public condemnation and private sanction but also legal
| liability.
|
| Consider that in 2008, a majority of the country opposed gay
| marriage, but in 2022, a majority support _and_ it is
| considered completely unacceptable to advocate for a return
| to the old order. That 's what victory looks like. Consider
| too that in 1990, a majority of the country was still against
| interracial marriage. Today, those same people would probably
| deny they ever felt that way, maybe even convincing
| themselves of that lie. That's what winning looks like.
|
| Today, a biological male can win women's sports competitions
| and a five year old can be recognized as transsexual. A
| robust majority of the country opposes it, but everyone
| outside of Republican electoral politics[1] is scared to put
| their face to any opposition to it. This is starting to look
| like final victory.
|
| [1] And even then, many Republican governors have vetoed
| bills that would ban this.
| tempestn wrote:
| FWIW, I agree that 4-5 year old transgender kids are
| something that strike most people as absurd. That is,
| unless they know some transgender people and talk to them
| about their experiences. I have a couple of close friends
| who are trans, and know several others (including a good
| friend of my son's in elementary school). _All_ of them
| describing knowing their true gender with just as much
| certainty as you or I know ours from about age 4. Obviously
| that 's just a second-hand anecdote, but it's enough for me
| to be confident that it is extremely common for trans
| people to experience strong gender dysphoria from
| essentially as soon as they become aware of the concept of
| their own gender.
|
| There is also research that shows suicide rates for
| transgender people are far higher than the general
| population--except for those who receive acceptance for
| their gender identity from childhood, in which case the
| difference is drastically reduced. And that's not hard for
| me to believe. Try imagining yourself in that position.
| You're a young boy, but for some reason you're in a girl's
| body. You know that's not right, but no one believes you,
| and instead they pressure you to act the part of someone
| you're not, and imply (or outright state) that there's
| something wrong with you for feeling otherwise. That's got
| to be a tough life. Contrast that with the same initial
| condition: you're a boy in a girl's body. But instead your
| parents and other people you trust understand and tell you
| that's OK and there are lots of other people experiencing
| the same thing, and if you're confident you want to live as
| a boy (or vice-versa the whole thing, obviously) then of
| course you can do that and they'll help. Sounds a hell of a
| lot better to me.
| tome wrote:
| > All of them describing knowing their true gender with
| just as much certainty as you or I know ours from about
| age 4
|
| Did you? I don't recall "knowing" my truer gender from
| age 4. That's something that I took years to grow into,
| and didn't become a question at the fore of my mind until
| teenage years.
| tempestn wrote:
| I meant as much as we know ours now, not at age 4. I
| don't recall what or whether I thought about gender at
| all at that age. But I don't remember ever really
| thinking about my gender except in the context of
| conversations around gender topics like this one.
| Presumably for cisgender folks there's not normally any
| motivation to do so, any more than you'd spend time
| specifically thinking about other aspects of your person.
| But I can see how one would be much more likely to think
| about it if the gender they experience doesn't match
| their physical body and how others perceive them. And
| I've spoken to enough people with very similar
| experiences that I have no reason to doubt them.
|
| And I guess that's what I don't understand about those
| who find transgender kids implausible. From what I can
| tell, the vast majority of transgender people will tell
| you they became aware of it in early childhood. Why would
| they lie? I can't come up with a speculation that doesn't
| sound like an absurd straw man.
| tome wrote:
| Ah, so are you saying
|
| * "We" had a weak sense of our true gender at age 4
|
| * "We" have a strong sense of our true gender now
|
| * Transgender people had a strong sense of their true
| gender at age 4
|
| > From what I can tell, the vast majority of transgender
| people will tell you they became aware of it in early
| childhood. Why would they lie? I can't come up with a
| speculation that doesn't sound like an absurd straw man.
|
| I think it would strengthen your argument if _everyone_
| who had a strong sense of being transgender at age 4
| maintained that sense into adulthood. I don 't know how
| one would find that out though.
| tempestn wrote:
| Ah, is that the main point of disagreement? People are
| thinking back to their own experience of gender at that
| age, and then expecting it to be the same for trans kids.
| I think, as I mentioned, a logical explanation for that
| is that cis people don't have any reason to think about
| it. Or at least didn't when we were kids. I've asked my
| kids, and they're both confident in their gender at a
| young age.
| tome wrote:
| I wasn't trying to disagree, just trying to understand
| what you meant.
| tempestn wrote:
| Ah, gotcha. I bet there's something to that though. It
| seems natural that having a very strong sense of gender
| at age 4 would appear ridiculous to most people given
| that it doesn't fit with their own experience. I do
| expect over time mainstream opinion on this will shift
| much as it has for homosexuality. Likewise there I think
| it was initially difficult for straight people to relate,
| because it just didn't fit with their own experience at
| all--sexual attraction is something for people of the
| opposite sex; if you think you're attracted to people of
| the same sex, that doesn't make sense, so something must
| have happened to you. Over time, more and more gay people
| were out, more people came to realize that they knew gay
| people, and those people truly did experience what they
| said they experienced, and mainstream belief shifted.
|
| Per the original comment here though, I hope it doesn't
| happen by one 'side' winning and beating the other into
| submission, but rather through that process of
| understanding.
| legalcorrection wrote:
| I really appreciate the substantive comment. I disagree,
| but I don't think it's worth arguing about here. My point
| really doesn't have anything to do with the merits or
| demerits of young childhood gender transitions. Fact is,
| it's a position held by a minority, but the majority is
| powerless to do anything about it because they are
| absolutely terrified of the left's political power.
| They're afraid to even say something about it. Certain
| political groups are getting close to completely
| transcending the liberal democratic truce.
| tempestn wrote:
| And I appreciate that, especially in the broader context
| of the article we're commenting on! I agree with your
| broader point that there are topics in our society where
| one might be ostracized for expressing or even exploring
| a view outside a certain consensus, even if it might be
| one held by many people. And obviously that does make
| good faith communication difficult. Of course some might
| say that certain views are so vile they shouldn't be
| given any consideration. Something like expressing overt
| racial slurs for instance. And I can see the argument
| that it's beneficial for society to shun those who
| express such things. But it can certainly be taken too
| far, and often is. And the effect is even more pronounced
| I think within a political coalition than across the
| spectrum, because there's even more pressure to conform
| to the consensus view.
|
| I realize the gender transition thing was beside your
| main point; you just seemed like a reasonable person with
| a differing view who might be open to my perspective
| there. I wouldn't expect you to change your mind based on
| an anecdote from a random stranger, but I hope you'll
| keep it in mind. FWIW I'm more sympathetic to your other
| example: trans athletes are a difficult issue IMO. In
| general I wouldn't want transgender people to be deprived
| of any of the rights anyone else of the same gender would
| have. I think bathroom bans are ridiculous and cruel for
| instance. But in the context of sport, there is also a
| legitimate concern regarding fairness for other athletes.
| I honestly don't know what the best outcome is there, but
| I do think it's something reasonable people should be
| able to discuss without being vilified.
| jseban wrote:
| I think the issue is trying to have individualism, and team work
| at the same time.
|
| Good performance is team effort, bad performance is 100%
| individual. Seems to create incentives similar to an ultimatum
| game. If you work together you get nothing, the only strategy
| that will serve your own interest, is to step on other people.
| rectang wrote:
| > _many still assert that it is actually unethical to engage "the
| other side" in good faith._
|
| Not everybody on "the other side" is communicating in bad faith,
| _but some are_. (Same with "your own side".) When someone is
| communicating in bad faith, I don't think it's "unethical" to
| engage them in good faith, I think it's _foolhardy_.
|
| Don't feed the trolls. For dog's sake don't assume you can change
| the trolls.
|
| One of the HN guidelines is "assume good faith". But many
| arguments presented here are made in bad faith. There are certain
| topics which in my view, cannot be intelligently discussed on HN
| because you are not allowed to assume bad faith.
|
| What's missing from this article is how to protect yourself from
| bad faith actors.
|
| (I've deliberately written this so that it could apply to "either
| side". Take that as an attempt to engage in good faith.)
| bricemo wrote:
| I think this is the hard part. How do you engage in good faith
| when everyone else seems to be engaging in bad faith tactics?
| How can you be open to changing your mind when no one else is
| open to changing theirs? Seems like you immediately lose every
| time.
|
| I believe strongly in these good faith tactics, and I use them
| to engage with people I vehemently disagree with. Because of
| this I have a deeper understanding of them than many of my
| peers on the other side. But understanding doesn't help the
| situation. The overall conversation continues to deteriorate
| year after year.
|
| I think this page is a great definition of what is happening,
| but a poor prescription of what to do about it.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Besides really not liking the good/bad faith categorization
| as I described in another comment, another thing I think this
| article misses is the personal benefit of communicating more
| openly with someone else. I feel much more relaxed and proud
| when I open up and tell someone what I'm feeling and why I
| think I believe what I do than when I insult them for their
| beliefs. It may not "win" the argument and it may not even
| get them to open up, but it gets me to open up and I have
| seen so many benefits to that, even if the other person
| doesn't "play" with me.
|
| > I think this page is a great definition of what is
| happening, but a poor prescription of what to do about it.
|
| I strongly strongly agree. Notice how even in this, I'm not
| saying "you are 100% right", I'm still open to changing my
| perspective, and yes maybe partially it's because I find that
| even comments like this land better with the recipient when I
| express my perspective rather than assert a global truth, but
| mostly I feel much better saying it this way.
|
| Anyway, I could talk about this stuff for days, it's what I
| do for work, teaching myself and others how to communicate to
| better resolve such conflict. Doesn't meant I'm "right" just
| means I spend a lotttt of time thinking about this stuff.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| > Anyway, I could talk about this stuff for days, it's what
| I do for work, teaching myself and others how to
| communicate to better resolve such conflict.
|
| How do you approach conflict resulting from bad faith
| interaction? How do you deescalate such conflict?
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I find one of the most effective ways has been for me to
| try to feel closer to them first. I think a lot of
| conflict leads into attacks, such as blame, guilt
| tripping, rejection, etc, and so I practice replying to
| such attacks in a way where I might feel closer to them
| after than when I started. To get back on the same team,
| per say. It doesn't mean they will, but I've found that
| if at least think they're on my team, then I'm more
| likely to engage with them openly and they may come
| around to do the same.
|
| I practice three main steps: 1) tell the truth about how
| I'm actually feeling 2) tell them how I imagine they
| might be feeling, and 3) say one thing to connect with
| love. If I do the first two steps well, then the third
| comes more easily.
|
| There are other tactics, such as separating behavior from
| person: "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at what you said,
| and I'm telling you because I care about you." Or really
| expressing uncertainty: "I don't know what to do anymore"
| (as long as I genuinely don't know what to do)
|
| I'd say overall the goal is for me to feel closer to
| them, for me to resolve my conflict with them, and then
| maybe they'll resolve their side as well, but not
| required.
|
| Does that make sense?
| robocat wrote:
| Nitpick: "per say" -> "per se"
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/per_se Not sure if
| autoincorrect but it is a common mistake.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Oh it definitely was intentional and I'm grateful you
| pointed this out. I had no idea I had been using it
| wrong, probably most of my life. Thank you :-)
|
| In looking more at the definition, I don't even know if
| it makes sense in that sentence even if I did spell it
| right lol.
| apatters wrote:
| You just don't engage with them, or engage selectively. If
| someone wants to engage in bad faith, you politely end the
| discussion, and introduce distance into the relationship.
| You're not required to provide any explanation or attempt at
| rehabilitation, but I find that most people aren't operating in
| bad faith 100% of the time -- they have trigger topics which
| are emotionally charged and will put them into that mode. So
| you can first avoid those topics, and if they keep bringing
| those topics up, eventually you avoid them.
|
| None of this is a silver bullet fix for the overall problem
| threatening society, but I doubt there is one, the only
| solution is for enough people to figure this out and start
| insisting on a better form of discourse in their own sphere of
| influence.
|
| The pollution of the public square in recent years has prompted
| me to put more energy into actively managing my personal
| network, where I can maintain standards. Participating in
| social media is like fishing in a polluted river. You might
| find a good fish, reel them in, and transfer them to your pond.
| But usually you won't, and overall the ROI of this stuff is
| pretty low. (In places where it has declined the most, like
| Facebook, the platform's user engagement is declining too.)
| mint2 wrote:
| When someone posts completely wrong interpretations of events,
| a world view totally opposite reality and incompatible with the
| one you experience it's really hard to think someone can
| actually be posting in good faith. And it's not a case of blue
| dress gold dress sense type perception difference.
|
| Yet there's a good chunk of people posting incompatible
| realities, do you ever think that maybe it's not them living in
| a mistaken reality but yours that are wrong. How does one test
| ones own views to be certain?
|
| Do they ever wonder the same thing? If they aren't posting in
| bad faith then surely they must wonder the same about you or I.
| How does one verify and test ones reality.
|
| ( you, I and they are all used in the general sense)
| rectang wrote:
| Most often when I perceive people on "my own side" as
| engaging in bad faith I sense they've made an "ends justify
| the means" calculation. I sense that they feel like they are
| deploying sketchy arguments in service of a greater truth.
|
| I assume that it's the same for "the other side".
|
| There are others who are truly at odds with reality (in fact
| that's more common), but they don't have the same vibe.
| ummwhat wrote:
| Your going to hate my answer because it makes the problem
| worse.
|
| For about two weeks I was convinced my new roommate was a
| hallucination and I'd finally snapped. There were a number of
| uncanny cases where he knew the same incredibly obscure
| trivia and references that I knew. Things like "trap remixes
| of musicians that sold their soul". That's too specific to
| write off as just similar interests by men in a similar
| demographic. There were also a number of uncanny instances of
| not knowing the same exact things I didn't know. I had never
| seen him outside of the apartment. We had no mutual friends.
| We were both in the same unusual living arrangement,
| permanent temporaries at an Airbnb partially bartering code /
| home automation work as barter for rent. At some point the
| topic of eye color came up, and someone pointed out how all
| of us in the room have green eyes, and how that is the least
| common eye color and 3 of us is very statistically unlikely.
| Eventually I had to ask myself which is more probable, there
| really are two people with all these characteristics in
| common that ended up at the same place by coincidence, or I'm
| having a schizophrenic break and this is my delusion? My
| possibly imaginary friend had mentioned that he lived in
| Russia through the first grade and speaks Russian at a first
| grade level. I do not speak Russian. So I ask him to teach me
| some Russian grammar. He agrees but then changes the topic. I
| ask him to teach me some Russian. He says sure but avoids the
| question again. I ask him to teach me a bit of Russian. He
| agrees and evades again. At this point I am having some very
| serious doubts about my grip on reality.
|
| Eventually we do meet other people from each other's circles.
| After a while there's been enough mutual third parties
| acknowledging both of us, that either a very large cast of
| characters are my delusion or this man is real. I can never
| actually prove one way or the other, but the scales are now
| tipped towards real by all the people standing on them.
|
| And so we get to the answer to your question. "Reality is
| shared consensus." There's a shared consensus that my
| roommate was real, and that consensus may as well be reality
| because I can't distinguish it from the case where everyone
| has the same delusion.
|
| Of course reality isn't the shared consensus per se. Reality
| is not subject to a referendum. However, shared consensus is
| the multimeter we use to read reality. Where is the
| difference between a 9 volt battery and "if I touch the
| proved to the terminal it reads 9 volts"? There isn't one.
|
| In your example, my definition of "reality is shared
| consensus" becomes a big problem. If there are two groups
| with their own consensus then those are two realities. You
| are free to believe anything and everything is true right up
| to the point of fatally erroneous belief. For things where
| the consequences of being wrong are not so sure, there is
| nothing forcing a consensus around "objective reality".
|
| Niels Bohr allegedly had a horse shoe in his office. When
| asked he said it was for good luck. One audacious visitor
| asked "do you really believe that?" He replies "no, but they
| say it works even if you don't believe in it." This was
| cheeky of Bohr. Plenty of people don't believe in quantum
| mechanics, but they say it works anyway. If someone truly
| insists on believing magic horse shoe theory and rejecting
| quantum mechanics, there is nothing that will force them to
| acquiesce to our objectively correct answer.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> How does one verify and test ones reality._
|
| The short answer is, you can't. At least not about anything
| that you can't test for yourself by personal experience.
|
| The longer answer is to ask why you _care_ about whatever
| particular aspect of "reality" you are thinking about
| testing. What difference would it make to what you choose to
| do, if reality were one way rather than another? If the
| answer is that it would make _no_ difference, then the
| correct thing to do is to _not care_ how reality is in that
| respect. Have no opinion at all. (There 's an old engineer's
| joke about running tests. Before you run a test, ask yourself
| two questions: What will I do if the test passes? What will I
| do if the test fails? If both answers are the same, don't
| bother doing the test.)
|
| The problem is that our minds did not evolve to be
| comfortable with having no opinion about something. Our minds
| evolved to seek answers, not to leave questions hanging. That
| probably made sense in the hunter-gatherer environment in
| which we originally evolved, but it doesn't make sense in our
| world now. There are simply too many questions, too much
| information, and too little time for anyone to check it all,
| and there are no "trusted" sources of information we can turn
| to to just tell us the answers. But it's very difficult to
| accept having unanswered questions; our minds keep sending us
| alarm signals even though we might have convinced ourselves
| intellectually that we _should_ leave those questions
| unanswered. So many people end up accepting _some_ answer
| even if it 's wrong, and even if the answer makes no
| difference to anything they actually do.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> What 's missing from this article is how to protect yourself
| from bad faith actors._
|
| I think that's because, at the level of society at large,
| nobody knows how to do that. That's the unsolved problem the
| article is describing.
|
| At an individual level, you protect yourself from bad faith
| actors by refusing to interact with them once you become
| convinced that they're bad faith actors. But at the level of
| society, many of the bad faith actors are in positions where
| their actions have large scale consequences that will affect
| you whether you like it or not. So the individual solution
| doesn't work for that case.
| johnfn wrote:
| I think the key thing here is that the question is not about
| changing a single person who acts in bad faith. Indeed that may
| be impossible. How you act may not have any affect on the
| specific person you're engaging with, but it will have a
| (likely very small) affect on the community as a whole. Engage
| in good faith towards all and others may slowly start to act
| similarly. Engaged in bad faith and you may encourage others in
| the community to act the same way.
|
| Another important thing: you may identify 98% of bad faith
| actors correctly, but that's still 2% of people acting in good
| faith that you'll polarize against your cause.
| [deleted]
| vlunkr wrote:
| "Don't feed the trolls" was an important rule in old message
| boards that seems to have been lost in modern social media.
| krapp wrote:
| The problem with "Don't feed the trolls" is that no matter
| what you do, the trolls never stop eating.
|
| The assumption that trolls are only motivated by a desire for
| attention and that, if ignored, they will simply go away like
| frustrated children in massively naive. Trolls are networked
| and sponsored by states now. They're _weaponized._ They 'll
| find your address and harass your family. They'll complain
| about you to your employer. They'll send SWAT teams to your
| door. And they know that the internet is designed in such a
| way that as long as they keep spreading their nonsense
| they'll win by default. A lie can travel around the world
| twice before the truth laces up its boots, as whomever said.
|
| That rule was fine when the internet was nothing but nerds
| LARPing on USENET and there were no stakes to anything but
| personal ego, but it isn't enough anymore. The internet is
| real life now.
| vlunkr wrote:
| That's a very small minority of trolls. Most of them are
| just regular immature and uninformed people who have been
| taught by the internet to interact in bad faith.
| sicromoft wrote:
| So true. I assume it's because modern social media is
| monetized so much more, so the incentive is to encourage any
| and all engagement, including troll feeding.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >Decades of culture war have degraded civic discourse,
|
| The culture wars or the neoliberalism stuff is over. It's
| surprising how many still believe this is happening. Culture wars
| ended 2009-2014 or so.
|
| >Bad faith communication has become normalized.
|
| Before social media we had newspapers and when tv news came along
| they were extremely regulated. Bad faith was the standard. The
| newspapers publish lie after lie and they got away with it for
| decades if not centuries.
|
| >When open communication cannot be used to resolve conflict and
| coordinate behavior, societies are driven towards chaos, war,
| oppression, and authoritarianism.
|
| Everyone knows this, it is diplomacy/talking that ends wars. The
| entities like Twitter who are censoring communication under false
| pretense knows they are breaking this rule. They also understand
| their objective and how this is their intention.
|
| >There should be no illusion: today's culture war cannot be won
| by any side.
|
| The author needs the realization is that the culture war is over.
| They need to analyze and discover who was the victor.
|
| Let me show the battles:
|
| Climate Change: would you say we are doing much of anything for
| climate change? Even fake efforts like carbon taxes that dont do
| anything?
|
| Gamergate: would you say mandolorian boob armor was a problem?
|
| BLM: Fundamentally police brutality and racism is a problem but
| did BLM achieve anything? Are there any defunding police? Did the
| democrats pass anything?
|
| Comicsgate: Did red skull jordan peterson really work out?
|
| LGBT: Dave Chapelle put an end to that one single handed. LGBT
| can rejoice.
|
| UBI/MMT: Just tried it in limited fashion. Nobody seriously
| bringing this up anymore.
|
| White fragility: Yep, white people are all racists. We totally
| need to teach that to our children.
|
| There's 1 side who won basically all of those in the end. When
| you lose battle after battle during the culture war. You
| eventually lose.
|
| What happened is in their failure they became a religion. There
| are now heresies and the heretics must burn. You must pay penance
| for your sinning.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_church_burnings
|
| None of those church fires ever got investigated by police.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/International/horrible-attack-catholi...
|
| I have never seen the government arrest so many religious leaders
| in my life. Our law in canada explicitly makes it illegal for
| police to arrest clergyman.
|
| "arrest of officiating clergyman" is a crime that police are
| subject to, yet you can watch video on youtube of police breaking
| this law.
|
| None of this is surprising. It's a new religion, new religions
| normally look to destroy their competitor religion.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Edit: for those downvoting, I'm ok with you disagreeing or even
| feeling annoyed or angry with what I said. I sincerely also wish
| you would comment below so that I better understand what led to
| you downvoting. Currently I'm not sure what I did to lead to that
| and I'd like to know so that I might prevent it in the future.
|
| Ooo, I feel really frustrated by the labeling of them as good or
| bad faith communication. In their box explaining good faith
| communication, they say that all those behaviors can be faked if
| someone is engaging in bad faith communication, so it leaves me
| wondering how does one actually know whether another or oneself
| is using good faith communication? I think this harkens back to
| the discussion on here the other day about always assume good
| intentions. After reading this article, I almost left it feeling
| more hopeless, as if it were saying most people communicate with
| bad intention (bad faith) and by using good and bad as labels,
| further ingrains the concept of binary good/evil, falling
| somewhat into a "bad faith" aspect of black/white polarizing
| categorization.
|
| However, I feel grateful that they started this conversation and
| overall address the challenge that we have in communicating to
| resolve conflict. I personally believe they could simplify their
| good/bad faith classification by focusing more on how open people
| are communicating about what they're feeling and thinking and how
| open people are to hearing/imagining how others are feeling and
| thinking. I think underlying much of their distinction between
| good/bad faith is an element of more open or more closed, and
| that such language, especially with the more qualifier included,
| may not carry such connotations of good/bad.
|
| I feel very confident that one of the largest challenges we face
| as a society is how to communicate more openly with each other--
| to say how we feel and think--when anything we say can be shared
| around the world, recorded, aggregated, etc.
|
| Even after writing this, the idea of "good faith" vs "bad faith"
| communication really irks me lol. I believe most of us
| communicate out of how we are feeling based on the things that
| have happened and are happening in our lives and we are trying
| our best. In that way, I assume even the people acting in "bad
| faith" are acting out of "good faith" and perhaps that's the main
| issue I have with this. I have found assuming people to have good
| faith even if they and others assume they have bad faith, can
| drastically improve how I feel in conversations, relationships,
| and resolving conflict.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> how does one actually know whether another or oneself is
| using good faith communication?_
|
| By what goal is to be achieved. That's how the article defines
| the two categories. In a nutshell, good faith communication has
| the goal of mutual understanding, whether it leads to
| "agreement" or to the other person doing what you want or not.
| Bad faith communication has the goal of getting the other
| person to do what you want, by hook or by crook.
|
| _> After reading this article, I almost left it feeling more
| hopeless, as if it were saying most people communicate with bad
| intention (bad faith)_
|
| I don't think that's true, nor do I think it was the intent of
| the article. I think most people try to communicate with good
| faith. But in the world now, with instant mass communication,
| the small minority of people who do communicate in bad faith
| can often dominate the communication process. I think one way
| of looking at the question the article is asking is how that
| can be fixed.
|
| _> I assume even the people acting in "bad faith" are acting
| out of "good faith"_
|
| As above, it's a matter of the goal the person is trying to
| achieve, not whether or not the person is sincere in their
| goal. I think most people who communicate in bad faith are
| perfectly sincere. They may even believe that they are doing
| something good by getting other people to do things those other
| people would not choose to do if they were communicated with in
| good faith.
|
| I do think, though, that the choice of "good faith" and "bad
| faith" labels does have a reasonable basis: communicating with
| people to get them to do what you want by hook or by crook, not
| by convincing them through reasoned argument but just by
| manipulating them in whatever way works, is not a good thing to
| do. Even if you think you're doing it to achieve a good goal,
| human history shows that we humans don't work that way: we
| can't be trusted to use bad means to achieve good ends.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| > In a nutshell, good faith communication has the goal of
| mutual understanding, whether it leads to "agreement" or to
| the other person doing what you want or not. Bad faith
| communication has the goal of getting the other person to do
| what you want, by hook or by crook.
|
| But who defines what the goal is? I guess I'm confused as if
| this is more about a self-reflection question: "Am I trying
| to come to mutual understanding with this person or trick
| them into doing what I want?" Or is it about asking this of
| others: "Are they trying to come to a mutual understanding or
| trick me into getting what they want?" I think in conflict,
| very very often we can assume we have good intentions and the
| other has bad intentions. I'd argue that's one of the most
| commom things I see in conflict: "I'm trying my best and they
| don't care about me, they only care about themselves," said
| by both sides.
|
| > I don't think that's true, nor do I think it was the intent
| of the article. I think most people try to communicate with
| good faith.
|
| I hear you and appreciate that. I may have got wrapped up in
| the frustration I was feeling towards the categorization and
| exaggerated how much they were assuming that, so thank you
| for providing your perspective.
|
| > But in the world now, with instant mass communication, the
| small minority of people who do communicate in bad faith can
| often dominate the communication process. I think one way of
| looking at the question the article is asking is how that can
| be fixed.
|
| Ah, I guess what I took from the article was less that they
| were asking a question and more they were giving an answer.
| Maybe I misread the amount of certainty they had in
| presenting of the solution or maybe I disagreed with the
| certainty they had in describing what was the specific
| problem.
|
| As for how to resolve such things, I've often wondered if the
| solution is for many of us to communicate more openly and
| loudly. I remember watching a news report on a pharmaceutical
| sales guy who I think sold painkillers and it seemed to me
| that he was so focused on making a ton of money because he
| was quite emotionally numb or lonely. I think so many of us
| don't open up emotionally to others and start thinking others
| are out to get us and don't care about us so we preemptively
| try to get them and not care about them, further distancing
| and closing ourselves off from them and even ourselves.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> who defines what the goal is?_
|
| The person doing the communication. So if that's you, you
| ask yourself the self-reflection question. If it's the
| other person, you have to try to figure out what their goal
| is in communicating with you: are they trying to achieve
| mutual understanding, or are they trying to get you to do
| what they want by hook or by crook?
|
| Of course any actual conversation is two-way, so you need
| to ask both questions.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Ah ok, I think one of the hardest things I've worked on
| is trying to defend/believe in my own good intentions. I
| had an ex who somewhat insinuated I was manipulating her
| and it almost broke me, because I started to believe it.
| The next day, I reflected and came to the belief (not
| answer) that if I can't defend my own good intentions,
| who the heck would? And have been working on this since,
| 7 or so years ago.
|
| I guess I just think it's a really hard problem to
| definitively know whether I or someone else has such
| intentions and goals, so I often default to assuming that
| even if their or my behavior appears to be trying to
| manipulate, that underneath there may be something
| wanting mutual understanding, or actually, connection. I
| have seen so many conflicts resolve in my life when I
| have the courage to go deep enough to foster that
| connection. I got covid a few weeks ago and this woman
| called me weak and a baby and other things...then I found
| out a week later that she was struggling very hard with
| her relationship and broke up with her long-term
| boyfriend. So the name calling, which hurt and angered me
| in the moment, later revealed itself as stemming from
| deep pain she was feeling and maybe even the same
| language she was using towards herself as she struggled
| to make the decision.
|
| So I just don't know how easy it is to figure out these
| intentions.
| pdonis wrote:
| I've generally found that if someone accuses you of
| manipulating them, they're projecting. (By which I mean
| "projecting" in the sense in which psychologists use the
| term: the person senses the presence of a quality they
| don't like, but they don't want to admit to themselves
| that it's coming from them, so they project it onto
| someone else. In this case, your ex correctly sensed the
| presence of manipulativeness because _she_ was actually
| the one being manipulative, but she didn 't want to admit
| to herself that the manipulativeness she sensed was
| coming from her, so she projected it onto you.) So in the
| case of your ex, I would say she was engaging in bad
| faith communication (though possibly without consciously
| being aware she was doing so).
|
| In the case of the woman you describe, I don't think she
| falls into either category we've been discussing. She was
| just expressing her own pain. I don't think every single
| human interaction has to fall within one of the two
| categories we've been discussing ("good faith
| communication" or "bad faith communication".)
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Oh I agree with the projecting and I appreciate how you
| described it there, helped clarify it more for me.
|
| > So in the case of your ex, I would say she was engaging
| in bad faith communication (though possibly without
| consciously being aware she was doing so).
|
| I think it's mostly the label of "bad faith" that
| frustrates me. I don't like the communication techniques
| that she used, but I still question how it could be "bad
| faith" if she doesn't believe she's acting in bad faith.
| It's almost as if she believed I was communicating in bad
| faith. So bad faith communication is assuming the other
| is communicating in bad faith? I don't mean to run in
| circles, I really just don't think labeling communication
| as bad faith will help me resolve most conflicts.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I think it 's mostly the label of "bad faith" that
| frustrates me._
|
| You can re-label it if you don't like the label. To me,
| if a person is trying to manipulate you, the label "bad
| faith" is not unjustified. But if that label doesn't work
| for you, pick another one.
|
| _> I still question how it could be "bad faith" if she
| doesn't believe she's acting in bad faith._
|
| Because people's intentions and beliefs are not the same
| as their actions and the actual impact of those actions
| on others. It _should_ be the case that if we have good
| intentions, we take good actions and our actions have
| good impact on others. But unfortunately it isn 't always
| the case.
|
| (Note also that I only said your ex "possibly" didn't
| realize that she was being manipulative. It's also quite
| possible that she did.)
| jimkleiber wrote:
| > _You can re-label it if you don 't like the label. To
| me, if a person is trying to manipulate you, the label
| "bad faith" is not unjustified. But if that label doesn't
| work for you, pick another one._
|
| Yes, I agree if the person is trying to manipulate you
| then it'd make sense to label their intentions as bad
| faith. I guess I choose to believe that people have good
| intentions even underneath their bad intentions because I
| feel more at ease and less afraid that way.
|
| > _Because people 's intentions and beliefs are not the
| same as their actions and the actual impact of those
| actions on others. It should be the case that if we have
| good intentions, we take good actions and our actions
| have good impact on others. But unfortunately it isn't
| always the case._
|
| I agree with you that good intentions, or as I'd say,
| intending to help someone, doesn't always equate to good
| results, or doesn't mean the person won't feel harmed. I
| think I get stuck on "bad faith" because from how I
| understand the phrase, and how the American Heritage
| Dictionary defines it[0], is "the malicious intention to
| be dishonest or to violate the law, as in negotiations
| over a contract." In other words, having bad intentions.
|
| However, as I see the long article on Wikipedia, I'm just
| realizing that many fields seem to define it differently,
| from insurance law to Zen Buddhism, to feminism and
| negotiation theory[1].
|
| EDIT: This has me reflecting on why I'm engaging in this
| thread. Am I trying to convince you and others that
| labeling "bad faith" will likely be more harmful and less
| effective in resolving conflict? If so, am I engaging in
| "bad faith" communication because I'm trying to convince
| you of my perspective and not fully understand your
| perspective? I think I feel very confident in resolving
| conflict and yet often slip back into such a mindset of
| trying to "teach" people things, instead of just letting
| them do what they want to do. In a way, this can be what
| trips me up the most: I believe I have found ways to
| communicate that can really help people in conflict, but
| instead of using those skills with people, I can default
| into teaching them those skills, even when they don't
| necessarily want to be taught. With that in mind, I find
| that some of these conversations on conflict resolution
| technique frustrate me because it seems that we, the ones
| who talk about them, often feel very confident in our
| approaches and may try to convince the others to do it
| the way that seems to work for us, even if the others
| don't want to learn.
|
| This thread has helped me realize how I want to get much
| more intentional about explicitly asking people if they
| want to learn how I approach conversations and conflict,
| and creating environments where that consent is more
| clear to everyone, and in the other spaces doing the
| skills rather than talking about them.
|
| Was this "bad faith" communication on my part? I think my
| intention is good in wanting to help people feel more
| confident in communicating in conflict and resolving it.
| But perhaps the effect matters more and I still feel lost
| on the approach they take in their article and maybe
| that's OK. I keep trying to remind myself: more loving,
| less saving. I think I have a tendency to jump in and
| "save" people when they don't necessarily want to be
| saved.
|
| Anyways, I'm grateful that you went back and forth with
| me on this and I feel excited to much more express how
| I'm feeling and how I approach things and explicitly say
| how it's OK if other people want to do it different ways.
|
| [0]: http://www.wordnik.com/words/bad%20faith
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Am I trying to convince you and others that labeling
| "bad faith" will likely be more harmful and less
| effective in resolving conflict?_
|
| Possibly, but trying to convince other people by making
| reasoned arguments is good faith communication, not bad
| faith communication.
|
| _> If so, am I engaging in "bad faith" communication
| because I'm trying to convince you of my perspective and
| not fully understand your perspective?_
|
| Good faith communication doesn't require you to "fully
| understand" the other person's perspective. Nor does it
| preclude trying to convince the other person of your
| perspective. See above.
| slackfan wrote:
| An article on bad faith communication, hilariously, displaying
| some bad faith communication traits.
|
| Its almost like communication is a complex subject and boiling it
| down to a binary good/bad state is an utterly reductionist way of
| thinking.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| In my opinion, the main issues with bad faith versus good faith
| communication is that the later is only used within what speakers
| consider their tribe.
|
| Tribalism (and thus trust) is the deeper issue, and is
| unfortunately deeply rooted in human nature.
|
| I think that the problems arising with tribalism can be seen as a
| drawback to diversity.
| Nowado wrote:
| Article doesn't move us forward even an inch.
|
| If the solution was providing people with a list of bad faith
| tactics we would have been done with it at least twice by now:
| first when Socrates was arguing with Sophists 2500 years ago and
| another time when Schopenhauer wrote Eristic
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right. And before
| you think 'maybe someone doesn't know yet': yes, you are correct.
| Someone doesn't know. We tried telling everyone before and just
| trying harder doesn't seem to cut it.
|
| What, I'd argue, would be at least a tiny step forward would be
| thinking in terms of games people play, rewards they seek and
| maybe even monetization of systems. Thinking of people who argue
| in 'bad faith' as being mostly plain wrong is naive and somewhat
| offensive. Talk to your PR department every now and then, some of
| them are smart and know what they're doing. Same for Twitter
| discourse and all else.
|
| Telling people (or yourself) to make better communities ignores
| costs involved in managing that community. Can you afford
| onboarding of even telling people that cute list of bad faith
| tactics? Can you do it faster than a place that doesn't do it?
| Can you achieve retention higher than love bombarding
| communities?
|
| No. No, you can't.
|
| Not with current tooling at least. Not to push own
| products/services (today!), here are some angles that seem
| achievably hard, yet somewhat underdeveloped: good faith
| arguments are more time expensive - it can be cut into
| pieces/redesigned to give them more chance; both wrong and
| correct ways of thinking about specific problems are actually
| very limited in numbers - maintaining searchable database of them
| to reuse should dramatically speed up 'getting through'; false
| positives in ostracism are unnoticed - layered moderation that
| provides feedback on initial misjudgment can noticeably improve
| the space: not so much retention (that numbers would be small),
| but limit echo chamber by avoiding rituals of cancellation -
| without increasing costs as much as having 'full conversation'
| with everyone before banning would.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| > What, I'd argue, would be at least a tiny step forward would
| be thinking in terms of games people play, rewards they seek
|
| Definitely. One thing that I think is unappreciated is the
| extent to which we see "preference falsification". This is a
| game people play where they pretend to have different
| preferences to better fit in with their in-group.
|
| It's common for preference falsification to be manufactured
| intentionally - I think Robin Hanson formalized it with the
| idea of a "meta-norm", a norm that not says: you must ostracize
| people who do <bad thing x> AND you must ostracize people who
| don't follow this rule. I think when people complain about
| "cancel culture", this is the real thing they're unhappy about,
| they just lack the vocabulary to articulate it. The sneaky
| thing about the meta-norm is that it's self-reinforcing. Once
| enough people follow the meta-norm, following the meta-norm
| becomes a stable equilibrium where no individual person gains
| from not following it.
|
| From Scott Alexander:
|
| > Imagine a country with two rules: first, every person must
| spend eight hours a day giving themselves strong electric
| shocks. Second, if anyone fails to follow a rule (including
| this one), or speaks out against it, or fails to enforce it,
| all citizens must unite to kill that person. Suppose these
| rules were well-enough established by tradition that everyone
| expected them to be enforced.
|
| > So you shock yourself for eight hours a day, because you know
| if you don't everyone else will kill you, because if they
| don't, everyone else will kill them, and so on. Every single
| citizen hates the system, but for lack of a good coordination
| mechanism it endures.
|
| The subtlety of this is that you might genuinely believe that
| everyone supports the electric shocks, because you'll never
| hear anyone speaking out against it, even though everyone hates
| it.
|
| I think this dynamic is so powerful that it's almost innate. I
| remember once when a friend of a friend cheated on her
| boyfriend regularly. I obviously thought negatively of the
| cheater and didn't want to be around her, but I also thought
| negatively of my friend for continuing to be around the
| cheater. The instinct is that punishing cheaters by social
| ostracism is socially useful, so we should also punish people
| who fail to ostracize cheaters by ostracising _them_ , and so
| on. This can be good like in the case of punishing cheaters,
| but the problem is that it could work for any social norm even
| if 100% of people disagreed with it.
|
| I think this is a real and powerful social dynamic that leads
| to a huge amount of people having no choice but to act in bad
| faith. If this is a real social dynamic, how can it be
| neutralized? One approach I think is promising is to use local
| opinion polls, only structured as opinion _elections_. If
| everyone could vote anonymously, I 'm sure they would say "I'm
| not such a fan of these electric shocks" (and the anonymity
| protects them from the fear of socially-enforced retaliation).
| Once it becomes common knowledge that almost nobody around you
| likes the electric shocks, it's much easier to coordinate
| "let's stop punishing people for not shocking themselves".
| Electric shocks are just an example, you could use this for any
| hot-button political issue. For example, in the US's antebellum
| South I'm sure there was immense social pressure to be pro-
| slavery, but opinion elections might have helped pro-abolition
| people understand if they were even in the minority (and if so,
| by how much).
|
| This is just one mechanism I think might be workable, but I'm
| sure if we sat down and thought about it we could come up with
| many others, like reputation systems for those who make
| accurate predictions for the future, debates where people have
| an incentive to call-out their counterparty's selective
| reporting of the facts, etc.
| jetbooster wrote:
| And this is muddled even further by effective propoganda.
|
| Say a research article came out, claiming the health benefits
| of the electric shocks, or even some vague "think of the
| children" style "children become violent and dangerous when
| not shocked". It is parroted by all the news organisations
| you'd expect.
|
| Even if any casual scrutiny debunks the article, I believe a
| worryingly high percentage of the population would believe
| it, because they _want_ to believe it, because it means they
| don't have to worry about the shocks. They've justified the
| shocks to themselves, so they become less painful. Accepting
| that they are useless or cruel after this would require them
| to accept that they were doing something harmful for no
| reason, and people are generally very resistant to being told
| they were wrong, especially if they have any stake in the
| status quo.
|
| So now you have people who _genuinely_ believe in the shocks,
| even though they got there through being deceived. Then all
| it takes is a bit of villifying of those who even suggest
| that there might be another way (They want to hurt our
| children) and the system becomes self-sustaining.
| flanket wrote:
| I'm not making a value judgement, but I thought that the
| parallels with your last suggestion, and the 'blind cancel'
| idea in this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30906621
| were kind of interesting. I don't know what that means, I'm
| mostly just free associating
| pmoriarty wrote:
| What's the difference between "bad faith communication" and just
| plain old trolling?
| airforce1 wrote:
| Trolling is absolutely a form of bad faith communication.
| However, you needn't look far on twitter to find that trolls
| are pretty high hanging fruit compared to ideological flamewars
| perpetuated by non-trolls fighting to score points for their
| respective ideological teams.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Upon further reflection, I realize that there are many "true
| believers" of one sort or another who aren't trolling but
| whose minds are completely closed and aren't looking for good
| faith dialogue but to proselytize their belief or attack
| those of their opponents.
| JanneVee wrote:
| Because "bad faith communication" is about the talking head on
| the TV sowing doubt in your mind on complex issues. It is oil
| company shills telling you that climate change is not man made
| and it is Malthusian environmental activist that it is
| impossible to get safe and carbonfree energy from nuclear.
| Neither of these are communicating with you in good faith
| because they have an agenda.
| Terr_ wrote:
| "Plain old trolling" in the traditional sense (e.g. back with
| newsgroups) is seeking to provoke an emotional reaction, but
| without regard to the truth of falsity of the statement, and
| not necessarily with any grander agenda.
|
| It was only later that it came to be (mis?)applied toward
| organized disinformation campaigns.
| l0b0 wrote:
| Trolling often involves bad faith communication, but bad faith
| communication isn't necessarily trolling. Consider politicians,
| salespeople, and advertisers who are willing to convince by any
| means possible.
| asxd wrote:
| I thoroughly enjoyed this article, it was a bit of a breath of
| fresh air.
|
| Some quotes that resonated:
|
| > _There should be no illusion: today's culture war cannot be won
| by any side._
|
| > _Good faith communication is both a complex skill and a value
| commitment that shapes personal identity. In other words: doing
| it is sufficiently difficult that getting good at it will change
| the kind of person that you are._
|
| > _Delicately transforming a situation of escalating bad faith
| requires the slow establishment of previously unrecognized shared
| interests, often on issues as basic as self-preservation. The
| goal in most cases is not agreement--that would be naive--the
| goal is simply to preserve the possibility of communication
| itself._
|
| Also learned the term "steelmanning," which seems to be pretty
| much identical to the hacker news guideline:
|
| > _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of
| what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize.
| Assume good faith._
|
| This essay also does a good job of explaining the concept:
| https://mypeculiarblog.com/2021/11/07/what-is-steelmanning/
| vintermann wrote:
| > Both ends of the political spectrum (the far left and the far
| right) express this view.
|
| I'd strike this phrase, because it's far from clear what the "far
| left" is. Is it wealthy Silicon Valley liberals with radical
| ideas about gender? Or is it for instance the trotskyist World
| Socialist Web Site, which buy Russian false flag conspiracy
| claims but are free speech absolutists? And "far right", are we
| talking about Ayn Rand fans, neo-traditionalist catholic
| populists like JD Vance etc, or neonazi militias?
|
| Last of all, is the political center necessarily more honest or
| devoted to good faith public debate? Not that I can see. Their
| strategies can be different, since they can get away with just
| never acknowledging disagreement, which makes little sense for
| small fringes, but there's nothing inherently honest or good-
| willed about centrism.
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