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The endgames of bad faith communication

consilienceproject.org

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Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#41

Post by legalcorrection »

goatlover wrote: post #31
legalcorrection wrote: post #17

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.

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?

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#42

Post by vlunkr »

tux1968 wrote: post #15

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…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#43

Post by stackbutterflow »

booboofixer wrote: post #4

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…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#44

Post by pdonis »

mint2 wrote: post #37
rectang wrote: post #19

> 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…

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…

> 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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#45

Post by chillacy »

throwaway15908 wrote: post #35
ianai wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 rhet…

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?"

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#46

Post by vlunkr »

rectang wrote: post #19

> 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…

"Don't feed the trolls" was an important rule in old message boards that seems to have been lost in modern social media.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#47

Post by jimkleiber »

pdonis wrote: post #33
jimkleiber wrote: post #22

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…

> 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,…

> 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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#48

Post by ajross »

tux1968 wrote: post #15

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…

> 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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#49

Post by sacrosancty »

booboofixer wrote: post #4

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…

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".

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#50

Post by chillacy »

for_i_in_range wrote: post #36

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

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.
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