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The endgames of bad faith communication

consilienceproject.org

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Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#131

Post by senguidev »

q-base wrote: post #116
senguidev wrote: post #111

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 co…

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.

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" (Frédéric 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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#132

Post by JanneVee »

pmoriarty wrote: post #3

What's the difference between "bad faith communication" and just plain old trolling?

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#133

Post by colordrops »

watwut wrote: post #123
colordrops wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#134

Post by rad88 »

dylan604 wrote: post #94
rad88 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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 benefi…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#135

Post by krainboltgreene »

LambdaTrain wrote: post #124
dalbasal wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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.

Correct, public debate is theater.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#136

Post by senguidev »

Nowado wrote: post #128
senguidev wrote: post #111

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 co…

> 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.…

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

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#137

Post by npteljes »

RyanShook wrote: post #72
rhaksw wrote: post #16

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 speake…

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?

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

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#138

Post by Slighted »

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".

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#140

Post by ben_w »

lucidbee wrote: post #85

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 problemati…

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

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