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The endgames of bad faith communication

consilienceproject.org

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Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#281

Post by Thiez »

newbamboo wrote: post #271
LichenStone wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“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 su…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#282

Post by banannaise »

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…

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#283

Post by mistermann »

XorNot wrote: post #107
switchbak wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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, rat…

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".

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#284

Post by Forgeties79 »

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…

>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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#285

Post by hedora »

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 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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#286

Post by mistermann »

watwut wrote: post #209
gkaly wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

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…

> 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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#287

Post by jungturk »

csharpminor wrote: post #127
q-base wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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).

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#288

Post by jimkleiber »

robocat wrote: post #148
jimkleiber wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Nitpick: “per say” -> “per se” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/per_se Not sure if autoincorrect but it is a common mistake.

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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#289

Post by hedora »

Beltalowda wrote: post #274
Vinnl wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

"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.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#290

Post by stephc_int13 »

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.

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