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The endgames of bad faith communication

consilienceproject.org

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Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#301

Post by senguidev »

banannaise wrote: post #282
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.

That sounds right, I can relate to the curation effect. Whether it's another factor promoting success or against it remains to be explored

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#302

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

shkkmo wrote: post #266
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's totally normal and expected for biological research labs to have biological samples with which to do research. What is being described is beyond that, with thinly veiled suggestions of covert maliciousness sprinkled in.

> What is being described is beyond that Instead of describing it, why not provide a quote with a citation to its context?

I'm not doing either at the moment. Why do you ask?

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#303

Post by deadpannini »

rootusrootus wrote: post #296
deadpannini wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Speakers gain credibility and respect by [...] Do you mean only at the local level, individually? Because it sure isn't hard to find extremely popular speakers with a great deal of influence that run counter to most of those points. It is hard not to conclude that the only thing that scales well in social media is to correctly deduce what most people want to hear, and then say it. People don't care about deception,…

No, I mean at any level.

I agree with the what you're saying, but I'm not talking about things that make people popular, I'm talking about argumentation and what makes someone persuasive. I'm talking about the relatively rare circumstances that can create opportunities to repudiate biases instead of confirm them.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#304

Post by TimPC »

Steelmanning is a bad idea that needs to go away. It’s pretty condescending to say “your argument was bad I fixed it for you”. It’s also confusing when someone tries to improve an argument before responding to it. Lastly, steelmanning done poorly changes an argument into something that’s easier to respond to without necessarily improving it. It might be a good concept for academic debates in ivory towers. In general, it’s confusing and wildly impractical.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#305

Post by brimble »

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…

I'll do this sometimes in web forums. There are certain points of view expressed certain ways where I already have a pretty good idea of exactly what the poster's opinions are, how they'll defend them, and how they'll respond to any questions, and I know my likelihood of getting them to reconsider or maybe even engage on terms I consider reasonable is nearly zero, but I might reply anyway just so lookers-on can get a sense that there are alternatives to that POV (and that, after a couple back-and-forths, that maybe their position isn't as strong as their very-certain tone implies)

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#306

Post by pohl »

This was a great article. A practical question came to mind while reading it: Now that bad-faith communication has become normalized, does it makes sense to keep bringing good-faith communication to a bad-faith communication fight?

Obviously it would be ideal to model the behavior that we'd like to see in the world, but what if this toothpaste can't be put back into the tube? Brandolini's Law suggests that this might be a cultural "innovation" akin to the invention of gunpowder.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#307

Post by senguidev »

seer wrote: post #176
senguidev wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coop…

BTW, not sure how much you've lived in or are in contact with people in authoritarian states, but that strategy (being in good fatih in general) most certainly does not lead to more success, on a personal level. The best strategy there is to suck up to people in authority and derive benefits from that. Since (as the [Rules for rulers]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs ) idea states) authoritarian societies…

I'm immensely lucky to live a comfortable life in a democratic country. So you're right, there is probably a blindspot here. Good faith sounds definitely more fit for a kinder and more open environment.

However, there were no such "kind" environments a few centuries ago. Yet they managed to be bootstraped against their surroundings. So maybe there is clues that we underestimate the strength of "high-skilled good faith" strategies in adversarial situations? But again, I can't really imagine what it's like to live in authoritarian states so my thoughts must not be very relevant here.

I've seen Rules for rulers previously and remember it pretty well as it was quite instructive. It didn't provide enough guiding answers for me to the question "And so, knowing that, how should I behave to live my best possible life ??"

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#308

Post by bena »

colordrops wrote: post #295
bena wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I don't think colordrops/gkaly is defending Greenwald in good faith either.

What did I say that was underhanded or otherwise indicated bad faith? Your direct ad hominem labeling without any context or explanation is the most bad faith thing in this thread.

Cycomanic pointed it out thoroughly enough that I'd only be repeating what they said.

One of your bigger tells however is how you never actually defend your positions. You only attack the others' opinions. You constantly require everyone else to be on the defense while never actually defending your positions yourself.

You're not here to engage in debate, you're here to rant.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#309

Post by kodah »

> Both ends of the political spectrum (the far left and the far right) express this view. Both sides believe that “the other side” simply can’t be trusted and therefore cannot be engaged in good faith. To do so would be to fall into a trap, serving only to validate the dangerous views of groups known to be acting in bad faith.

This is what I'm most tired of. Anytime you try to point this out one of these two groups will respond with, "both sides, both sides" like some edgy teenager sitting at the lunch table looking for a confirmatory laugh from their friends. People love this world that's developed to some degree; that's what the real uphill battle is.

Re: The endgames of bad faith communication

#310

Post by tappio »

Can someone point me to an example of a society where good faith communication has dominated? This article paints a picture that the issue is something new, but I don't know any human society where bad faith communication was not a norm. Differences are mainly related to power structures and who holds the Power to communicate. Besides, this is really a dualist perspective to communication. What if most communication is neither good faith or bad faith, but something in between?
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