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The endgames of bad faith communication

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Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#241

Post by JoeEasy23 »

LichenStone wrote: post #225
andybak wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the goal is persuasion then good-faith arguments don't scale That phrase helps crystalize the concept very nicely.

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.

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

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#242

Post by anon23anon »

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…

I think the short answer is don't argue w/ an idiot.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#243

Post by ummwhat »

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…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#244

Post by deadpannini »

usernomdeguerre wrote: post #74
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…

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…

> 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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#245

Post by BlargMcLarg »

Jensson wrote: post #238
switchbak wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#246

Post by adamhp »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #158
probably_wrong wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

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 <_<

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#247

Post by mindvirus »

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…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#248

Post by Mezzie »

endominus wrote: post #32
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…

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 st…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#249

Post by dsugarman »

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…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#250

Post by jayspell »

deadpannini wrote: post #244
usernomdeguerre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 point…

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.
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