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The endgames of bad faith communication

consilienceproject.org

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Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#161

Post by barrysteve »

alexb_ wrote: post #149

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…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#162

Post by Cthulhu_ »

number6 wrote: post #105
Nowado wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So the only wining move is not to play?

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#163

Post by lethologica »

ben_w wrote: post #140
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

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#164

Post by hans1729 »

alexb_ wrote: post #149

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…

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

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#165

Post by alexb_ »

barrysteve wrote: post #161
alexb_ wrote: post #149

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…

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.

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#166

Post by fxtentacle »

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…

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 ;)

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#167

Post by cycomanic »

colordrops wrote: post #97
cycomanic wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

> 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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#168

Post by dataduck »

hans1729 wrote: post #164
alexb_ wrote: post #149

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…

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

It is, but sometimes it's difficult even when you're trying; and of course, not everybody is reasonable.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#169

Post by dataduck »

Zerverus wrote: post #152
alexb_ wrote: post #149

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…

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.

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#170

Post by Cthulhu_ »

ben_w wrote: post #140
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

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.

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